Why is mirror blackout a problem?

I've never found mirror blackout to be a problem but it could depend on what you shoot. I rarely take people photos and don't use flash at all. Even if I saw someone blink at the moment I tripped the shutter I doubt that I could stop taking the photo so what would it matter anyway?

Bob
 
kipkeston said:
It's not a problem. If it were a problem, the SLR wouldn't be the predominate professional camera.
Click to expand...

And what about the very common pro technique (especially for action or sports) of setting the highest frame rate and holding the shutter down?
It's easy to capture the moment you want when you have the 20 moments to either side.
 
projectbluebird said:
And what about the very common pro technique (especially for action or sports) of setting the highest frame rate and holding the shutter down?
It's easy to capture the moment you want when you have the 20 moments to either side.
Click to expand...
... and that probably has nothing to do with mirror black-out, and everything to do with the desire to get paid. :)
 
Once in a while I do a long hand-held exposure, quarter to one second, and the mirror black-out is pretty dis-orienting. Plus it makes it harder to hold the camera steady imho. Not a big deal.

2777983192_f93049dd88_m.jpg
 
It was one of the things–one too many, in fact–that irritated me about SLRs, so the solution was simple: I largely stopped shooting with them. It wasn't the principal issue, but after moving to RFs I was surprised at how I managed to put up with it for as long as I did.

And, yes, I do catch those blinking eyes a good deal more than I did with SLRs. Not all the time, of course, but the difference is enough to comment on.


- Barrett
 
I think a lot of it comes down to what you are shooting, and how you are shooting it. There are some times and some subjects where the mirror flap is a worthwhile trade-off to make sure that you have the EXACT framing you are looking for. With a rangefinder or a TLR, there is always a slight margin of error between what you see and what the film 'sees.' Granted, for me, and for most of you, i would imagine, this is a pretty rare occurrence. For me, I probably only need that kind of exact precision for about one percent of my shots.
 
I see it the other way around. Without a mirror I sometimes fail to notice I still have the lens cap on my rangefinder's lens :)
 
Gaspar said:
I see it the other way around. Without a mirror I sometimes fail to notice I still have the lens cap on my rangefinder's lens :)
Click to expand...


I ruined way too many shots before I finally got in the habit of never having the lens cap on when the camera is in my hand. Granted, I use a UV filter religiously, so this isn't really too big of a deal, protection wise.
 
Gaspar said:
I see it the other way around. Without a mirror I sometimes fail to notice I still have the lens cap on my rangefinder's lens :)
Click to expand...
I rarely use lens caps on-camera, but when I do, my TTL meters do a good job of reminding me. ;)


- Barrett
 
I find mirror blackout helpful for demarcating the shot in my head.

There is no doubt, however, that on a longer hand-held exposure the constant view of a rangefinder (probably more so than the lack of mirror slap, which on most SLRs really isn't that bad) helps in keeping it steady. Hand-eye coordination, even in those of us for whom it's pretty poor, is by far the best human mechanism for fine motor control in space. Think about it: if you were bracing your arms on something you knew was stationary, that'd be some amount of external feedback. But if you're holding the camera in space, bracing it only with your own body, you have no way of knowing if it's moving and adjusting for it unless you can see through the viewfinder.

Well, you could just as well look past a corner of your camera at a nearby object and observe any movement in the changing perspective, but the viewfinder is a lot easier. :)

Now that I've started using SLRs a little more again, I'm deciding that 1/120th is about the dividing line for me. Below that I prefer rangefinder, above I think I prefer SLR (though that's obviously not the only deciding factor). At a higher shutter speed that brief mirror blackout isn't enough to bother anything, but it's enough to show me clearly when the shot happened and judge whether I got a moving object where I wanted it by interpolating what came just before and after.
 
projectbluebird said:
And what about the very common pro technique (especially for action or sports) of setting the highest frame rate and holding the shutter down?
It's easy to capture the moment you want when you have the 20 moments to either side.
Click to expand...

Even if the DSLR shoots 8 frames per second at 1/30 sec, that leaves 22/30 seconds where nothing is recorded, that means nearly 75% chance the moment is missed. :)
 
digitalintrigue said:
Even if the DSLR shoots 8 frames per second at 1/30 sec, that leaves 22/30 seconds where nothing is recorded, that means nearly 75% chance the moment is missed. :)
Click to expand...

You're talking about fractions of a second that are outside of the range of time it takes for all but the top .00001% of humans to see something and react to it against physical resistance (a shutter release).

No offense, I understand that it's fun to get off into the weeds like this... but it's nonsense. From a physiological/physics standpoint.
 
I agree with Roger on aiming the camera. I can tell when panning or holding still how steady my hands were during the shot with a RF, but not so much with a mirror. It is just like aiming a rifle, if you close your eye for anything longer than a blink you will need to re-aim.

And, at 1/15 exposures, I can definitely better sense the stillness of a scene throughout a shot than I can with an SLR.
 
climbing_vine said:
You're talking about fractions of a second that are outside of the range of time it takes for all but the top .00001% of humans to see something and react to it against physical resistance (a shutter release).

No offense, I understand that it's fun to get off into the weeds like this... but it's nonsense. From a physiological/physics standpoint.
Click to expand...

Ah well if we’re going to let reality spoil the debate then explain why we see it at all? when a movie film stops flickering at around 1/18th due to the human persistence of vision effect why do we see it at all at the faster speeds?

:D
 
kipkeston said:
It's not a problem. If it were a problem, the SLR wouldn't be the predominate professional camera.
Click to expand...

+1

If you give an RF camera to most wedding/event photographers nowadays, they'd just be cranking out super sharp pictures of the back of the lens cap, because they'd forget it was on :p

To me, the advantage of RF over SLR can be summed up in two sentences:

- brighter viewfinder (because lights don't have to go through mirrors/prism)
- slower shutter speed for hand held shots
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom