The hell with that!  The D2x and D200 have such good displays it encourages
you to chimp.  I say chimping should be an Olympic sport.

Rita

Well, maybe "real" photographers do not check the histogram, but I do,
especially in poor lighting or contrasty situation. And how can you tell
if I review the photo, or check the histogram?

B.

I could care less about histograms, but as long as you're not using the
LCD as a crutch, I see no problem with using it.

I think you protest too much.

The hook in original uses of "chimping" was the "Ooh ooh ooh!" sounds
of early P&S adopters uninhibitedly enjoying and sharing enjoyment of
the magick in instant reinforcement.

Calling what a "real" photographer does "chimping" is less a
derogatory or disparaging reference than a fond adoption of a
convenient tag, for lack of a better term.

If by your rant you hoped to set yourself apart from the "chimping
masses", too late; usage and evolution have done it for you. Relax and
try to catch up.

Well, it's mostly photojournalists and sports photographers who
disparage colleagues for chimping.  If they're looking at the LCD
they're missing shots.

Greg

I don't see anything wrong with the practice and especially combined
with checking the histogram, it can lead to improvement in exposure,
flash direction and power as well as composition.  Since I usually shoot
manual exposure, I'll chimp the first few frames and fine tune the
exposure for a given light and then ignore the LCD for the rest of the
sequence.

In some lighting I used to bracket, esp. slide film.  Now, with digital,
I chimp a few frames and don't bracket (except as the different exposure
might be interesting).

Film die-hards may see it as amateurish, but pre-metering, die-hards
probably thought meters were for wimps too.  And how many pros bracket
slide film in difficult lighting situations?  All of them that sell.

How many pros use auto focus?  A great number of them.  Used to be
considered wimpish, now it's essential for many sports shooters.

In the studio, when using a lot of lights, props, gobos, and so on, it
is indispensible in picking up lighting errors or ways to enhance the
image.  And of course, before committing film in the studio it's much
better than polaroid.

Watch sports shooters and PJs.  They are as chimpish as the most naïve
amateur.

At a luncheon speech by the US Ambassador to Canada in Montreal a couple
months ago, at which I was a guest, there were several photogs from the
various newspapers.  All were chimping away merrily and making
adjustments and shooting again.

Nothing "wrong" with it at all if it improves the end result.  For
amateurs it just helps learn faster, although it does change the thought
process.

Just be happy that you're shooting digital with a wealth of film
exposure experience to back it up.

Cheers,
Alan.

It's because lots and lots of people are idiots.

Consider the 1970s studio advertising photographer.  He and his crew
would build sets, bring in the products, light them, set up the 4x5
(or even larger) view cameras -- and then shoot lots and lots of
Polaroid film to fine-tune the lighting and exposure and set and
framing.  I read of some of them even then shooting crhomes and sending
it to a super-fast pro-lab to get it back in time to check *that*
before striking the set.  

And yet idiots criticize digital photographers for checking the LCD.  

Ignore them.  

In another direction, consider the classic Life magazine
photographers, or National Geographic.  They were expected to send in
well over 10 times the amount of film that was actually printed in the
magazine -- often people sent in more like 50, or 100 times as many
pictures as were used in the magazine.  

And yet idiots criticize digital photographers for shooting too much.  

Ignore them.

And keep careful track of what you're doing.  Are you shooting the
same thing over and over, or are you working systematically to catch a
particular shot, making meaningful variations in hopes of getting it?
Are you relying on luck only as an absolutely last resort, when
you've already controlled everything you *can* control and you still
can't reliably get the picture you want?   Or are you in fact blazing
away at random and just hoping to get lucky?

Because there's a core of truth to the idiot's objections; some
photographers *are*, for whatever reason, behaving stupidly, in the
sense of not doing things the ways most likely to get them the
pictures they want.  

You just can't tell which are which by what kind of equipment they use
or how many pictures they take.

Apologies to anybody who thinks I've called them an idiot; most
especially to people who agree with the above, but have become so
frustrated at seeing people shooting stupidly that their frustration
pushed them into intemperate statements about condemning whole classes
of photographers.

And yet, the LCDs on the back of DSLRs get bigger and bigger, with
higher resolution.  Too bad they are never used by the "pros" on this
group.  Ha ha ha.
-Rich

As the Nobel-prize winning physicist Richard Feynman said, "Why do you care
about what other people think?"

Any tool or action that gives you information that you need or can use that
doesn't hinder your getting the shot is to your advantage. If you are in a
tight situation in which opportunities are lost while you are reviewing your
shots then you need to know enough about your camera and your technique to
be able to forgo reviews, otherwise why the hell not?

Toby

Gotta chimp, man, I'm getting paid to get it right,  so I'm using every tool
I have available to give my clients the best I can give.

I chimp,   but I don't make the monkey noises.    I might shriek,
occasionally.

Patrick