The association you make between creative writing and speed is most revealing.
The association you make between creative writing and speed is most revealing.The analogy of writing a novel using a laptop is quite a good one. Just like camera automation it may change the speed at which you complete the task and the volume of the outcome, but makes no difference to the creative input.
The association you make between creative writing and speed is most revealing.
You may, or may not be missing my point. If you can do everything you need to do with a simple, well made manual camera, what was the last twenty years of camera 'innovation' except a huge marketing exercise? Leica users (of whom I'm not a member) always insisted it was all a side show to the business of making pictures.
I don't believe it is evil, I think it's irrelevant to the business of making interesting photographs. I own such 'seminal' SLRs as the Canon T90 and other technical marvels, and while they have great historical novelty value and are capable of taking fine photos, they don't take 'better' photographs than my full manual Nikon F, Canon FTb, Zeiss Ikons, OM1, etc. The term straw man is a ridiculously overused term of internet abuse, but it's hard to see my appraisal of camera developments as evil in any other way. Marketing, spin and hype, I'd definitely concur with.I don't think I am missing your point. I think you are being narrow-minded and not accepting the fact that the last 20 years (more, actually) of camera innovation is much more than a huge marketing exercise. Sure, you and others have no need for such innovation but that does not make it either evil or useless or market manipulation.
Camera manufacturers, like all consumer products marketers have to convince that that this years all singing, all dancing product is better than the last years, and make them so dissatisfied with what they have they want to replace it with the new one. Digital photography pulled off the greatest marketing coup of all time by re-inventing the wheel and selling millions of cameras all around the World to people who had perfect good ones already.You may, or may not be missing my point. If you can do everything you need to do with a simple, well made manual camera, what was the last twenty years of camera 'innovation' except a huge marketing exercise? Leica users (of whom I'm not a member) always insisted it was all a side show to the business of making pictures.
Camera manufacturers, like all consumer products marketers have to convince that that this years all singing, all dancing product is better than the last years, and make them so dissatisfied with what they have they want to replace it with the new one. Digital photography pulled off the greatest marketing coup of all time by re-inventing the wheel and selling millions of cameras all around the World to people who had perfect good ones already.
I don't believe it is evil, I think it's irrelevant to the business of making interesting photographs. I own such 'seminal' SLRs as the Canon T90 and other technical marvels, and while they have great historical novelty value and are capable of taking fine photos, they don't take 'better' photographs than my full manual Nikon F, Canon FTb, Zeiss Ikons, OM1, etc. The term straw man is a ridiculously overused term of internet abuse, but it's hard to see my appraisal of camera developments as evil in any other way. Marketing, spin and hype, I'd definitely concur with.
No, that's in your own head. I'm saying you don't need a huge brick with a dozen buttons and a menu to take great photos. If toting the brick around is your idea of fun, go for it (as I said way back in the thread).Conversely, you do seem to be implying that your Nikon F, Canon FTb and Zeiss Ikons, et al. are capable of taking "better" photographs than the T90 and friends.
Benjiboy made an excellent point and you've flagged up another straw man. He and I have both worked in camera sales (me many years ago) so are able to tell facts from fancy.Ya... same goes for talkies. Talk about re-inventing wheels. Who needs sound. Silent movies were enough to understand what the story was about. In fact, those crazy subtitles were a waste of time too. EVERYBODY knows what is going on so why do they think they have to tell us?
35mm technical advancement was driven by the consumer
I agree. It used to be the case that SLRs were the camera to be seen with, but a substantial minority, perhaps even a majority of purchasers, didn't know how to use one. So when Program mode and other auto settings came along they could be seen with a 'professional' camera, and have pictures that 'came out' to impress their family, without troubling with all those dials. I bet a large number never moved off P mode for their entire lives, and as long as a majority of their photographs were okay, they were happy. Nothing wrong with that, but the shots they took were indistinguishable from a point and shoot which would have fit in their purse/pocket.In my experience of more than 20 years of selling cameras the general public tend to use technology as a crutch for lack of knowledge , so they can take "good" pictures, without actually thinking.
I agree. It used to be the case that SLRs were the camera to be seen with, but a substantial minority, perhaps even a majority of purchasers, didn't know how to use one. So when Program mode and other auto settings came along they could be seen with a 'professional' camera, and have pictures that 'came out' to impress their family, without troubling with all those dials. I bet a large number never moved off P mode for their entire lives, and as long as a majority of their photographs were okay, they were happy. Nothing wrong with that, but the shots they took were indistinguishable from a point and shoot which would have fit in their purse/pocket.
Most innovations were obstacles for people who knew what they were doing, or at least added cost, weight and complexity. It took years for autofocus to work as people imagined it originally should, and the first couple of generations were risible. Slow kit zooms - another fashion people thought they needed over a standard prime - and dull conditions must have been an exercise in frustration, when excellent fresnel screens that would focus in a moment had been available for years. And so it went on, and still does.
Each to their own and all that, but most camera technology from the eighties until digital came along was a solution in search of a problem.
I hope you understand and accept that I'm allowed my opinion, and I back it up with examples. The OPs asks whether using a camera in manual is difficult. The answer is no. So long as you know what you're doing it's easy. If you don't know what you're doing technology won't fix it for you (unless you want someone else's idea of average).I hope you understand and accept that not everyone shares your opinion.
Good example MDR. Is AE lock quicker than metering a scene? It's arguable, depends on the conditions. AE lock is certainly useful, probably essential, if the controls that allowed you to meter manually are tucked away somewhere. Put the aperture and shutter speed in dedicated dials and manual metering and override is no problem and as instant as anything you'll find on a camera. Then there was the great disappearing aperture ring ruse. That was a consumer benefit how exactly?Blockend correct metering can be done with an AF and a fully manual camera that's what an AE Lock is there for. In both cases manual and Auto the user is the problem not the camera correctly used both can create superb results. And the fastest focussing is done with a fix focus camera
I've known many camera sales people who knew every technical detail of every high- tech camera on the market who knew nothing about taking pictures, whose work was like amateur snaps, all their knowledge was theoretical, gleaned from camera specifications on sales brochures, they were like car salesman who couldn't drive .Benjiboy made an excellent point and you've flagged up another straw man. He and I have both worked in camera sales (me many years ago) so are able to tell facts from fancy.
I once knew a camera salesman who could wax lyrical about the latest thing and sell fridges to Eskimos. What camera did he use? The same Nikon rangefinder he used for ever.
My remarks don't apply to everyone that I have worked with in camera stores, and I don't agree with the mistaken logic of your assertion that "if people were good photographers they would't work in camera shops" erroneous,I have known many committed and excellent photographers who didn't want to do it for a living and needed the security of a regular job because they had wives and children, like many members of this site.That describes every camera shop employee I have ever met... except the ones who knew nothing at all. I suppose if they were good photographers they wouldn't be working in a camera shop.
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