"AUTO" on digital cameras

On Sun, 02 Apr 2006 05:38:31 -0500, Ron Hunter
wrote:

It may shock you to discover that not everyone aspires to having his
photos in National Geographic, or Texas Highways. Most of us are happy
to see the smile of Aunt Tillie, given that she died last year.

Aunt Tillie died!?!?!?!?

ASAAR wrote:
On Sun, 02 Apr 2006 05:38:31 -0500, Ron Hunter, writing of his late,
great Aunt Tillie, said::

It may shock you to discover that not everyone aspires to having his
photos in National Geographic, or Texas Highways. Most of us are happy
to see the smile of Aunt Tillie, given that she died last year.

Her nonchalant grin was belied by the steel in her eyes as she
uttered her last words, forever etched in my mind, which were "I'll
learn how to use your Kodak's manual modes if it kills me!"



Grin.
Kodak gets high marks on reviews for their easy to set, and use,
controls. It is obvious that the testers DON'T try the manual modes!
They are anything but easy to use!

ASAAR wrote:
On Sun, 02 Apr 2006 05:38:31 -0500, Ron Hunter wrote:

My camera stays on Auto, because that is the kind of photography I do.
Did it with film, do it with digital. The medium isn't the message.

I took several pictures last week of a little gray squirrel,
almost constantly moving from branch to branch in a tree that had no
leaves to block the bright sky behind it. No exposure mode would
get the proper exposure if the squirrel was anywhere in the frame.
It only took a few seconds to check what settings would make a
proper exposure, and I then set the camera to those values using
manual mode. Prefocusing helped a lot, and I was ready to press the
shutter the rest of the way whenever the squirrel stopped moving.
If I used AUTO mode it would have made getting a good shot much,
much more difficult. Somehow I get the feeling that the kind of
photography you do is dependant on what AUTO mode allows.


"Even I take better pictures than Ron Hunter" -- Marshall McLuhan,
author of Understanding Media.

And he came to the conclusion how?

BTW, I don't often take pictures of squirrels. They are much too fast
for me. As for limitation to what AUTO mode allows, all cameras have
their limitations in any mode. One learns to make the best use of what
one has.

On Tue, 04 Apr 2006 03:14:19 -0500, Ron Hunter wrote:

"Even I take better pictures than Ron Hunter" -- Marshall McLuhan,
author of Understanding Media.

And he came to the conclusion how?

He was shown a few of the snapshots that Aunt Tillie managed to
bring with her to the other side.