Ran a little test today

[Byuphoto]

We have a new Huddle House short order grill that opened in town so I thought it my civic duty to check it out.
I put my little Zeiss Ikon Nettar in my coat pocket along with my Norwood Director light meter
After I ordered breakfast and coffee i pulled the meter out and took a reading. The cafe has very open windows and I was using 400 speed Fuji Neopan. I got a reading of 1/60 @ f11. The Nettar is a zone focus so I just set it to hyperfocal.
While I had the old meter out in the very crowded place not one person paid any attention to me.
I took the camera out and set everything and then just sat it on the table pointed where I wanted it and clicked. Not one person looked my way. I then wound it on and turned it in another direction and took another shot. Once again the same result. The witress said it was a cute toy.
Now what do you reckon the reaction would have been if I had pulled a big old honkin SLR out and snapped away?
Has anyone one else tried this? I will soup it Monday when I finish the roll and see what I got

 

[Lemures-Ex]

I took my Zorki to Wal-Mart a few times and no one noticed. There's some interesting social commentary to be had there...

 

[ch1]

I pull out cameras (RF and SLR) everywhere - a few times people glance my way - most oftentimes, they don't.

This paranoia thing is so overblown - have fun, shoot often! 😉

 

[wlewisiii]

I tend to agree with George. When I do get noticed 90% of the time it's another camera geek, 5% of the time I've been a klutz and the remaining 5% is from young kids who want to see the screen on the back of the camera and are flummoxed that it doesn't have one... 😱

Same thing is true of shutter sounds in my experiance - it's really rare that anyone hears it even when I'm using an SLR with that good ol' mirror thunk going on. Certainly I can imagine some circumstances where it would be good to have as quiet a camera as possible; realistically though if that's the case a Leica will still be too loud as well, you'll need a leaf shutter.

Another thing to do is _always_ have a camera with you. Make it so much a part of you that people only notice it when it's not there. Kind of like glasses on someone seriously nearsighted; if it's that much a part of you everytime you go out the door then a) you'll shoot more and b) people will notice you shooting much less.

Just my experiance and so on and worth what you paid for it... 😉

William

 

[NoTx]

I shoot whenever and where ever.. but have had to scadadle a few times as well🙂

 

[SolaresLarrave]

First time I did exactly what you did was in NY... and I held the shutter down in B for awhile. No valuable exposure turned out, though...

Then, in Barcelona, even though I had ISO 400 film in the camera, a metering allowed me to set it in hyperfocal at 1 second, at f8. I set the camera on a table and shot away!

This is what I got. The scan, by the way, is despicable... You'll get better results at f11, I'm sure! 🙂

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

Table top in cafes tends to get a whole lot of table in the foreground unless you place the camera near the far edge.

 

[Byuphoto]

I placed it right on the edge. The main thing I was seeing was how unobstrusive you could be. It is kinda like the old hiding in plain sight. Most did hot even know I was taking a photo. Most people know if you raise it to your eye what you are doing and even now with the new photo technique of holding your digicam out in front you still bring it to eye level. But just looking at it ad then dsetting it down and slowly depressing the shuttrer does not set off signals and everyone acted natural. Most have probably never seen a handheld light meter