Originally posted by Frank Fletcher It's interesting that you chose to stop down instead of decreasing time in a low light situation.
decision to stop down was for depth of field, note this is a lens with a close focus of about 12 feet, and I was very close to that limit, hence DOF is very narrow,
Additionally, the lens performs much better stopped down a little than wide open, and 1/100 is all I was willing to go down to on shutter speed, again note the "rule of thumb" suggests 1/500 (focal length)/1.5 (crop factor) or 1/750th hand held. I was essentually 3 stops below that which kind of suggests shake reduction actually does something useful. This was one point the posting is intended to demonstrate
Quote: I'm not sure how exposure compensation in manual mode would do anything other than confuse the operator. My K10D still displays the "compensation" or deviation from the metered EV. All I need to do is "fiddle with the dials".
the K10D has an interesting problem. The light meter has an inherent error that is introduced by the focusing screen. I have posted about this before, but in essence, only a lens at F4 is correct. Faster lenses tend to under expose, slower lenses over expose. You don't notice this with "A" lenses when in A mode because the camera is programmed to correct for the error, BUT manual lenses are a different story all together. So are "A" lenses when you use a TC. As a result, even if you are in manual mode, the metering can and is wrong. I prefer to be able, for example with my Sigma APO 70-200 F2.8 when used with a TC be able to dial in the compensation and correct it once and for all, not have to meter, then check, or look at the histogram. With the combination I had, I was metering wide open, then stopping down without moving my eye from the view finder manually to get the correct exposure, Not a very convenient way to work
Quote: Hmm... on retrospect, I do see what you might be after - the automatic "re-tuning" of the meter so you don't have to change aperture or duration. Again though, I'm not sure it would help me much given that once my exposure was correct for the given light, I could happily shoot again and again without metering, perhaps fine-tuning as I go.
Am I missing something?
The only thing you are missing is that you have to make the correction for each time you meter in different light, as opposed to being able to set it once, and then forget it. up until the K10D, every pentax I owned, film and digital, let you apply the same compensation to all metering modes. Many people did this to compensate for example with slides, and kodachrome, to protect highlights.