BebuLamar

But in fact manual is the easiest but if you don't think it's easy then don't do it.

DaveyDitzer Loc: Western PA

I shot manual with my FM2 and Kodachrome. It was easier then with just the aperture ring on the lens, the rotary dial on the top and a focus ring. Now, playing with the wheels and so forth seems like more effort to me, even with a Df so I use program a lot unless I want a specific result.

DaveyDitzer Loc: Western PA

PS: I'd rather use aperture so that the shutter speed dial is in the right place on my Df.

btbg

My apologies. I've just seen too many posts like that which weren't satire and have had enough of the jpeg vs raw argument.

Notorious T.O.D. Loc: Harrisburg, North Carolina

Would you like to bet lunch on that???
You can send the money to my PayPal account...

Notorious T.O.D. Loc: Harrisburg, North Carolina

Yes, even though my camera can go 5 stops over or under I am not sure there is a great deal of use for that much compensation.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

dhowland

Nothing magical or mystic about manual mode -- is why I like it. I control the settings. Auto means the camera averages without regard to results -- that's what's random. And often ineffective.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

No. The camera sets aperture or shutter speed I tell it to. The camera meters based on how I tell it to and picks rest of "exposure triangle" to exactly match conditions - giving me exactly the results I expect, even if conditions changed three times during the process. I developed my technique while using Kodachrome, which was much less "forgiving" that color negative was.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

No. Complete ignorance of proper exposure metering and setting white balance was the culprit, along with general unwillingness to attend training sponsored by the lab...

In the portrait and social segment (which was a HUGE volume business with over 30,000 school portrait photographers and thousands of studios in big box stores at one point), photographers using film typically did not use light meters. Their huge corporations or labs provided them with long roll film cameras and lighting equipment, pre-strung for each instrument's distance from the subject, and pre-set with proper exposure for a certain product. Most of them had no idea what exposure entailed!

Film had enough latitude that you could be quite sloppy in your daily setup before the lab would have any issues with film exposures.

There was no automation in that industry before digital, nor is there today, in most cases. Consistency is a virtual requirement of the trade, so everything is locked down... HOWEVER, the diagrams and setups used for film never worked for digital JPEG capture. The lighting was too specular, too contrasty, and exposure was much more sensitive to small changes. 1/3 of one f/stop overexposure is a very noticeable change in a JPEG exposure. It is hardly a blip on film, once you run the negative through a color analyzer.

The photographer of that job I referred to above never called us to tell us he was going to submit digital images, and never asked us for advice, testing, or anything... before he screwed up the job. He just set everything on auto and let it explode.

We had two huge accounts doing the same sort of work digitally at the time... All their work was in manual mode... They measured distances, pre-metered flash, marked photographer and subject lines on the floors, etc. They got beautiful results.

dhowland

What you're describing is not "auto"

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

I set metering pattern
I set focusing pattern

I set mode to one of the “auto” modes, telling camera which value gets “priority”

Where is the “not auto” part???

dhowland

You're setting an awful lot of stuff yourself for it to be auto

dhowland

You're setting an awful lot of stuff yourself for it to be auto

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Apparently you don’t understand “auto”.
It does not mean “robot”, but even a “robot” would receive instructions/preferences.

TheDman Loc: USA

Maybe Nikons are different, but with Canon it's 3 stops. I frequently need more than that, so I have to switch to manual.