Stupid things Camera Companies leave out...

[darinwc]

Then why do my meters give different readings, depending upon whether or not light is getting in through the viewfinder?

I've checked this myself and assure you that it is indeed, at least for some cameras, particularly automatic everything models, a metering issue.

Most cameras use the meter reading from just before the shutter is tripped. Or if you are using TTL manual metering. Light travels through the lens and out the eyepeice, but it also does the reverse. Metering systems that measure the light on the ground-glass tend to be more prone to this than ones that use a partial silvered mirror. Some systems use live metering during the exposure (olympus OM, Pentax LX) and some meter after the mirror is raised (minolta MD11, x700).
Especially if you are using manual TTL metering, make sure you meter with your eye over the viewfinder.

 

[Diapositivo]

Yeah, I've seen those. They're such utterly losable little things, with what seems to me minimal utility, that I always wondered why they bothered. But Fabrizio considers them important, and of course there's no disagreement with what someone else finds useful. Just goes to show about tastes and styles.

I normally meter manually but there are circumstances when you do auto work without your eye on the eyepiece. Imagine taking pictures above your head as an example, or tripod work when for some reason you want the camera to meter for you.

What I mean is that the small mechanical shutter inside the pentaprism is an expensive piece of precision mechanics, and it's wasted money. An ocular shutter as a piece of plastic in your camera strap costs very near to nothing and is always there when needed. Many professional cameras have the expensive contraction unnecessarily raising the cost. More economical cameras never have it. I like when something is very simple and economical yet very effective.

 

[Bill Burk]

Not to mention that lighleaks through the viewfinder (if they exist, I'm sure it's possible in some cameras) will be the same problem no matter what the length of exposure is.

Of course it depends on the camera model. The exposure time on a camera like OM-4 would not be affected by light coming through the viewfinder because the sensor is inside the mirror chamber and once the mirror is up, the cell is looking at the film and updating shutter depending on light off the film. But the ESII meter cells look at ground glass from up in the prism area... These cells would see light through the viewfinder when the mirror is up - so that camera needs the viewfinder blind feature to keep viewfinder light from altering exposure.

 

[lxdude]

The eyepiece cover has nothing to do with metering, it's that with long exposures, you sometimes have light leak THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER so you need to cover it so that when the mirror is up and shutter is open, the film doesn't get unwanted stray light from the viewfinder.

As said here, the cover definitely has everything to do with metering. Except on a camera like the LX, which has no blind and does not need the eyepiece covered, because stray light through the eyepiece does not reach the photocell. I had to point a flashlight directly into the eyepiece to affect the meter reading on mine, and even then it went up only one stop. As for viewfinder stray light reaching the film with the mirror up and shutter open, it will never happen unless the light seals are bad. Otherwise, no one could ever use a waist level finder or sports finder.

 

[benjiboy]

To a large degree the features a camera has is decided by the advertising agency the manufacturers use to promote their products, because it may be the best camera ever made , but the most important thing about it is that it sells in sufficient numbers to justify the development and manufacturing costs the makers have incurred and turns a profit, they have to think about how many knobs and whistles they put on it to compete with their industry rivals and to make it desirable to potential buyers.

 

[lxdude]

Marketing departments might determine what features a product has, but not advertising agencies.

 

[StoneNYC]

So I came upon my first camera bag (box actually) and was going through my old Canon extras and found this...

Now I got all my equipment from my dad when I was 12, and I've NEVER known what this was, it obviously went on the camera strap but I could never figure out what it was for, it didn't fit on the viewfinder so it wasn't for blacking out the viewfinder for long exposures, besides It already had a rubber piece for that...

If it weren't for an APUG member complaint here that they never give you a place to store an extra battery, I would never have realized that's just what this is!!

The battery goes inside, and then the camera strap cloth sort of keeps it from falling out. Now in practice I can't be sure it's very secure, but it's kind of neat to discover this 18 years later...

Thanks APUG!


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

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[pdeeh]

None of my film cameras seem to have the (rather useful) LCD on the back that my digital cameras all feature, so I can't preview my shots. It's a bit annoying really.

 

[benjiboy]

None of my film cameras seem to have the (rather useful) LCD on the back that my digital cameras all feature, so I can't preview my shots. It's a bit annoying really.

There's no need to be annoyed, if you get enough experience of shooting film you don't need the chimping window at back of the camera, you can visualize what the shot you have just taken will look like in your head.

 

[StoneNYC]

None of my film cameras seem to have the (rather useful) LCD on the back that my digital cameras all feature, so I can't preview my shots. It's a bit annoying really.

I always thought they should have had a hybrid like that... I can't believe they never did, the movie industry did that, have a double mirror that does both film and sends a low quality signal for checking purposes


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

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[Diapositivo]

None of my film cameras seem to have the (rather useful) LCD on the back that my digital cameras all feature, so I can't preview my shots. It's a bit annoying really.

Some Polaroid cameras had that function, I think. You got an immediate (sort of) small preview, the instant picture. And you had a printable negative with certain kind of instant film, hadn't you? So you had both the preview and the real stuff to enlarge. Waaaaay before digital

 

[StoneNYC]

Some Polaroid cameras had that function, I think. You got an immediate (sort of) small preview, the instant picture. And you had a printable negative with certain kind of instant film, hadn't you? So you had both the preview and the real stuff to enlarge. Waaaaay before digital

Type 55

Yup

Some guys Massachusetts USA are working on replicating it but it doesn't seem to be very fine from the few nude images I saw taken with it. But I would like some anyway


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Sirius Glass]

A filter that automatically photographs all beautiful young women without clothes on. It has a switch so that female owners can do the same with men.

 

[LJSLATER]

Leica made a hybrid!

http://www.shutterbug.com/content/leica%E2%80%99s-digital-modul-r-powerful-pricey-leica-slr-digital-back-arrives

The idea didn't seem to catch on, I'm guessing because the digital back cost twice as much as the camera. I'd love to have one, just for the hell of it. I might even take pictures with it.

 

[StoneNYC]

Leica made a hybrid!

http://www.shutterbug.com/content/leica%E2%80%99s-digital-modul-r-powerful-pricey-leica-slr-digital-back-arrives

The idea didn't seem to catch on, I'm guessing because the digital back cost twice as much as the camera. I'd love to have one, just for the hell of it. I might even take pictures with it.

Link doesn't work... What's the name I'll google it...


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[LJSLATER]

Digital Modul R. Fits both the R8 and R9, and has a 10 megapixel Kodak crop sensor. I'm not sure if you can switch between film and digital in the field though. It's kind of a silly contraption; it reminds me of the Speed Magny for Nikons that has an enlarger lens inside and loses something like five stops of light.

 

[Chan Tran]

How about the Nikon E digital camera which has the reduction lens to reduce the full frame 35mm down to fit the tiny sensor. Although the sensor is smaller than that of the APS-C size there is no crop factor because of the reduction optics in the camera.

 

[LJSLATER]

Ha, I've only read about those. Wasn't there a variant that was B&W only and used CCTV technology? The camera bodies look obese. Very cool though.

 

[StoneNYC]

I meant like same image from the same click. As in you take the picture and the film exposes and so does the digital sensor, if movie cameras can do it at 60/fps then surely a stills camera could be made like that.


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Yashinoff]

I thought they used a video camera that was mounted to the movie camera to do that? No?

 

[StoneNYC]

I thought they used a video camera that was mounted to the movie camera to do that? No?

Not on today's cameras, at least the high end ones, I only work on large budget movies ($1,000,000 to $500,000,000 budget movies) and the film cameras all have like a floating shutter mirror, so in between shutter clicks (in between frames) a second mirror projects the image onto a sensor then back to the film for the next frame. It's REALY fast, about 1/3 the time it takes for a single frame to go, so if its 24/fps (standard movie) it's 1/3 that speed between frames, but I've seen up to 60/fps cameras that had that video feed function


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[williamkazak]

F3 does not have a flash shoe, nor 1/250 flash sync. I had a pair of Nikon f3 bodies for years and I got really annoyed at times.

 

[Salem]

But more than anything... Time lapse... I don't for the life of me understand why they can't have an internal timer that allows for you to take an image every 10 minutes or 30 minutes or every hour, it would be easy to program. Drives me nuts....

I remember I bought a compact samsung in the early nineties that had this feature. I would set it to take a snapshot every thirty minutes and mount it on a tripod and turn it off. Every 30 minutes it would spring back to life, the lens extends and it takes a shot and then the lens retracts back and it shuts itself off waiting for another 30 minutes to elapse before doing the same thing again. It was a nice feature that I put to use maybe once or twice! If it also had anti-theft alarm it would be setting now at the back of my camera closet.

 

[StoneNYC]

I remember I bought a compact samsung in the early nineties that had this feature. I would set it to take a snapshot every thirty minutes and mount it on a tripod and turn it off. Every 30 minutes it would spring back to life, the lens extends and it takes a shot and then the lens retracts back and it shuts itself off waiting for another 30 minutes to elapse before doing the same thing again. It was a nice feature that I put to use maybe once or twice! If it also had anti-theft alarm it would be setting now at the back of my camera closet.

That's a feature all camera's should have, especially pro ones... for stop motion etc, I've never understood some of the things the pro models leave out... it's sad and amazing how stupid some of the companies are.

 

[Diapositivo]

That's a feature all camera's should have, especially pro ones... for stop motion etc, I've never understood some of the things the pro models leave out... it's sad and amazing how stupid some of the companies are.

I think this feature is not considered by makers because it is a feature that, if inadvertently activated, will ruin a roll without the photographer knowing and probably without even understanding why.

Never underestimate the ability of the user to not read the instruction manual or to not understand it. The reputation of the camera maker might suffer, and the feature would probably not drive many sales in any case. Timed sequences require substantially a tripod and most compact cameras don't even have the tripod "screw".