Holding technique I've never seen before!

tijoseph

So I have owned a mobile DJ business for 10 years, and have done primarily weddings for 9 of them. I have been transitioning to photography and did my last DJ event last night. There was a hired pro photographer there, that I could not help but to notice his crazy style.

I'd say he only looked thru the view finder about 10% of the time. It didn't have live view on it or anything like that. He would just hold the camera at chest level, point in the general direction and click the shutter release. Sometimes it would seem as if his aim was way off. He would take 2 or three, take a peek at the screen and keep on going.

It came off to me as if he didn't really care what he took a picture of. He probably did hundreds of these!

I've never seen anything like this in my life. The only time I take a pic without looking is maybe holding the camera over my head to get a group or entire room dancing etc. This was crazy to me.

Any of you guys never look at what your taking the picture of?

Maybe it's a nikon thing. Do they have some sort of auto aim feature that canon doesn't have?

pathfinder

Some PJ shooters have been doing this for years. AF makes it easier than when shooting film with manual focus, where you would set an aperture, a shutter speed, and the focus for a typical distance say 3-8 feet or so. This allows the shooter to walk about with subjects not so wary as the camera is not at eye level and many of the subjects believe he cannot take pictures this way. Journalists do it too. Usually they are shooting wide angle lenses so that they capture a broad angle of view, and do not always appear t be aiming at their subject. Kind of environmental portraits.

They are not shooting landscapes where precise focus is critical, but maybe only for a newspaper image.

Leica shooters used to do this as well and in a street environment their shutters were silent. SLRs have clunkier, noisier mirror boxes with shutters.

Lots of folks shooting waist level 2 1/4 twin lens reflex cameras have done this as well. Their iris shutters were silent as well. You can do this with some Point and Shoots if you are comfortable with turning off the auto AF as well, and shooting with manual aperture and shutter speed.

Try it sometime. I have a friend who shoot wide lenses - say 12 mm on a D300 like this, and he gets some fantastic images. Some clunkers too, but memory is cheap these days, and clunkers are easy to delete while shooting and chimping.

tijoseph

Wow, what a great description. I just learned something.

Now tell me, what is the deal with the leica cameras? What is special about them?

pathfinder

If you have to ask......:D

They were small, especially to earlier cameras like a Speed Graphic, quiet, could shoot in the "dark" without flash, focused very fast in skilled hands, and great for candid street shooting. Some folks think they still are the best in the street.

ChatKat

I have done this
I am 5'3" and have learned to hold the camera up above my head to shoot images since shooting tall people at chest height isn't flattering. I do that at events and weddings durning dancing and am about 80% on. I will chimp the image to see if I am on the mark and usually have something useable. Also when I have done some travel photography and photography is prohibited, I have learned how to aim the lens and push the shutter from my hip to capture shots. It helps that I shoot with the 50 1.2 and a 5dmk2 at high iso where no flash is needed.

Zimtok

I've taken plenty of shots from the hip. I can also hold the camera up and look another direction and take a photo and sit at a table with the camera on the table and take a photo. It is a great way to get a photo of someone without them going into the "POSE FOR A PHOTO" mode.
A long lens from a distance is not the only option for getting a candid shot.


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Nikolai

Yet another "me too" post...
In my film days when I was shooting wide angle range finder shooting from the hip was my favorite method for candids. With some practice you can get pretty good at it.
Naturally, it doesn't fly with 400mm lens....

whiteagle

I've done this, but never because I didn't have to. I've got a wedding coming up soon and will have to try this out at the reception.

chasgroh

...long ago I started to try to "candid" any and everybody by standing where I had a good composition of the subject, maybe even engaging the person(s) in conversation and maybe even pointing my camera at them too...but then turning and selecting an object to focus on at the same distance as my prey...after only a few seconds I'll turn back and inevitably the subject(s) have changed *their* focus and click, they're on candid camera.

cg

leaforte

The quick 'crop', today, must help shooting from the hip.

Art Scott

I really loved that technique when I was shooting my TLR's......having a conversation (sort of ) and snapping a photo at the same time ............