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Why is "manual" almost a religion?
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Aug 16, 2018 16:53:50   #
CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City
 
Linda From Maine wrote:
Oh dang it, left behind again?!


Είναι όλα ελληνικά για μένα

(It's all Greek to me ...)

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Aug 16, 2018 16:54:09   #
BebuLamar
 
CHG_CANON wrote:
You're not keeping up, the kids on campus this semester are saying: GIRITC = Get it right in the camera


Nothing new except for the synonyms.

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Aug 16, 2018 16:56:58   #
graybeard
 
Linda From Maine wrote:
Point taken, well expressed.

I think there should be a requirement that every opinion or piece of advice offered in main discussion be accompanied by a supporting photo taken by the commentator. So, as my counter to rmalarz's stunning, highly technical and carefully composed/exposed achievement, I will post this American Kestrel, shot from my car with a $375 bridge camera. I used my go-to setting for critters and birds with that camera: HQ burst mode (found in SCN), where the camera selects the fastest shutter speed for the lighting conditions.

These cuties rarely have the patience to await a photographer's fiddling with settings
Point taken, well expressed. br br I think there ... (show quote)

Good pic. I used to get frustrated by how often, when traveling in the car, I would see something I wanted to shoot, and had no more than a few seconds at best to get. So, I set the SS high, DOF deep, and ISO to adjust, and I would have my Tamron 28-300 mounted, and I often could get the shot. Manual focus, more often than not. And of course, my wife was driving.

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Aug 16, 2018 17:04:17   #
martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida
 
Unfortunately those that Don't understand the exposure triangle fumble thru photography and fill the pages of this forum with simple questions.. We all have to start somewhere. I personally went to Costa Rica two years in a row with my first DSLR snapping several thousand photos. My camera would blink and burp and all kinds of stuff, I simply turned knobs until the camera would take the over or under exposed photos. After these trips and several thousand Useless photos I decided to read Understanding Exposure 3rd edition by Bryan Peterson. Holy smokes this stuff is really Easy once the triangle is Understood. Now I'm hooked and can't get enough. No type of photography is out of my reach. Folks spend Thousands of dollars on equipment and expect stellar results but it just doesn't work that way. I guess it's ok for folks to stumble along year after year, up grading, or switching brands expecting different results. Personally I want to excel at photography..
buckwheat wrote:
Don't get me wrong! When I started this hobby in earnest in the early '60s, manual was all there was. Then in school we used view cameras, and there aint no automatic, there. As technology progressed, the automatic functions of cameras have become almost freakishly intelligent. I spent thousands of dollars on cameras, all with automatic features which rival the skills (exposure and focus) which I had as a photojournalist in Southeast Asia with my trusty Nikon. I shot so much I could judge light, get sharp focus, and get the shot as quickly as my camera can now. Obviously I am much older now, but my goal is still to get the shot. But I am gratefully happy to utilize the work and inventions of all the engineers who have made it possible for me to take the picture, and if I don't like what shows up on my screen, I can change it.

That being said, any newcomer who doesn't know the exposure triangle, is not a picture maker, but merely a picture taker.

Now, who has the popcorn?
Don't get me wrong! When I started this hobby in ... (show quote)

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Aug 16, 2018 17:05:35   #
CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City
 
Manual focus, for me, is a different and separate subject from manual exposure. With a manual focus lens, my eyes aren't good enough anymore to see the fine details from a distance. Without an Electronic View Finder (EVF) in my mirrorless body and the ability to focus-peek the manual focus results, I'd sell all the manual focus lenses as worthless to my needs. For my Canon DSLR, the zoomed LiveView is useful in certain tripod macro situations. But for most purposes, getting an AF point on the subject gets excellently focused results, faster and more consistent than LiveView or focus-peeking using a manual focus lens.

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Aug 16, 2018 17:13:24   #
rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA
 
buckwheat wrote:
When I started this hobby in earnest in the early '60s, manual was all there was.

Not quite true... for example, I have an Agfa Optima from 1959 that has automatic exposure capability. (Still works, but tends to overexpose a bit in auto.) There are several other cameras from around that time which offered either full auto or semi-auto exposure. Fuji made some too, such as the Fujica Auto M.

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Aug 16, 2018 17:15:02   #
CO
 
Manual mode is a must for studio photography. My camera's TTL metering can't work with the studio strobes I have. I know there are some strobes that support TTL metering now. I take light meter readings and enter those readings into my camera with it in manual mode.

Outside of the studio it's almost always aperture priority. I like to make sure the aperture is in the sweet spot range and and also to control depth of field.

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Aug 16, 2018 17:15:50   #
BebuLamar
 
rook2c4 wrote:
Not quite true... for example, I have an Agfa Optima from 1959 that has automatic exposure capability. (Still works, but tends to overexpose a bit in auto.) There are several other cameras from around that time which offered either full auto or semi-auto exposure. Fuji made some too, such as the Fujica Auto M.


A camera I knew when I was just a kid in the mid 60's is the Yashica Electro 35. It has autoexposure. Back then I thought why do you need auto? I was around 11 then and was using my dad Petri 7s.

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Aug 16, 2018 17:39:47   #
CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City
 
martinfisherphoto wrote:
Unfortunately those that Don't understand the exposure triangle fumble thru photography and fill the pages of this forum with simple questions.. We all have to start somewhere. I personally went to Costa Rica two years in a row with my first DSLR snapping several thousand photos. My camera would blink and burp and all kinds of stuff, I simply turned knobs until the camera would take the over or under exposed photos. After these trips and several thousand Useless photos I decided to read Understanding Exposure 3rd edition by Bryan Peterson. Holy smokes this stuff is really Easy once the triangle is Understood. Now I'm hooked and can't get enough. No type of photography is out of my reach. Folks spend Thousands of dollars on equipment and expect stellar results but it just doesn't work that way. I guess it's ok for folks to stumble along year after year, up grading, or switching brands expecting different results. Personally I want to excel at photography..
Unfortunately those that Don't understand the expo... (show quote)

I can't speak for others, nor have I read the oft-sighted book, but when the triangle finally clicked in my mind, I really began to understand the triangle concept, particularly how the shutter and aperture dials on an advanced DSLR run 'opposite' of each other.

Once I have the exposure set properly, I keep mental track of the click changes on the dials. So, where I might be at an event and used f/4 for a single person and then stepped back for a group of five friends, I'll count the 4-clicks on the aperture moving, say, from f/4 to f/6.3 and adjusting the shutter by 4 'clicks' faster and continue focusing and shooting without lowering the camera from my eye. Maybe others do, but I don't think to myself "that's a 1 1/3 stop adjustment". The tactile feel for how the camera operates and handles is how manual exposure became a natural technique for me.

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Aug 16, 2018 17:58:48   #
Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)
 
buckwheat wrote:
Don't get me wrong! When I started this hobby in earnest in the early '60s, manual was all there was. Then in school we used view cameras, and there aint no automatic, there. As technology progressed, the automatic functions of cameras have become almost freakishly intelligent. I spent thousands of dollars on cameras, all with automatic features which rival the skills (exposure and focus) which I had as a photojournalist in Southeast Asia with my trusty Nikon. I shot so much I could judge light, get sharp focus, and get the shot as quickly as my camera can now. Obviously I am much older now, but my goal is still to get the shot. But I am gratefully happy to utilize the work and inventions of all the engineers who have made it possible for me to take the picture, and if I don't like what shows up on my screen, I can change it.

That being said, any newcomer who doesn't know the exposure triangle, is not a picture maker, but merely a picture taker.

Now, who has the popcorn?
Don't get me wrong! When I started this hobby in ... (show quote)


Because you pray you made the right exposure decisions every time you press the shutter.

Reply
Aug 16, 2018 18:01:33   #
PeterBergh
 
rmalarz wrote:
Because any other mode would not facilitate my placing the Zonal values where I needed them to make this photograph.
--Bob


It seems to me that you have posted the same image (or a very similar one), but in color, several times. I much prefer the black and white version.

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Aug 16, 2018 18:02:24   #
Pegasus Loc: Texas Gulf Coast
 
I learned to drive using a stick transmission. For the next 30+ years, all I owned were stick shift cars. Then about 16 years ago, I finally bought my first automatic transmission as my main vehicle. Now I drive a vehicle with a CVT and it has paddles, which I never use. I still know how to drive a stick (I'll never forget it's so ingrained,) but I'm quite happy with the automatic transmissions and especially the CVT.

My first SLR was a Minolta SR-T-101 back in 1971 or some such. All manual. I used it for a long time. When it broke, I got an X-570 (still have it), and that introduced me to "automatic." I now have a D7500 and I leave it on Auto most of the time, or use an appropriate Scene. When I need something special, I switch to whatever is required, no fuss, no muss. I can use what I want, when I want.

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Aug 16, 2018 18:05:41   #
Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington
 
martinfisherphoto wrote:
Unfortunately those that Don't understand the exposure triangle fumble thru photography and fill the pages of this forum with simple questions...
The simple answers are just as much a problem IMO. A couple of folks have criticized me and others for attempting to broaden a response from "start with f/11, 1/500 sec, ISO 400" to include talking about why you would prioritize aperture over shutter speed (or vice versa) and stressing the importance of learning basic exposure in order to be able to make informed choices when encountering the next tricky lighting situation.

However, speaking to your point, Martin, I'm starting to realize that with newbies, it may not be so much a lack of underestimating the need to study as it is just not knowing there actually are ways to get beyond the guessing game (or the "I keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result" mode ). So we should all start posting exposure triangle graphics!!

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Aug 16, 2018 23:21:08   #
Chaostrain Loc: Hillsboro, Oregon
 
Eyes roll back, zzzzzzzzz

Here we go again.

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Aug 17, 2018 00:17:53   #
graybeard
 
CHG_CANON wrote:
Είναι όλα ελληνικά για μένα

(It's all Greek to me ...)


How do you get your keyboard to make those overstroke characters you have there??

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