Comments on: The mysterious magic box!

By: Robert Longpré

Robert Longpré — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:49:27 +0000

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.

By: Ray K

Ray K — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:41:27 +0000

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.

By: Anita Jesse

Anita Jesse — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:19:46 +0000

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.

By: Monte Stevens

Monte Stevens — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:05:44 +0000

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.

By: bob wong

bob wong — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:57:42 +0000

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.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:58:27 +0000

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…

By: Don

Don — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:51:20 +0000

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/

By: Adam Maas

Adam Maas — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:22:47 +0000

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

By: Rob Terry

Rob Terry — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:05:08 +0000

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.

By: Chris Klug

Chris Klug — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:50:33 +0000

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.