Yes, and I'm glad you stand by that statement. If you truly read my previous post you have to agree that I stand with you 100% on that. What I disagree with is your statement that Auto was invented for point-and-shoot amateurs. I stand by this statement, that manufacturers would not put Auto on high-end cameras if they didn't see the need for it. It takes more time and expense to develop it for high-end cameras than for beginner level ones.

And let's not be disdainful of point and shoot amateurs. After all, you and I started out that way. My humble photographic beginnings started when I was about to board a plane for basic training in the USAF two weeks out of high school. I had never owned a camera, but my Mother was trusting enough that she gave me her Kodak Bullet that she got for her high school graduation in 1940. Kind person that she was, she knew that I would want to preserve some memories. Her only instructions were that it took the best pictures on cloudy days. Simple operation? Oh, yeah! Unscrew the lens barrel to its stop, raise the two view-finder eye pieces on top of the camera and frame the photo. Press the shutter lever down until it clicked. Then wind the film to the next number. I'm guessing your beginnings were just about that humble too. Bouncing forward in time a bunch of years, yes, I've had my gripes about Auto too and they're very much the same as yours. But just as you know what to do about it, so do I because we chose to learn. Other point and shooters will become curious enough to learn as well. Still others will fall by the wayside, photographically speaking, and will drift off to other knowledge pursuits. That's just the way life is. 'Nuff said.

Well, having re-read my post (and yours), I'd like to clarify some things if I may. First, what you wrote to help the individual would be helpful to all (including me). It was very well done. The next-to-the-last sentence about not learning much if you always shoot in "Auto" was a spot on summary. On the other hand, the last sentence was inaccurate at best and came across as condescending - not at all in keeping with the quality of the rest of your post. The inaccuracy came in stating that "Auto" was invented for P&S amateurs. Most, if not all, of the high-end cameras that UHH folks use have that Auto feature. The firmware needed to have that feature designed into the camera is not cheap. You can bet the camera manufacturers didn't just put the Auto feature on high end cameras so that P&S amateurs would buy them. I don't consider myself and some of my other friends P&S amateurs. Sure, we could go to a grandchild's birthday party with fixed aperture at 5.6 and shutter speed at 1/125 and probably get mostly acceptable photos. But why? Just put the thing on full Auto and start chasing the kids for photo ops. I'm betting the overall photo quality would be better in that case. Auto is a useful feature if it is used right. Here again, you are right. If that's the only feature someone uses he/she won't learn much.

Naw, not quite true. At least not for me. I'm no professional and probably just a rank amateur, but my first and major photo learning experience was in film SLRs. I don't have time to enumerate the multitude of things I learned in that manual world. My film SLR went on the fritz just about the time the first digital cameras came on the scene. I used several different ones and got lazy with the ease of operation. Along came DSLRs with the 'Auto' feature. Again, I was lazy for awhile until I discovered that I could pull up everything the camera had automatically set for each photo. What a boon! I would have had to do that with pencil and paper in the film world. Now, by downloading the photos on my computer I could have the photo and camera settings side-by-side and see if that was acceptable or if I would rather have done differently with one or more settings. The added beauty is if I change one or more settings manually the camera will record those too along with the respective photo. So what 'Auto' did for me was to help me become familiar with the camera and use it as the tool it's supposed to be. Are there other ways to do that? Certainly, but that worked (so far) for me.

Did'ja throw it back?

Wow! That's livin' life on the edge. Great photo.

Looks purty decent t'me.

Looks purty decent t'me.

Incrediburgable!

Welcome aboard the good ship UHH!

One of my favorite memories took place northwest of the small Texas town where I was born and grew up. West of the house where we lived was a 40-acre field that my grandfather owned. He owned the house too, but that's another story. One summer day (early '50s) some cousins were visiting and I asked mother if we could go play in 'The Willows'. That was a small grove of Willow trees that I had discovered sometime before on the west side of the field, across the railroad turn-around and down in a ravine. You couldn't see it from the house because the ravine was deep enough that the tops of the trees didn't show until you got to the west edge of the field.

So with mother's permission the cousins, my sister just younger than me and I went to 'The Willows'. We were having a great time romping among the trees when one of the boys happened to venture out on the west side of them. The next thing we heard was, "Hey! There's watermelons over here!" The slope of the hill rising up on that side of the ravine was indeed gentle enough to plant and it rose up just high enough that you could see some of it with a house perched on the top from our back door. There were water melon plants all over the side of the hill. While the others were discussing about snitching one of the melons my conscience got the better of me and I interrupted them with, "Wait! How much money do we have?" Including what I had, we rounded up about 25 or 30 cents. Then one of the kids said, "Look! There's someone coming from that house up there." Then they all ran back into the trees, leaving me alone.

Here's what a clear conscience does for you. I saw the fellow coming and thought, "Oh good. Now I don't have to climb all the way up to the house." I started up towards him and as we got withing hearing range I held up my hand and opened it so the money showed and asked, "Mister, can we buy one of your watermelons?" He skidded to a stop on the down slope and said, "Well, I, ah-ah-ah, I guess so." As he hunted for what he figured was a suitable melon he explained that he'd already had a number of melons stolen and figured we were about to do the same. We had surprised him with our honesty. He finally handed me a melon that was so big I could hardly carry it and he wouldn't take the money. With his admonition to go and have a good time, I trudged back into the trees. As the others came out of hiding I gave the others back their money and shortly discovered that the man knew his water melons. It was a yellow one; they're usually better than the red ones, but this one was exceptional. We moaned in ecstasy with every bite even thought we had to break it open on a large rock and dig in with our hands. Of course, in those days all a kid had to do was wipe hands on clothes and, Voila, clean. Shucky darn, I haven't seen a yellow melon since.

It's hard for us to judge this photo from the others since you didn't show them, but it's really obvious why you liked this one. It's terrific.

Glad you stopped by! :-D You're certainly welcome to stay.

Great job on the photos. I'll bet there's a great history behind each of those churches too.

Well, of course you did, and you did it very nicely.

Great photo set. Um, do you perchance work for National Geographic on the sly?