Thanks to all who responded to my question a couple of days ago about the
Pen D and its viewfinder. I now know a bit more about each! May even be
tempted to try dissecting cleaning and re-assembling the viewfinder.
I want to pick up a couple of points from Jim's reply as they relate to
tools for metering in general, which I've been thinking about over the
last few weeks.
Especially how they have evolved over the years, and how much of the
evolution is actual progress.
At 2:07 PM -0700 2003.09.30, Jim Brokaw wrote:
>on 9/30/03 4:22 AM, Andrew L Wendelborn at andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>>
>> This 60s half-frame is ancient I know, but I rather like the camera and I'm
>> determined to put at least one roll of film through it.
>
>Its great to use some of the old cameras... a whole different 'feel' to the
>'artistic experience'. <That's all the fuzzy artspeak I'm putting in here...
><g>)
Spot on if you ask me -- no fuzzy artspeak at all. Since we now have a
good selection of working cameras around the house we're trying them out
just to get an idea of what it "feels" like to use some of these
interesting (if sometimes idiosyncratic and frustrating) older devices.
<snip>
>The Pen D was a high-line model when new, and probably sold for the
>equivalent of $200 or more in now-cheaper dollars. The lens is very good,
>although many don't like the coupled EV system, and a meter needle visible
>in the viewfinder would have been nice...
That's what I'm curious about and why I want to take pictures using it.
I'm beginning to think I actually like the coupled EV system.
Why? Probably because it needs a bit of thought about what makes up the
photograph to figure out the desired light value. Then all the dof / speed
tradeoffs are there with a simple twist of the coupled rings.
Don't know how far I'll take this retro line of thought, but it started a
few weeks ago when I was overseas with an OM-1n that developed meter
trouble on day 2. Rather than swear curse and take no photos I thought I'd
try the manual approach. So printed an exposure guide off the web, and
figured exposures by estimating light values (EVs) relative to some known
point. There were two duds in three rolls of film, and that included quite a
few indoor shots without flash. As I'd been reading every thing I
could lay my hands on about exposure over the preceding weeks, I figured I
must have learnt something (not least from this list).
I find that when I switch a camera to auto my brain turns off. That of
course is more a problem with my brain than with auto metering per se. Now
my auto shots are actually not too bad, and I can't live without auto for
macro, but I'm just wondering how well I can do with the "old fashioned"
approach.
Hence trying it out with these cameras: a venerable Voigtlander Perkeo E
(with an excellent rangefinder but not coupled to focus); the Pen D; and an
Olympus 35 SPn (lizard skin, just arrived from AndrewF, very nice indeed),
which has the EV numbers visible under a needle in the viewfinder.
For me anyway, it'll be interesting to make the comparison.
>Of course, if you're not heart-set on keeping it, I'm always interested in
>another Pen... <g>
Sorry to disappoint -- it has a happy home :-)
We're getting quite a nice collection of Oly compacts -- Pen EES and D,
the 35 SPn, XA, XA2, mju-1.
All good fun.
Andrew
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