Eyes Wide Shut

The Black backed Jackal above really doesn’t know about eye dominance. Is he left eye or right eye dominant? Are you right or left eye dominate and should you really care? Have you ever even thought about this while looking through the viewfinder of your camera? How do you look through your camera when taking pictures? Do you keep one eye open and close the other or do you keep both eyes open. So your asking yourself where am I going with this and why? I am going to guess that the majority of you focus or view with one eye shut, and the other open while looking through the viewfinder. It would be safe to say that most wildlife and sport shooters keep both eyes open and there is good reason for doing so. Let’s say for example you are photographing a moving object, or something that is a bit unpredictable like animals in Africa while on tour with CAT. If you are looking with just one eye through the viewfinder, you are limiting your field of vision to what you see in the viewfinder, you might miss some exciting action happening just to the left…or right of what the viewfinder sees, and therefore more likely to miss a great photographic opportunity. Shooting with both eyes open is not easy and most people find it hard to get use to and elect to shut one eye and look through the viewfinder with the other. Why is this important? In order to shoot with both eyes open, you will need to concentrate your efforts on the non-dominant eye. The human brain will completely ignore the image coming from the non-dominant eye when a person is unable to focus both eyes on the subject. 1. Mount a lens that gives you a 1:1 perspective or field of view 2. Focus while looking through the viewfinder of your camera 3. Close one eye and open the other while holding your camera in place 4. Alternate which eye is open, and maintain image composition 5. Attempt to open both eyes and literally see both images If you have a perfect 1:1 perspective between viewfinder and actual subject, you should not have a problem focusing both eyes on the subject even though one eye is looking through the viewfinder. Focusing with both eyes gets more difficult when the perspective is not 1:1. To remedy this takes practice and training, but the payoff is well worth it! Let me know how you look through your view finder…I am curious if you are a one or 2 eye shooter.