Just bought a Rebel K2....no depth of field preview!?

[alex_davis]

So i just bought my first SLR...a Rebel K2. I took it home and played around

with it (i took photo back in high school), and my friend pointed out that

there is no depth of field preview. I plan on doing mostly creative things

and some landscapes and i was wondering if this is going to be a problem...

how important is a depth of field preview? I noticed the T2 has a DOF preview

button but the K2 doesnt...is this going to be holding me back significantly

in my creative ventures? By the way this is my first post on photo.net :)

[mona_chrome]

DOF preview is nice and if you are really experienced you might miss having it. The fact is

that you can use the lens markings, i assume they still have them, to check hyperfocal length

to see if things will be in focus and it is more accurate than DOF in most cases--sometimes it

gets so dark that it is hard to really see anyway. I don't know the $$ difference, but if it is

not much and you are worried about it, upgrade--the worst thing is to not feel confident in

your equipment.

[PuppyDigs]

All my SLRs have the DOF preview feature, but I rarely use it. Why? Stopped down to F16 it's

so dark all I mainly see is the screen texture. I find it easier to use a DOF scale and imagine

the effect.

 

On the other hand some shooters swear by the DOF button and feel naked without it.

[dogbert]

I have cameras both with and without it. I use it occaissionally, but with pentamirror cameras like the rebel it is not very useful as it is hard to judge what you are seeing anyway - Puppy's commment above. Practice and experience is probably a better way to make judgements about what aperture you need.

[ronaldo_r]

See above. You do NOT need it.

[byronlawrence]

you dont' NEED it.. yes,, but it is nice to have. it is only really more useful with close up photography, and sometimes macro.. and sometimes you have to use a flashlight on your subject matter to brighten up the scene. but it can be helpful.. that said, I agree with others I use it maybe 2-3 times a year.

[steve_dunn2]

<p>I've never found it that useful, for the reason Puppy Face mentioned. Canon has traditionally not included DOF preview on its lower-end EOS bodies (and even on some mid-grade ones), though the feature has been appearing on more bodies lately than it used to.</p>

 

<p>Most autofocus zoom lenses, and many autofocus prime lenses, don't have DOF scales at all, and even if one is provided, it's often of very limited utility due to the shorter focus throw of AF lenses.</p>

[colin carron]

I use it occasionally in a couple of situations. One is for when shooting a landscape with some very close foreground which I want to be in focus along with all the rest of the image. The other is for portraits when I want the background to be out of focus. However a bit of experience and knowledge of hyperfocal distances will enable you to work round these sorts of situation.

[johnson_d.]

I only use DOF preview when shooting macro and for this I find it very helpful. It can be difficult to imagine the stopped down background appearance while composing with an extremely shallow DOF wide open. If by "creative things" you're thinking creative use of DOF or macro then the preview button would be nice to have. Not critical but nice.

[awindsor]

DOF preview is extremely useful when using grad filters as without it it is almost impossible to see where the transition is.

 

I use with focusing though it still requires some judgement. I rarely stop down to f16 except with macro and seeing the viewfinder at f8 is not too hard. I never use DOF preview when doing macro work.

 

Finally the DOF button operates the disgusting modeling flash.

 

However the lack of DOF preview is not a deal breaker.

[johnson_d.]

Alistair, I believe it's custom function 5 (in the flash) that allows you to turn off the "disgusting modeling flash".