The mysterious magic box!
Some time back in the early 1990 time frame, I was a prolific bowler to say the least. I tried to put in a minimum of 50 games/week of practice. I became quite good, though never reached a professional level. My friends and I would enter quite a few tournaments. Some we won, most we didn’t. It wasn’t for lack of trying because we all were pretty good, but so were the other people!
I remember that we would go to the bowling centers carrying our bowling balls that we had had for a couple of years. Inevitably, we’d run into someone who was dressed to the nines. I mean, they had it all: The best bowling ball on the market ($200), the best bowling shoes ($150), the best wrist guard ($45), and of course, the best bag ($100). So, here they were with $500 worth of gear, ready to roll. We used to joke because we knew what to expect. Usually, this guy wouldn’t have a clue about the fundamentals of bowling. Most times, we were right. They’d saunter up to the line, looking quite good in their bowling regalia, and promptly deposit the ball right into the gutter! All that we could do was shake our heads. They knew nothing about the weight of the ball, the weight of the pins, composition of the lane (wood or polyester), composition of the ball, oil pattern, etc. All of these, especially the type of ball and the amount of oil on the lane and how it was placed, could materially affect the outcome of the game. The knew nothing. They simply had nice gear.
I remember going to a tournament out of town, as well. We showed up and the bowling center hadn’t automated the scoring. It was funny to watch the younger guys flounder. They were fairly competent bowlers, but had absolutely no clue as to how to keep their own score. It was mysterious to them. The computer had always done it!
With the introduction of digital cameras, matrix metering, and program modes, photography has become a bit like the bowling. A person can go out, buy an expensive DSLR and not have a single clue as to how exposure works, or even what exposure is for that matter. They don’t know about apertures, shutter speed, ISO, etc. Granted, a camera on program mode, using matrix metering, will get you the shot 90% of the time, perhaps. However, the problem starts when you get into those situations where the computer cannot help you because the situations are far out of the norm. Uh, oh! No computers to help. B.C., or Before Computers, consumer-level photography was basically divided into two camps: SLR, and other: (Disc, 110, disposable, Polaroid, etc). People who wanted to learn, or perhaps didn’t mind learning, about exposure, etc, used an SLR. Everyone else had what amounted to point and shoots.
I suppose it’s not a big deal that one doesn’t know about or understand exposure unless you want to take your photography to the next level, expression. How do I make that water blur or capture that runner’s movement? How can I make the photo feel moody? Then what? You have to drop back and learn the basics, which is probably a good place to start. I’ve seen my share of people with expensive cameras who have no clue whatsoever about how to use them. To them, it’s just a big mysterious magic box. It works most of the time, but when it doesn’t, it’s just not that important anyway.
If you know about exposure, when did you learn about it? Was it back in the film days? Was it shortly after you got your first digital camera?
I probably learned the most about exposure from my early workshops with Rod Planck, and of course using slide film which has little tolerance for being over or under exposure. And of course, manual metering!
Although even the lastest “cheap” digital cameras do wonders on program mode – usually those looking to get more from their photography than snapshots eventually wander elsewhere.
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My first experience was from a couple of basic photography classes I took in the late 1970s while in the Air Force. This was theory as well as practice, with labs, so it was a good experience.
Most of the time I’m happy with how well those little computers perform but it’s nice knowing what they’re doing and being able to over-ride them if needed.
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I learnt about exposure through trial and error by carrying a small notebook where I would write all the details so that I could see what worked and what didn’t. However cameras today do an amazing job (my camera can detect a high contrast scene and expose the bright and dark separately – or at least that’s what it seems to do). Soon I suspect that cameras will be able to do HDR in-camera and everyshot will be technically perfect where exposure is concerned. I suspect that one day cameras will even be able to guide users with composition. But no camera will ever be able to ‘see’. Not the way you captured that tree trunk. That requires something that can’t be programmed.
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Haha, I was afraid you were to conclude your story in a statement like, ‘and what have I become, just like them’. To my relive, you didn’t.
I learned the basics of exposure during the late 70s, with a dead simple, East German rangefinder, which had one shutter speed and, I think, three different apertures. The aperture scale had two sets of symbols, one with the actual values (likely 5.6, 8 and 11) and one with a cloud, a partly cloud and a sun symbol. Worked pretty well, I must say; I learnt the basics.
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My father had some sort of camera, a Voigtlander, I suppose it was a rangefinder. I remember that at the age of 12 I could use it and that I was producing technically correct images. I stopped a year later, film cost was an issue and I think it had a defect and was not repaired, but from then on I knew the basic principles. When I finally ended up with a digital camera in 2004, a Kodak bridge camera, and then in 2006 the D200, the basics were not really unfamiliar. Everything else is practice
Other than that: WOW! I really, really love that tree image, and I suppose it’s one of those images that are so much better in B&W. Wonderful.
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I came to exposure cotrol in a round-about way. My first camera (a Konica Pop) had rudimentary aperture control (actual marked with ASA numbers for using with different flim) but I soon learnt I could control exposure in different light with it – it had a fixed shutter speed.
When I got an SLR it had auto-exposure and with the latitude of negative flim, I didn’t need to deviate much. Aperture became critical for DoF control. I did test exposure for some outliers (dark, very bright, blue skies, sunsets etc) to learn situation-based compensation.
At first with digital and the feedback of the histogram, I ws often optmising exposure. Taking lots of shots and using the immediate feedback I learnt how my cameras do in many situations and again built up that situation-based knowledge. And of course, there is all that creative stuff that really took digital to push me into experimenting.
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My father came back from Europe after WWII with a TLR that he used for 20 years or so. There was always film in the fridge growing up. I must’ve picked up something from watching him. Then, when I took my first photo course in college, my teacher at that time taught exposure, of course, but my memory is that I already knew the fundamentals. That was long enough ago that there were no automatic cameras of any kind (the Canon AE-1 hadn’t even come out yet). So, to get properly exposed images, you had to learn at least the basics of match-needle metering.
The automation is good and bad. I don’t think my wife would be as interested in photography as she is without automatic metering (the math intimidates her a little) but because of the automation, she cannot operate without it, so opportunities pass her by.
I’ve tried to get her to use a manual camera for a while, but no go.
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I learned about using cameras back in the film days. My friend Bill and I (Paul, you know Bill) bought all manual cameras back when cameras like the Canon AE-1 and Minolta XG-7 were popular.
Bill had a Canon AT-1 (match needle) and I had a Pentax MX. This use of a manual camera makes a huge impact my work today.
Same with computers. I began using them in the ’70′s when you had to program them. The information I obtained then (because I had to) has served me well today where things are more automatic.
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I learned it shooting Velvia 50 in a Super Ricohflex which was my first foray into medium format about 4 years ago. With no meter and only a paper slide rule to calculate exposure, it was learning exposure by jumping into the deep end.
I did get some wonderful results though
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My first 35mm was a used Agfa rangefinder which I bought in 1967, I really don’t remember to much about it but the images were great. My first SLR was a Yashica I bought in Vietnam and it was really the camera I learned on, you can see my Vietnam images here http://rememberingvietnam.blogspot.com/
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My father and his Voigtlander, which he inherited to me. And which had a broken light meter that was beyond repair. So I bought a cheap external lightmeter. And of course, I quickly got annoyed with using it – so I ended up estimating the light in most situations. Worked quite good, except those times when it did not…
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Way back in the 70′s I bought the Zone IV book by Fred Picker (Only a quarter of it was useful). This shortly prompted the purchase of a Soligor spot meter which I then modified to produce readings corresponding to the Zone system. Unfortunately messing with a spot meter and a liquid darkroom was too much work and did not provide a fast enough turn around for me (Today the slower pace may be more agreeable). The alternative of using professional photo labs was a disaster in terms of exposure and picture quality.
I much prefer digital with RGB histograms with processing on my computer all under my control.
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I learned the basics of the technical tools of the camera when just starting back in the 1960′s using a twin lens reflex camera and mentored by a man named Guy Robertson. Composition came later on in life. I will admit that going digital has helped me grow far beyond in both areas. With digital I’ve learned to break the rules and use exposure to create new and exciting images.
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I didn’t start exploring photography until I got a digital camera. In the beginnning, I was content with shooting on Auto; but that didn’t last long. Fortunately for me, my husband had studied photography as a young man and was able to help me understand the basics. I quickly began working in Manual mode and using the histogram. A lot of innocent pixels were sacrificed, but digital was a great way to learn.
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My experience somewhat mirrors Chris’s. Dad shot his Leica and let me use the old Kodak Retina along with a GE light meter, I still have both. He wasn’t the most patient teacher but I did pay attention to the differences in the images and soon graduated to Kodachrome 25asa slide film. To this day I think I see in Tri-X 400. Somewhere in the early 70′s I moved into an SLR (Pentax) and on and on.
Paul most people will learn just as much as they really want to, and most will hope that someone makes a program or machine to do it for them. All that is fine till it doesn’t fit into the foreseen situations, then the basics allow you to adapt and create what you see in your head. If it matters to you you learn.
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I learned about “exposure” way back in the early seventies with my Canon FTB SLR. Before the SLR I was using an old Brownie Target Six-20 camera which I still own.
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