I echo your sentiments. In fact, the advent of digital has dealt a blow to
many possible pictures and photographers that they don't even realize. All
those people who have switched from color-negative/P&S to digital have gone
from and 8-stop range film to 5-6 with CCDs, depending on the sensor. The
CCD's also saturate pretty quickly with high-contrast scenes, and pictures
get that "video" look in those burned-out highlights.
I have talked to several people who wonder why their digital cameras won't
do backlit or high-contrast scenes as good as their P&S's. As usual, they
don't understand the mechanics.
The moral? There's no substitute for understanding your tools (all of
them) and matching the right tool to the right situation. Even though the
cameras have advanced quite a bit in the last 15 years, film technology
hasn't come as far. Yes, color negative film is much more forgiving, but
B&W is still about the same, and transparancy film still requires +- 1/2
stop accuracy to get it right.
More people should study and understand the zone system, IMO. It still
applies if you're doing it "right": Expose for the shadows and develop for
the highlights. (That is, make sure enough light gets onto the film to
record the darkest texture at Zone II/III, and then compact or expand the
tonal range to place textured highlights onto Zone VIII/IX.) Of course,
this works best in large-format. It also works in digital, but you have to
take two pictures and combine them.
Skip
Original Message:
-----------------
From: Jim Brokaw jbrokaw@xxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 13:54:24 -0700
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [OM] OM-4Ti
Only eleven bodies... well, you're just getting started. Don't feel too
bad... <g>
I think metering has come some long way since the last of the OM bodies.
Cameras now have much more microprocessor power built into them, and
'1000-point matrix metering' is one of the causes (and results) of this
microprocessor power evolution. But I don't think the camera companies have
yet engineered out the necessity for intelligent evaluation of the scene
before pushing the button...
I'm guilty far too often of just 'point, focus, shoot' with my OM-4's, but
when I slow down and *look* I have a tool that helps figure out what the
image will come out like based on what I am seeing and how I set the camera.
The computer doesn't understand the image content, it sees only areas of
various brightness, and tries to relate those to stored algorithms of 'if
brighter here and here than there and there, set exposure 1-1/2 stops lower'
and such. These may not generate the vision that the photographer desires,
so intelligence is still needed.
The question then becomes - Does the camera provide the tools to apply
intelligence efficiently and effectively? Or does it 'get in the way' with
myriad menus, functions, settings, and overrides such that using it in a
creative way is an exercise in frustration? For my 'artistic' impulses, the
OM-4 offers the tools in an elegant and easy to apply form, without getting
in the way.
--
Jim Brokaw
OM-1's, -2's, -4's, (no -3's yet) and no OM-oney...
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