One of my hobbies is sporting clays shooting (shotgun, clays thrown from every which way in deep woods...). Everybody is naturally either right eyed or left eyed - it's your "dominant eye" and is how your nervous system got wired. Make a triangle in front of your face, arms length, using both of your hands, with some object centered in the triangle. Look with both eyes; then look with just one; then try looking through just the other. The eye that shows the object in the same position as when you have both eyes open is your dominant eye. Often related to which hand is dominant - but since nature is perverse, not always.
Dominant eyes are best for aiming and focusing - faster for both. HOWEVER - when learning to shoot sporting clays, where some targets go left to right angled at over 60MPH, you discover quickly that having BOTH eyes open is the best for tracking and HITTING a target. You put the shotgun on the side of your body with the dominant eye, so it sights along the barrel, but you use BOTH eyes. Good shotgun shooters always use both eyes. And after learning to shoot sporting clays, I thought: maybe this is a good technique for "shooting" other fast moving, unpredictable objects...like my kids...or race cars...
I use the same technique when shooting sports, rapidly moving wildlife, or dangerous street situations. More awareness, more accuracy of framing (you see a frame around an object that you see...the frame is what's in the finder.) I was never very good at panning until I learned this - now I can get fantastic, perfectly still and framed panning shots. Only works with autofocus - I've never been able to focus with both eyes open. Also lets you move your body with camera to face without falling in holes or running into cars.
Some righties have their left eye dominant, and vice versa. Nature's revenge, I guess - they do best shooting with a gun on their dominant side, even though it feels weird initially. (You get used to it...if you don't give up on it.) Bet it's the same way with cameras. Some people have insufficient difference between left and right eyes, and put a diffuser over their non-dominant eye to improve their ability to track motion.
You may want to practice the two eyes for action approach. It took me a half dozen rolls to get it to stop feeling bizarre, but now I shoot that way all the time unless I'm struggling with a really bad lighting manual focus situation, or am thinking really hard about precise framing and light color.
Oh yeah. People do tend to stare at you. Great candid expressions, if you like the jaw-dropped look.
Never really thought about it before, I guess I just used whatever
came naturally to me, but what eye does everyone use in the
viewfinder?
Ron Reznick's photo of his camera hand-hold technique (which works
great by the way, thanks Ron) got me thinking about it.
Opinions on using one vs the other?
I use my right eye by the way ;-)
John
I have seen people use both eyes (not at the same time, of course).
I use left, which is logically. My right eye is shielded from
light by the camera and my right hand, makes it a lot easier to
concentrate on the camera eye. This still apply for vertical
shooting.
I can see why people use the right eye, especially if they use a
rifle.
--
JR
