Beyond the Frame 14/
What is your camera’s "Serendipity Rating" and how to improve it — plus when to use a watermark and how to make a custom watermark in Lightroom.
Bhutan
Serendipity Rating — The Untold Story
The list of any modern camera’s technical specifications will be mind-numbingly long. Dimensions, weight, sensor size, shutter speed range, flash sync speed, buffer size, LCD pixels, gimlet capacity, nodule resistance… (some of these may be fictitious but admit it, you weren’t sure).
Regrettably, few manufacturers include the most important detail for any camera: Serendipity Rating.
If you are in the market for a new camera, I recommend asking the Sales Assistant to reveal each camera’s Serendipity Rating so you can make an informed choice.
The Serendipity Rating (SR) doesn’t affect the camera’s mechanics. It does, however, influence what might appear in front of the lens. I’ll try to explain how SR works with an example.
During a photography workshop in Bhutan, the students were walking around the temple and grounds of a Buddhist temple in Jakar, a small town in the East. Part of the temple is a monastic school, where a handful of novice monks live and learn the tenets of Tibetan Buddhism.
I decided to use the time wisely and immediately put all my youthful energy into… well, nothing.
In such a place there can be an understandable desire to get ALL the photos before time runs out. The FOMO (which I’ve recently learned means Fear Of Missing Out) is real. A strange kind of photography Pokemon game can overcome photographers, who race hither and thither, ticking off a mental list of locations and scenes and portraits and styles and… and… and…
I’ve been there. I’ve done that. And I’ve learned that it’s a fool’s errand. You just can’t get ALL the photos. Better to resist that temptation and focus (pun intended) on making YOUR photos.
This is where the camera’s Serendipity Rating comes in. I always choose a camera with an SR of at least 9.3. The maximum is 12. Or is it 10? I forget. Anyway, the good news is that SR is not a costly feature. Inexpensive cameras can have a superior SR to high-end models.
Better still (and not a lot of people know this), SR can increase when the photographer performs certain actions. The more a camera is used, the higher its SR becomes. When a photographer exhibits patience and is willing to remain in one place for an extended period, SR increases.
At the Bhutanese temple, my laissez-faire approach paid dividends. My camera’s SR was obviously pretty high when I climbed the dusty stairs in what seemed to be a long-forgotten wing of the temple. I was just wandering. Aimless.
Reaching the top of the stairs it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Sunlight shone through a single window into an empty room, casting two pillars of light onto the wooden floor.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, a novice monk was quietly reciting mantras from a narrow page of prayers.
Without pausing, he looked up, beamed a wide smile, nodded towards the space on the floor opposite and returned to his whispered chant.
I sat cross-legged facing him and… did nothing.
He recited the mantras. I listened.
He rocked almost imperceptibly back and forth in time with the rhythm of the chant. I looked through the window at the clouds.
It was, I think, one of the most tranquil and peaceful moments I’ve ever had the privilege to experience.
It’s an example of what a camera with a high Serendipity Rating can produce. Hundreds of frames per second and dizzyingly high pixel counts will only get you so far.
When he reached the end of the page, he looked up and smiled again. I lifted my camera, nodded towards it, raised an eyebrow. His smile grew wider still. He nodded and lifted the page again, not chanting now, just instinctively understanding how he ought to be pictured.
I only made six frames. In a situation like that I’d usually make many more. Change the angle, alter the focal length… But six frames seemed more than sufficient.
There’s little difference between the six frames but this is the one I prefer:
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