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Hack 11 Convert Your Digicam to a Digital SLR
Shading the LCD
monitor for easier viewing during replay is one thing, but why not go
all the way and use the monitor as a virtual SLR viewfinder for shooting images too?
Shading your LCD monitor makes viewing the picture in bright sunlight much more enjoyable.
But with a little refinement, you can adapt this technique for taking pictures too, creating a
virtual digital SLR.
One of the major attractions of single lens reflex (SLR) cameras is that you see the picture
through the same lens that records the image. It's WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you
get") photography. In contrast to SLRs, most compact digital cameras provide one lens for
taking the picture and another (often referred to as the optical viewfinder
) for viewing the
image.
One of the problems with optical viewfinders is that they're offset from the picture-taking
lens, so the composition you're looking at isn't the same one the camera is going to record.
This setup is called parallax, and the closer you get to the subject the more pronounced the
effect will be. The other common problem with most digicams' optical viewfinders is that
they're just not very good. You don't get a full view of the subject, and what you do get isn't
that great.
You do have another option: you can look through your digicam's LCD monitor when you take the
picture. This has created a whole new look in photography: the arm's-length shooting
pose. Photographers everywhere are holding their digital cameras out from their body to align
what's on the screen. Not only is this pose awkward at times, it's also not good photographic
technique, because it's harder to steady the camera during exposure at arm's length. Beyond
that, some people have a hard time keeping a straight horizon line when holding an LCD this way.
Something seems to get lost in translation.
When visiting the Hoodman (http://www.hoodmanusa.com ) booth at the Photo Marketing
Association show in Las Vegas, I discovered a great solution to all of these problems.
Hoodman has designed a special monitor hood, called the Digital Camera Hood, that straps
onto just about any model with a 1.8-inch or smaller LCD screen. Figure 1-12 shows the
Digital Camera Hood attached to a Canon Digital Elph S400.
Figure 1-12. Hoodman's Digital Camera Hood
The open end fits around the outside of your LCD monitor, and the other end holds a 2x
magnifying eyepiece. The Digital Camera Hood attaches easily in just a few seconds. When not
in use, it folds up compactly, taking up little space in your camera bag.
To use the Digital Camera Hood, just attach it to the camera, turn on your camera, and view the
picture through its eyepiece. Your simple digicam has just been upgraded to a virtual
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