The Dominant Eye

The other day I was taking some photos with my DSLR camera and realized something rather odd yet interesting.

First of all, those of you who are aware, the Nikon D40's LCD screen does not allow you to view the image like you would in some cameras (mainly point and shoots). So as a photographer, you are forced to view through the tiny viewfinder. I'm glad it is that way because to be honest, taking photos based on what you see in the LCD is not always a great practice. I find images do not turn out exactly how you view it in the LCD (sometimes they will turn out blurry or out of focus).

Anyway, I will talk more about that in another post but going back to the point...while taking some photos I noticed that I use my left eye to view through the viewfinder. So I did some research and found out that there actually is something called "Ocular dominance" (or eye dominance). Being a right hand dominant, I took the "Mile's test", a test used to determine your dominant eye. It was interesting to know that I am actually a 'leftie' (crossed dominance) when it comes to taking photos or taking a shot at getting the paper ball in the bin perhaps!

See which one of your eyes is dominant, here's a visual example showing you how to take the test.

On a side note, while reading up on this stuff I realized that the dominant eye and hand in most people are usually the same e.g. right hand, right eye dominance. I know I have tried using the camera with my right eye but it just seems so awkward. Not only that, viewing through the viewfinder with your right eye means only half of your forehead is rested against the camera (which introduces camera shake i.e blurry pictures in my opinion). Using my left eye allows me to rest my forehead against the camera to steady it and produce better photos.

So, whether you have a DSLR or point and shoot camera, skip the LCD viewing business next time and try taking the photo through the camera's viewfinder and notice the difference in your images.