Joel, Yes I suspect that you achieve the same exposure accuracy using the
methods you describe, when it comes down to it if you can pick the exactly
correct exposure by whatever means, it doesn't really matter how. With the
OM4Ti, it is probably easier to 'spot' the correct exposure yet the process
is by no means automatic, in spot mode the camera does not decide anything.
It does have a built in automatic compensation using the highlight and
shadow buttons, obviously using centre weighted it decides the exposure
completely.
You can assess all the zones in a picture, then decide to go for 18 0rey
(if there is one), or half way between the brightest and darkest areas
(which is probably near 18 0rey), or emphasise a particular area.
Spot metering can however go wrong there is still a great deal of
photographic skill required when assessing the scene for exposure. Its not
really a point and shoot system like Nikon's? matrix for example where I
believe the camera decides the exposure value without any input from the
photographer. I think the only other camera with MS metering is one of the
very expensive Rollei medium format models.
I would recommend that you borrow an OM4 to see what you think, maybe you
don't need spot metering, I thought it was unnecessary to begin with but
now I use it all the time.
See other posting, the 90f2 macro is marvellous.
Regards
Richard
(Embedded
image moved Joel Wilcox <jowilcox @ blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>
to file: 31/07/98 16:08
PIC10513.PCX)
Please respond to olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: olympus @ Zuiko.sls.bc.ca
cc: (bcc: Richard Dale/FIGROUP)
Subject: Re: [OM] Spot Meter reading vs OTF; Ease of 4T
At 11:58 AM 7/31/1998 +0000, Richard you wrote in part:
>Often I find that a single spot reading on what is closest to 18 0rey is
>sufficient.
>
Hi Richard,
Glad you got your stuff from Focus. Hope you have a blast with it.
What disturbs me about some of the recent discussion is that the
photographer's decision-making role is not more explicitly acknowledged. It
would seem to me that the value of a more complex metering system is not
that it makes metering easier a la point and shoot (although it does or
can), but that it gives the photographer more data to resolve complex
lighting situations.
Your statement that often a single spot of 18 0ray is enough hits the nail
on the head. That 18 0ray spot is the Holy Grail in any shot. The camera
cannot decide what is 18 0ray, or more properly, what should be *placed*
at 18 0ray (or Zone V), only the photographer can.
I have a 1 degree handheld spot meter. I rarely use it because I've learned
to read those portions of a scene with an averaging meter which allow me to
get values where I want them, or close enough that half-stop brackets will
nail the exposure.
But the bedrock of control is the OM-1. Its simple meter seems sufficient
to get apparently exact exposures among the three provided by half-stop
bracketing. It's fun to forget about exposure issues for a while with the
2's, but I never want to lose the intellectual challenge of finding the
Zone V in the shot that *I want*. This is why I shy away from the 4T. It's
allure as described fits more the situations in which I find the 2's to be
sufficient and satisfying, but it seems to offer me nothing that displaces
the elegant simplicity of the OM-1, which occasionally I will shoot with
the meter turned off, following good old Sunny 16. Can't get more
elemental -- or exact, if it is *your* decision -- than that.
It would be fun to play with multi-spot averaging, but I strongly feel that
this would lead me into complacency. It should make exposure control
harder. It should introduce more steps to a final decision about the
exposure. But I sense that it is simply used to achieve higher percentages
of focus-and-shoot pictures. Nothing wrong with that in itself. Also
nothing wrong with P&S and AF. That's just not the way I want to go about
it.
Hope I haven't offended the many lovers of the 4T on the list. Since it's a
camera I don't know, please set me straight where I've erred in my
thinking.
Joel
<
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
? F.I.GROUP PLC
PIC10513.PCX
Description: Binary data
|