JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
"HK" wrote in message
news
JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 15 Dec 2007 03:02:13 GMT, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

You have to learn to take pictures which are 99% correct when you click
the
shutter, and forget that there's software, the modern equivalent of the
darkroom. Shut of ALL focus and exposure automation, and never mind the
bad
eyes excuse. Alfred Eisenstadt took nice sharp pictures with a manual
focus
camera until he was much older than you.
I disagree with that approach.

In my opinon, you start with the automagic components and see what the
camera is using as a base line for most of the images you take.

Once you get a feel for how the camera looks at the world, then you
start experimenting with the manual functions bracketing the auto
features base settings.

You have to have a feel for it first.

Admittedly, John is using a hammer to drive a stick pin approach when
he'd probably be better off with a really nice point-and-shoot, but he
has it, so coaching him through the proess is the better way to go.

OK, but one needs to understand what light meters can and cannot do. One
thing they can't do is know what you're photographing. An interesting
exercise is to evenly light 3 different flat objects: One black, one
grey, one white. Fill the viewfinder with each object and take a picture,
letting the camera choose the exposure. Of, if in manual mode, "obey" the
exposure meter. The results should raise questions in the user's mind
immediately.



I don't see how you can take decent indoor portrait shots without a good
flash meter or difficult outdoor shots without a light meter. There are
some combo units that do the job.


It's unlikely that the vast majority of people will buy a flash meter. But,
since flash is usually the dominant light source for indoor pictures, a few
test shots will often solve the problem. With digital, you see the results
right away. With film, you just have to know the characteristics of the film
you're using. There's a guy around here who does a lot of band pictures with
flash, and his shots are gorgeous. He uses some sort of high end Canon
camera. He shuts off all automation and tweaks the manual settings to an
extent that disagrees completely with what the camera says is right.

Outdoors, a separate meter is equally unlikely for most users. A camera with
a spot metering option is helpful. For photographing people, using your own
hand as the meter target is a good trick for setting exposure, assuming it
can be metered in the same light as the subject. But, once that's done, you
have to have a way to tell the auto exposure thing to leave your settings
alone. If the color of your hand doesn't closely match the key subject, then
you have to make adjustments based on your knowledge of grey scales. If the
light's not changing quickly and constantly, one adjustment should be all
you need.

As far as John's problem with manual focus, I wonder if his camera's split
prism isn't up to par. Or, maybe it hasn't got one at all. Even when I was
20, I ran into occasional situations where focusing would've been difficult
without that tool. It's there for a reason, not just for people with bad
eyes. It's fast, too.


http://www.normankoren.com/zonesystem.html
http://www.kodak.com/cluster/global/...f9/index.shtml
http://www.normankoren.com/digital_tonality.html




I don't know what camera Herring is using these days, but if it is a
digital nikon "slr," then it doesn't have a split prism. It takes a lot
of practice to properly focus one of these new digital slrs manually.
Even on pre-digital SLRs, though, once you got beyond a certain focal
length, maybe 105 mm, the damned split prism would black out on one
side, so I simply went to a plain focusing screen.

Life was certainly easier and simpler in the days of TriX, PlusX,
KodaChrome II and Kodacolor!