My experiment with the tablet-as-a-viewfinder and the flexible tripod has been wildly successful, IMO. My sense is that most of the success is due to using a larger viewfinder.
A digression: Because I spend so much time setting up my shots *without* looking through the camera lens, I often realize after I’ve taken the shot that I’ve missed something – the hand position is wrong, the dolls are looking directly into the lens, etc. That problem has largely arisen from being forced to use a tripod to take most shots (because the heavier DSLR is hard to keep steady). While my shot-taking with the lighter camera was spontaneous (I’d move around my subject taking shots), now it’s more fixed. I get everything in place, then look through the camera and take and shot, then decide if I like it or not, then take another shot, and so on.
Using the tablet as a viewfinder frees me from that – I’m constantly looking at the final shot as I’m posing the dolls and positioning the camera, so I end up only taking a shot or two to choose between.
Also, the tablet gives me a far more flexible way to focus (by touching where I want to focus, like on a cellphone), instead of fiddling with where my DSLR wants to focus.
Anyway, we’ll see how workable this is as a long-term solution, but for right now, it seems like it gives me a way to set up a great shot before I take it.
Here are Mathilde and Rat moving the sheepskin rug under the bed, taken with my new setup:
Mathilde and Rat move the rug under the bed
There’s some sad news about Rat, but I’ll save that for another day.