Which eye do you use?

<p>A matter of general curiosity... Which eye do you use in the viewfinder? Does it match your dominant hand?</p>

<p>Personally, I am a left eye viewfinder type, but am right-handed in the rest of my life...</p>

<p>I use the right eye, and I am right handed. But, as I am almost totally blind in my left eye, I don't really have a choice.</p>

<p>I'm right-handed and right-footed, but left-eyed</p>

<p>The only downside is that I leave nose smudges on my LCD screen ;-)</p>

<p><Chas><br /><br /></p>

<p>right handed, right eyed. The other day I was in an awkward position and had to look through the viewfinder with my left eye, and I had to switch back to my right eye b/c I felt like my reaction time would be slowed down looking with my left eye and I might miss the shot. Laugh it up, I know what you're thinking, and I'm sure its true.</p>

<p>I'm right handed and right eyed. My father used his left eye with a camera but only because he was blind in his right eye!</p>

Right handed and right eyed, but when I played baseball I was a switch hitter.

<p>There is zero correlation between eye dominance and handedness. Handedness is a physical trait, having to do with the development of hemispherically biased brain areas such as the speech and language centers. About 92% of humans are right handed.</p>

<p>Eye dominance is a mild form of amblyopia, and is determined by random variations in the development of the two eyes (as well as which side you slept on as a child). There are essentially equal numbers of left eye and right eye dominant people.</p>

<p>The nerves from each eye split up, and each brain hemisphere processes half the information from each eye. There is no "proper" eye dominance; if a person grew up with two equally well functioning eyes, they'd fully integrate both sides, and there would be no bias in which eye was used for single eye tasks.</p>

<p>SLRs I use right eye "most" of the time; I tend to use my left eye for critical focus with macro work<br>

Voigtländer Prominent - left eye <em>,</em> even with the Turnit finder<em> </em><br>

<br /><em>=== </em><br>

<em>I agree there's little or no correlation between the eye and the hand. </em> But for argument's sake, I write lefty, paint righty, guitar righty, and have to consciously make an effort not to eat with my left hand in many settings.</p>

 

<p>Although I'm left handed, I learned to use my right eye years ago...because I hated getting my nose all over the rear of the camera body when using my left eye, or poking my eye when advancing film. It's a good thing I made the switch because over the years I have developed a blind spot in my left eye, making it currently unsuitable for focusing a camera.</p>

<p>I'm ambidextrous but right-hand dominant, right eye dominant, shoot guns and cameras right-handed, play guitar right-handed, golf right-handed, but play hockey and shovel dirt and snow left-handed. I fish with either hand, depending on the reel...baitcasting lefty, spinning righty....I'm truly scared to try flyfishing.</p>

<p>Right handed, left eyed.</p>

 

<p>right handed, right eyed. When I photograph baseball games, sometimes I use my left eye in the viewfinder so i can have my right eye open so i can see both the pitchers motion and the batters response.</p>

<p>The center one.</p>

<p>Right handed, and even though my right tested stronger on my last eye exam, I feel more comfortable using my left eye when it comes to holding something and looking through it.</p>

<p>Thanks for that information Joseph. It's interesting to know, and my eye dominance has probably changed since I was in college.</p>

<p><Chas><br /><br /></p>

<p>I'm right-handed but I use my left eye. When I had my eyes tested some time ago, the optician noted that I had greater acuity in my left eye so maybe that's why I use it.</p>

<p>Right handed with a dominant left eye.<br>

I have to keep cleaning the rear LCD.<br>

Let's not even think about photography when suffering with manflu!</p>

I'm another one of those who has no real dominant side. I'm right eye dominant and shoot guns and cameras right handed. I swing a bat and a golf club right handed but throw, eat and write left handed. Except I roll a bowling ball right handed. I'm confused....

 

Rick H.

Right handed, no dominant eye, getting deaf in left ear.

<p>Joseph wrote:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Eye dominance is a mild form of amblyopia, and is determined by random variations in the development of the two eyes (as well as which side you slept on as a child). There are essentially equal numbers of left eye and right eye dominant people.<br />The nerves from each eye split up, and each brain hemisphere processes half the information from each eye. There is no "proper" eye dominance; if a person grew up with two equally well functioning eyes, they'd fully integrate both sides, and there would be no bias in which eye was used for single eye tasks.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You are correct, of course, about how the visual info is processed. Right visual field info from both eyes goes to the right hemisphere, and left visual field info from both eyes goes to the left hemisphere. Therefore, whichever eye you stick behind the viewfinder, you're feeding info equally to both hemispheres of your brain. True.</p>

<p>(Just thinking out loud here...)</p>

<p>There may be some sort of asymmetry, however, in eye control. Eye movements are controlled by many areas, including the frontal eye fields and supplemental eye fields of the frontal cortex. I honestly don't know what lateralization of function there is in those areas, or even whether there is any. Some studies suggest there is.</p>

<p>In any event, handedness, by comparison, is all about motor control, not sensory input. Our more spatially oriented (usually non-language-dominant) hemisphere controls our nondominant (usually left) hand. That hand is used for grasping objects and manipulating them spatially, so that they are well positioned for the work of the dominant hand. The dominant hand is controlled by the more linguistic/logical hemisphere. As the nondominant hand holds an object like a vice would on a workbench, the dominant hand can be used to explore or manipulate the object in some logical or meaningful way. To illustrate this, think about how 90% of you would clean a camera lens. You'd hold the camera in your left hand in a useful orientation, and you'd use your right hand to undertake the more delicate task of brushing or wiping the lens.</p>

<p>I'm just speculating here, but I wonder if the eyes might have slightly different tasks to perform, just like hands. It might be that primary eye movement control (direction of gaze, scanning, etc.) is relegated to a dominant eye that provides primary visual information to the visual cortices of both hemispheres. Then the positioning of the nondominant eye converges with that of the dominant eye for proper stereovision (which yields depth perception). Perhaps the larger movements of the nondominant eye are controlled by the same motor activity that controls the dominant eye, but maybe the fine-tuning of eye alignment is a nondominant eye function. I'm not saying this happens, but rather that it might happen. In fact it would make some sense. If there is any error in alignment, info from the nondominant eye is overridden by that from the dominant eye. Therefore the info that dominates is the info most needed by the motor regions that are dictating where the eyes should be pointed.</p>

<p>There's a bit of a chicken and egg thing going on here too. If we have an eye dominance, how would it be determined? Would the naturally better eye dominate because of its greater acuity? Or perhaps the dominant eye gains better acuity because of its dominant status. (On this point, we can reflect on how amblyopia is treated.)</p>

<p>Anyway, according to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocular_dominance">Wikipedia article on the subject</a>, which cites scholarly references, about 2/3 of the population is right-eye dominant. This definitely isn't random. However, it might not be meaningful. Our right eye is physically easier to use with our right hand in precision tasks such as sighting down a hole to grab some object, aiming a gun, or whatever. Camera manufacturers put shutter release buttons on the righthand side of the camera to be pressed with our right index fingers, and that physically leaves more room for us to sight with our right eye than our left eye. A study of primitive, nonindustrialized populations would be interesting to sort out just how much our eye dominance is influenced by the design of consumer goods.</p>

<p>If the 2/3 right-dominance is indeed meaningful, it might be because right eye orientation is controlled by the dominant left hemisphere, with fine tuning of stereovision done by the non-dominant, more spatially oriented part of the brain that would "care" more about spatial relations in the first place. Interesting.</p>

<p>Anyway, for the purpose of your straw poll:</p>

<p><strong>Here's how you test eye dominance (a variant of the Miles test):</strong> While looking at a distant object with both eyes open, hold out both arms, point both index fingers, bring index fingers together, and point them both towards that distant object. Then slowly bring both fingers back towards your face while keeping them pointed towards that distant object. Your fingers will move towards your dominant eye.</p>

<p>Using this test, I'm right-eye dominant. I'm also right-hand dominant.</p>

<p>Predominately right handed. Both eyes. </p>

<p>My father was a competitive rifle shooter, so it was early that I learned that I am left eye dominant, even though I'm right handed. In shooting, it is recommended to shoot with the dominant eye, and learn to use that hand, so I shoot a rifle left handed.</p>

<p>This translated to using my dominant left eye for photography, however, I had laser vision correction this year and my right eye has slightly better vision (20/15 instead of 20/20 in the left) and I would love to use the sharper eye in the viewfinder, but it just feels so unnatural that I can't do it!</p>

<p>Interesting/informative thread!</p>

<p>Although right handed, I too leave nose prints on the LCD from using my left eye in the viewfinder.<br>

Just yesterday I got a Manfrotto light duty ball head grip for my Monopod and I think I want to use it left handed but not really certain yet! At least thats the way I set it up last evening, but haven't put it to use yet!<br>

I think I would be more likely to make adjustments to the ball head with my left hand whilst my right hand is primarily supporting the camera with index finger on the shutter?</p>

 

<p>I switch my eyes very often. They work the same and switching is less tired for them.</p>

<p>I do switch my hand too when I use my Exakta</p>

<p>I switch eyes to whatever is more comfortable at the time but tend to favour the right eye.</p>

<p>I am not ambidextrous but play hockey left handed, catch left and throw right, golf either hand (I bought right handed clubs so my brother could use them too, but I have a left handed putter and oversized driver in the bag) and was a switch hitter when playing high school baseball. I can't write or throw with my left hand at all.</p>