Chimping the Shot Times Three. Barcelona, Catalunya, 2014
“Chimping”, from Wikipedia: “Chimping is a colloquial term used in digital photography to describe the habit of checking every photo on the camera display (LCD) immediately after capture.”
Yep, that’s it. And I do admit to it…BUT…
All I am really doing are just two teeny weeny, but important, things:
1) I am checking the basic composition in the LCD, and…
2) I am checking the RGB histogram to see if it is where I want it–very often, but not always, ensuring that there are no blown highlights or blocked shadows. (This check often results in shooting another frame after adjusting the exposure compensation a tad.)
Some things I don’t do whilst chimping:
–Check the color rendition on the LCD.
–Check the exposure visually using just the LCD image.
–Peruse the photos so far taken to see if I have any good ones.
–Thumb through the photos to delete the bad ones.
On the first two points above, the LCD can be notoriously inaccurate. This can happen because of the ambient lighting (very bright or dark), or it can be because the image in the LCD is merely a jpeg rendition based on your in-camera settings–thus already “post-processed” in some way.
On the last two points above, I wait until I can see all of the images on a big screen, at home.
So, I think it’s OK to do some slight chimping…but don’t take it to the extreme–they just might stick you in a cage!
Caged Chimp. Mendoza, Argentina, 2008
Leave a reply