Left eye or right eye?

Which eye to you look through a viewfinder with?

  • Left

    Votes: 35 49.3%
  • Right

    Votes: 36 50.7%

  • Total voters
    71
Never understood this eating malarky - your knife just moves backwards and forwards but your fork has to move in all directions as well as aim.
Perhaps it stems from when meat needed more effort in cutting.

Off topic but ... I always understood it was because forks are a more recent invention than knives.

Once upon a time people ate food by holding it with one hand and slicing it up with a knife held in the other, the knife hand being the dominant hand, being the right hand for most people. You would then stab the food with the knife and eat from it, much as we do with forks these days. Then forks came along and they were used by the hand not holding the knife, and later it became the norm to present food to gob with fork instead of knife, perhaps to avoid accidentally stabbing yourself in the face!!

Strictly speaking therefore left-handed people should probably eat with knife in left hand, but I'm left-handed and don't, but that could be because I come from an age where left-handed-ness was considered slightly odd, I even had a teacher at school who tried to force me to write with my right-hand!
 
I'm right eye dominant but I use a camera with both eyes open. I use firearms the same way and can't remember ever closing my left eye when I shoot, it just feels 'odd'.
 
Right for horizontal shooting. Not sure it matters much these days, but right was better for film SLRs to give clearance for the wind-on lever and that habit has stuck.

But left eye for verticals with camera rotated anticlockwise, as that allows you to support the right hand against your forehead and also effectively blacks out the right eye so you don't have to close it. For those reasons I would say left eye is better for verticals.

I read somewhere (can't recall where) that photographers are normally 60% right-eyed.
 
I'm right eye dominant but I use a camera with both eyes open. I use firearms the same way and can't remember ever closing my left eye when I shoot, it just feels 'odd'.
I'm the same - I was taught to shoot that way as a youngster and always have done since; both with a gun and a camera. :agree:
 
Right handed, but eat with knife in left hand and fork in right. Never understood this eating malarky - your knife just moves backwards and forwards but your fork has to move in all directions as well as aim.
As above - and I thought I was the only one!

With a rangefinder or slr I use my right eye & customarily shut the left, because if I keep the left eye open I can't see the content and boundaries of the viewfinder clearly.
 
Off topic but ... I always understood it was because forks are a more recent invention than knives.

Once upon a time people ate food by holding it with one hand and slicing it up with a knife held in the other, the knife hand being the dominant hand, being the right hand for most people. You would then stab the food with the knife and eat from it, much as we do with forks these days. Then forks came along and they were used by the hand not holding the knife, and later it became the norm to present food to gob with fork instead of knife, perhaps to avoid accidentally stabbing yourself in the face!!

Strictly speaking therefore left-handed people should probably eat with knife in left hand, but I'm left-handed and don't, but that could be because I come from an age where left-handed-ness was considered slightly odd, I even had a teacher at school who tried to force me to write with my right-hand!

Yes I'm sure that's correct too.

Left handedness is definitely Sinister (it's Latin for left, after all). These days there are less Latin speakers so we're more tolerant of lefties :exit:
 
Right handed and right eye, never thought about using my left.
 
According to that test I'm right eye dominant. So why do I look through viewfinders with my left?

You wear a monocle over your right eye (there are other possible explanations, but this is a family forum) :eek:
 
Yes I'm sure that's correct too.

Left handedness is definitely Sinister (it's Latin for left, after all). These days there are less Latin speakers so we're more tolerant of lefties :exit:

And right handed people are more dexterous, of course.. ;)
 
I'm right eyed and assumed 90% of us were. Voting so far tells me manufacturers of the rangefinder type camera have got it all wrong.
 
Left eye, mostly both eyes open for me so I can see what is going on. I am right-handed.

Regarding knives and forks, the previous poster was spot on. Forks were a fancy Italian invention of the C17th and took a while to catch on. Knives and fingers had been used for centuries previously.
 
This subject has been surveyed to death, but in the past it's always turned out with a small majority for left-eye, even amongst right-handed people.
 
In elite sports that require the greatest hand-eye-foot coordination (tennis, golf, badminton etc) the most common distribution is left eye, right hand, right foot dominance, accounting for up to 80% of the elite population in those sports.

Do you have a link for that? Interesting, 80% is a very high figure - I'm wondering if there's some hand-eye coordination benefit to being right hand/footed and left-eye dominant?

As far as camera users are concerned, I expect that like me, many are coming from film SLRs where right-eyed has advantages in clearing the wind-on lever, and we've just carried it over to DSLRs.
 
Left eye, both closed, and struggling with composition.
 
Actually, according to canon, if you own a 5D4 you should use your right eye.
 
In elite sports that require the greatest hand-eye-foot coordination (tennis, golf, badminton etc) the most common distribution is left eye, right hand, right foot dominance, accounting for up to 80% of the elite population in those sports.

Interesting ... from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness

Interactive sports such as table tennis, badminton and cricket have an overrepresentation of left-handedness ... Smaller physical distance between participants increases the overrepresentation. In fencing, about half the participants are left-handed
 
In elite sports that require the greatest hand-eye-foot coordination (tennis, golf, badminton etc) the most common distribution is left eye, right hand, right foot dominance, accounting for up to 80% of the elite population in those sports.

In this Wikipedia article, while left-handers have an advantage in some sports, it says there is no correlation between 'cross-dominance' and sport?
"It has been asserted that cross-dominance (in which the dominant eye is on one side and the dominant hand is on the other) is advantageous in sports requiring side-on stances (e.g. baseball, cricket, golf);[16] however, studies within the last 20 years have shown this not to be the case."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocular_dominance
 
Left eye. My right eye is near useless so my vision is nearly totally dominated by left eye. I cannot use right eye to see what's going on around me if left eye to the view finder and if I put my right eye to the VF I don't see a great deal! Still waiting for my left eyed X100 Fuji. Chop chop.
 
Left eye for me as well, I'm right handed with everything but if i shoot shotgun I plant it in my left shoulder and both eyes open.
 
Right eye vote from me.
 
Right handed, right eye. I saw this a couple of days ago so last time out I tried my left eye, there is no way I could shoot cameras like that. However, whilst my right eye is my preference for shotguns I can shoot using my left.
 
Left naturally, but training myself to use the right as my big nose gets in the way of my thumb.
 
It just shows how mixed up people are.

Left this, right that or is it right this, left that.

Me I use right eye. ambidexous on most other things which was really handy playing cricket at school, use to change my hold all the time so fielders where in the wrong place, not sure it was allowed in the rules. Normally left handed when eating, write with the right but can do either side well enough.
 
Votes so far - 51% right, 49% left. We need a referendum!
 
Left eye, left handed. In fact, everything left handed except for one thing ...I use my right hand when cutting with scissors and have no idea why :thinking:
 
Right eye. If I use left my nose moves the focus point. (Lumix)
 
I had my eyes retested the other week and my left eye needs little correction (less than last time) while my right eye needs quite a bit. Maybe that explains my left eye'd photography?
 
I'll use my right eye more comfortable, not sure whether I close my left or not, think that just depends sometimes I do other times I don't!

But interestingly, the assumption that preference could be based on quality of eye sight i.e, I use left as I have 20/20 vision in that eye, is probably a little bit off mark but not far

Every one will have a natural leading hand, foot and eye. generally all the same side. With the eye's it's easy to tell which is your lead eye (the most accurate) . hold finger one finger centrally in front of you at arms length, line it up with a corner of a wall, ceiling light etc. Then close each eye, your leading eye will be the one that remains in line with chosen object.

Those that have answered, but be interesting to see if, they use left/right eye and this matches their leading eye!
 
Back
Top