Anybody find hood loupes helpful?

[splproductions]

Does anybody have one of these and find them helpful? I just finished a shoot where I would have loved to have had one. I had nice diffuse light coming through a thin layer of clouds, but I still couldn't really tell how my shots were turning out.

But then again, I could see this being an item that ends up getting in the way and being one extra thing you have kicking around your camera bag.

I'd probably get one of the $80 Hoodman products.

 

[Overread]

I think the various LCD covers are good for if you're using liveview all the time (aka if you were shooting in video mode using one over those designed video viewer hoods). I think then you've had a reason to have one in the bag and to pay money for it, otherwise if its just day to day you can always throw a teatowel over your head to shade out the sun if there is no natural shade (you can do that - just make sure its a black towel and everyone will assume you're shooting film or something ).

I think the little shades you can get which fold out sides and a top are not worth the money - you can get exactly the same shade just putting your hand over the LCD screen.

 

[KmH]

The rear LCD cannot be calibrated, and is really to small and crude to use for judging exposure or color. The rear LCD is used to check composition and framing, and by zooming in to check focus.

The histogram is used for accessing exposure and color. If you're shooting Raw the histogram the camera displays is from a JPEG basic that is embedded in the Raw file specifically for display (image and histogram) on the camera's rear LCD. A Raw image data file is not a photo until it's converted out side of the camera, post process.

The hoodman rear LCD hood is more intended for doing video, but even then it's still used for framing.

 

[Derrel]

A number of years back, I bought a collapsible rubber LCD "chimney hood", without any magnifier in it, for my Nikon D1 and D1h. It snapped into place where the plastic LCD protector cover went, and shielded the somewhat smallish, dim LCD of those two cameras, and made it "Possible" to evaluate shots on the LCD while outdoors in brighter lighting conditions. Now, it was also a PITA too...it kind of interfered with FULL, totally-unimpeded access to the eyepiece of the viewfinder. And also, the LCD's of that time frame were MUCH,MUCH SMALLER than the giant 3 or three and a third inch models we have today. Again, not "quite" the same,exact product, it was a Hoodman brand product though--but at that time the loupe option had not yet been invented. I can see how, though, a shroud or a shroud + magnifying loupe option might be nice to have.

Today, there are some pretty high-quality, well-engineered options, like some of the fine movie-making chimney-style magnifying loupes offered by Zacuto, and others, for using live view feeds off of modern, 920,000k pixel, 3 inch LCD's...

 

[splproductions]

The rear LCD cannot be calibrated, and is really to small and crude to use for judging exposure or color. The rear LCD is used to check composition and framing, and by zooming in to check focus.

The histogram is used for accessing exposure and color.

Yeah... I think I just need to use my histogram more often. I could see my composition fine, I was more interested in how the colors were turning out, and how my exposure was. But as you said, it's probably not the best for judging colors.