Wearing glasses for me is a relatively recent phenomenon (yep, getting old). Now that I have a DSLR and I want to use the viewfinder rather than the LCD display as much as possible, I’m confused as to whether to keep my glasses on or take them off when composing the image. I find myself doing both, sometimes with and sometimes without, and I’m convinced it’s affecting the quality of my shots (even though it might not be). My camera has a diopter adjustment and as I understand the user guide, it shouldn’t really matter if I take the picture with my glasses or not (especially if I’m using the auto-focus feature). I’ve searched the Web for tips and have found mixed messages. So I’m wondering, if you wear glasses or contacts, what do you do? Thanks.
I try to use the view finder as much as possible. I have it tune to my glasses so I can’t jump back and forth. I wear bifocals, which makes it hard sometimes. I often shoot very low to the ground; sometimes I need one finger on my glasses to get them in position. I use a tripod as much as possible, and retake the shot many times with minor changes in focus. I will also use auto focus for some shots especially when the light is low. It is very disappointing to bring up that great shot and have it less than sharp. My motto is when in doubt, take a few more shots.
Hi Gary. Thanks for sharing your information…it’s very helpful and practical. I like your motto, “when in doubt, take a few more shots.” I think I prefer to use my glasses while shooting but am not quite comfortable with it yet. Thanks again for commenting. I truly enjoy the beautiful photos that you share on your blog!
i’m not 100% sure but i think canon still sell dioptre eye pieces which are a prescription matched lens for the viewfinder. possibly more expense than is worth the gains. or you could tune the dioptre adjustment for your preferred shooting eye without glasses and use some electrical tape to stop it moving. your eyes most probably have different prescriptions.
Thanks, Mark. My eyes are definitely different! I’m going to keep working on it.
Fred, I have long struggled with manual focus while wearing my bifocal contact lenses (which I do 95% of the time). I have also played with “the wheel” on the view finder (I shoot with a Canon 60D) on many occasions, and will admit to having many a disgruntled, one-sided conversations with that adjustment. Gary’s advice is well received – make many focus adjustments on the many shots taken during manual focus.
Tim, thanks for commenting and sharing your experience. I like how you described your “one-sided conversations” with the view finder wheel! And thanks for mentioning Gary’s advice, which I’m trying to follow. Thanks!
I wear glasses (progressive trifocals) – blind as a bat without them. I set the diopter adjustment on the camera to zero for using the viewfinder. For careful adjustment of focus when working on a tripod, I use my camera’s live view function, zoom in, and check focus in different parts of the image with the DOF preview button on. Sometimes I just use the viewfinder, with or without DOF preview.
Thank you for your comment, Tom. Your approach is helpful and I appreciate your sharing it with me.
Hi, I shoot with my glasses 100% of the time and I have three progressive prescriptions (no hard boundaries). I too struggled with the diopter adjustment for a long time until someone mentioned that to focus it you focus on the lit up information inside the eyepiece – shutter speed and so on. That fixed it for me and makes diopter adjustments a lot easier and quicker.
I also rely very heavily on autofocus – frequently setting the focus that way and then turning it to manual focus while I check other settings (this is usually tripod behaviour).
But, I use a lot of old manual lenses, and for those I have adapters with focus confirm chips which I also use quite a lot, though focus confirm is not great above about f5.6 so I may have to focus and then set the aperture. For intricate subjects, macro and most other tripod shots I use liveview to focus – on my camera. I can get a 10X magnification anywhere on screen which is wonderful, and sometimes I use that for hand held shots too, if the focus is not too close/narrow.
It took me many months to become comfortable to focussing this way, but it is a huge improvement over a problem that haunted me with my old manual SLRs (Spotmatics) that had a pretty lousy focussing screen for someone with glasses (I have worn them all my life). I always yearned for a Nikon-style split screen for focussing, though I do not any more.
Thanks for the great comment! I appreciate it and am pondering the points you made. I seem to have gotten better at understanding my focusing challenges since I posted the question but it’s still a work in progress for me. Thanks again for commenting!