Digital Photography Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 10 Battle the Sun with an LCD Hood

Your camera's LCD viewing
screen is one of its most exciting featuresexcept, that is,
when you're standing in bright sunlight and
can't see the pictures on it.

If you ask people what they like best about
their digital camera, many will say it's the LCD
viewing screen that provides instant gratification right after you
take the shot. How could you not love it? You can review the image,
analyze its pros and cons, and then either keep it or try
againinstant gratification at its best.

Too often, though, this love affair comes to a screeching halt when
you're working in bright, direct sun. Your once
color-rich LCD fades to a nearly indistinguishable shell of its
former greatness. What happened?

The sun happened. Many LCD monitors hate the sun and
don't fare well in its presence. To combat this
problem, you have two options. You could purchase a state-of-the-art
digital camera, such as the Contax SL300R T* shown in Figure 1-10, that uses a new technology called
DayFine to preserve the
screen's color fidelity regardless of the ambient
light. Contax's parent company, Kyocera, originally
developed this screen for their smart phones, which are constantly
used in these types of lighting conditions.

Figure 1-10. The Contax SL300R T* with DayFine

If you're not in the mood to go out and buy a new
digicam, you have to find a way to shield your existing LCD monitor
from the sun's blinding rays.
Hoodman
(http://www.hoodmanusa.com) has
excelled at providing glare relief for digicam owners. They make a
variety of custom hoods that attach to almost every digital camera
LCD on the market. The nylon hoods are well made and most sell for
US$15 to $20. They fold up and take up hardly any room in your camera
bag.

You might also want to take a look at the offerings from
Screen-Shade (http://www.screenshade.com). They offer LCD
shades for digital cameras, camcorders, and laptops. Their camera
shades run between US$20 and $40, depending on size and whether a
glass magnifier is included.

A clever homemade solution for photographers who have
magnifying loupes to view their film
transparencies is to adapt the magnifier to mount on the LCD screen.
Models such as the Peak 2038 4X and the
Horizon 4X, which
have a two-inch viewing base for looking at medium-format film, can
also be used as a nifty LCD viewer, as illustrated in Figure 1-11. You want to make sure you use the opaque base
so that no stray light comes in, and stay away from loupes stronger
than 4x, as that's just too much magnification for
your LCD monitor.

Figure 1-11. Magnifying loupe used as an LCD shade

If you want, you can attach the loupe to the camera by cutting strips
of adhesive-backed Velcro and adhering them the base of the loupe and
the body of the camera. That way, you can easily remove the magnifier
when it isn't needed. Not only does this rig provide
you with sun relief so that you can actually see the picture you just
took, it also makes it easier to inspect the fine details of the
image.

Another trick is to take a plastic slide box, drill a hole in the
bottom about the size of a U.S. quarter, and then use the Velcro
strips to attach the open side of the box to the camera. If possible,
use a black box to block out the light better. The main drawback of
this solution is that it doesn't fold up like
commercially made shades.

No matter which route you take, they're all better
than cupping your hand around the LCD while squinting and trying to
discern the picture you just took.