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Forum: Photographic Technique
04-21-2011, 04:22 AM
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One way to learn what a 'stop' looks like is to look through a filter, ND if possible, or a POL... a stop isn't much at all, less than most sun glasses. A third of a stop is even less.
Another way to look at exposure: point your camera at a scene, meter as accurately as you can. Now move your camera just a little in some direction, and meter again. Are you less than a third of a stop off? Unless the scene is unusually uniform, probably you are more than 1/3 stop different.
The auto exposure camera makers and their gurus have convinced us that 'correct' exposure is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL for any sort of GOOD PHOTOGRAPHY.
That if you are off by as much as 1/2 stop, you might as well not have bothered with the picture. Even the slide film thing doesn't require 1/3 stop fussiness, though the latitude is less.... (that quarter stop fussiness is spurious, possibly only important in a controlled studio lighting situation). The purpose of this propaganda is to CONVINCE US PHOTOGRAPHERS that we need computer controlled, multi segment, precision-readout built in metering in our cameras.
While nice to have, we don't need anything such. Also, there's a known fallacy about measurement readouts having too much 'precision' -- when this precision is a) non repeatable b) creates a sense dependency c) is in fact non-significant d) and does not imply 'precision' in the sense of finely and specifically sensored, but rather mathematical precision as in how many zeroes to the right of the decimal place?
In other words, how useful is it to you that the 'correct' exposure at this moment, pointing at that scene, is 1/374924... of a second at f/4.5392...? Especially as the next second it may be TOTALLY DIFFERENT as in 1/38012... second at f/4.5600!!!
But the damage is done, we are fearful of exposure 'imprecision', of losing control, of being thought of as BAD EXPOSERS, Sinning against The One True Exposure!
The thing is, we can choose what to meter; we can choose what is 'correct' in a situation; good pictures, some of the best and most iconic photos in history, have been made without a meter and without the photographer worrying about that last 1/3 stop.
We should all at least put our digital cameras on manual exposure, and purposely try the 'wrong exposure', go against what the electronic brain of the camera is telling us, and the marketeers of the industry are beating into us: free ourselves from the tyranny of MONOTHEISTIC EXPOSURE! REALIZE THERE ARE AS MANY CORRECT EXPOSURES AS THERE ARE PHOTOGRAPHERS! |
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Forum: Photography Articles
10-31-2010, 10:10 AM
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This article contains a few pictures and clip art so it is posted as a series of 3 jpeg files below:
The above article was 'inspired':D by this forum and by a project called Single in September that took place in the Pentax Forums in September 2010. The objective was to take a single picture everyday in September using only a single lens as a therapy for LBA!!
One result of that challenge was a book:
Took a look at the preview of the book on blurb:
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1682528 |
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
10-19-2010, 08:08 AM
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Sorry about the mistake. Didn't notice the copy/paste error :(
Updated w/ the correct links, hope DA35/2.4 would look slightly better at F4 now ;)
Thanks for pointing this out.
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