Wingpilot wrote:
I'm not sure what you're telling me here. But she's gonna learn this stuff a little bit at a time. I taught my grandson well--he's now a professional photographer--so I figure I can get her started. She's not the least bit intimidated by the D90, either.
Right--I undertand.
My point was that we learn by making mistakes. But for learning to happen,
the student has to know when she has made a mistake. Sometimes when a picture
doesn't turn out, it's not the shooter's fault---it may not have been a makable shot,
or the camera may have messed up -- becasue that's a computerized camera.
It makes decisions for the shooter (if you let it).
Suppose I point it, hit the shutter button, then look at the photo and it's a bit
out of focus. Is it something I did, or did the AF mess up? And if it's the
AF, is within tolearances or is the camera broken? Difficult to say.
What if there's a bug in the firmware? However will I know? I'll blame
myself or figure that the shot wasn't makable. Either way, I haven't learned
anything or I've learned something false.
On a very complex "smart" camera, failure doesn't necessarily mean you did
something wrong, nor does success mean you did something right. It's like
when a novice poker player draws to an inside straight and makes it: he
wins the pot and concludes that he played well. But in reality, he played badly
and just got lucky.
I know that AF sometimes has trouble with low constrast scenes without
sharp edges, and sometimes in low light. But how do I figure out what
exactly went wrong?
On a manual focus camera, if the image is blurry, it's the photographer's fault.
You know what to do: check the distance with a tape measure (like they do on
movie sets) and set the distance you measure on the focus ring. If the shots
still blurry, the lens needs to be collimated and calibrated (which is fairly
simple and straighforward).
It's a whole lot simpler to figure out what's wrong with a screwdriver than
with a self-driving car. That D90 is close to latter than the former.
There is so much automation that turning it all off is difficult--and it's still
running a firmware program.
Remember when you learned how to read and write on a paper or a chalkboard?
You didn't try to learn typing at the same time, or typesetting. Simpler is
better for learning.
Hope this is clearer.