If you could have any kind of camera (even non-existant ones) what would you choose?

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

Because it still works.

so do modern cameras.

there is *nothing* that a 50 year old relic can do that a modern camera
cannot do better, more accurately and more reliably and with *much*
better results.

I know what Ken Hart means. For some purposes the all singing-dancing
modern camera can get between the photographer and the taking of the
picture.

nonsense.

You can of course ignore the dance band.

exactly, which is why it's nonsense.

set the camera to manual if you don't want the automatic stuff.

Would you then decry it, the way you do when someone says they only
want a basic camera?

i didn't decry wanting a basic camera.

i questioned wanting a 50 year old camera when someone could have
anything they wanted.

look to the future at what might be considered impossible today.

and if someone wants to shoot in manual, they still can. set the camera
to manual mode and enjoy the advances 50 years brings (digital imaging,
more accurate shutter, etc.), but still with manual everything.

In article , Tony Cooper
wrote:

Just hire someone to take your photographs and you won't have to
bother with all "effort* involved in a modern camera. You might as
well hire someone to look at them, too. Save you more bother.

trolling again, i see.

In article , Tony Cooper
wrote:

good luck trying to maintain focus on a moving object without autofocus.

This hints that you are not, and never were, a photographer.

more bashing.

Those of
us who used cameras before autofocus learned to take sharp in-focus
shots of rapidly moving objects from sports figures to race cars.

We focussed on where the object would be and tripped the shutter when
the object was there or panned with the subject. We didn't try to
maintain focus on a rapidly moving object.

that's *not* tracking focus.

that actually proves my point, in that humans can't track-focus. they
*had* to pre-focus at a certain spot because there was no way to do it
any other way.

with today's cameras, there's no need for that because autofocus can
track and keep the subject in focus faster than a human can.

and if someone really wants to pre-focus today, they can simply turn
off autofocus and prefocus at a particular spot.

thanks for playing.

In article , Tony Cooper
wrote:

Those of
us who used cameras before autofocus learned to take sharp in-focus
shots of rapidly moving objects from sports figures to race cars.

We focussed on where the object would be and tripped the shutter when
the object was there or panned with the subject. We didn't try to
maintain focus on a rapidly moving object.

that's *not* tracking focus.

As you constantly say...I didn't say it was. I said that's what we
did.

only because you had no choice to do that.

you're actually proving my point.

that actually proves my point, in that humans can't track-focus. they
*had* to pre-focus at a certain spot because there was no way to do it
any other way.

And, it worked.

with a lot of limitations that fortunately no longer exist.

a manual typewriter also worked, but who the hell wants to go back to
that?

In article , Tony Cooper
wrote:

We focussed on where the object would be and tripped the shutter when
the object was there or panned with the subject. We didn't try to
maintain focus on a rapidly moving object.

that's *not* tracking focus.

As you constantly say...I didn't say it was. I said that's what we
did.

only because you had no choice to do that.

you're actually proving my point.

Your point? What was that? That older cameras don't have tracking
focus ability?

yes.

Is that supposed to be news? Is that supposed to be a point that
needs to be proved?

apparently to you, it does.

The more important point is that photographers were able to accomplish
things like in-focus shots of rapidly moving objects before autofocus.

actually they weren't.

what they were able to do was wait for the subject to be in a
particular spot and then take a photo, hoping it will be a good one.

if something happened at a different spot, then they were out of luck.

taking photos of rapidly moving subjects with tracking focus is very
different and something that was not possible back then.

On Sat, 25 Jul 2015 21:56:02 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

Metering and focusing are all part of the art of composing a
photograph.

no they aren't.

composition is choosing a vantage point, choosing and/or posing the
subject, ...

... making sure you have the bits you want in focus and the bits you
don't wasn out of focus ...

which the camera can easily do.

what it can't do is position the subject in the frame.

Nor can it determine the subject unless (in some cases) the subject is
a face.

sure it can.

On what basis would the camera decide the subject when I took
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...-7500601-2.jpg

How could it determine that I had something in mind like
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...R--7500601.jpg


properly lighting it, ...

... and making sure you have the correct exposure for the light level

which the camera can easily do.

Only in relatively straightforward cases.

nonsense. the metering systems of today's cameras are quite
sophisticated and generally do as good or better than humans.

there are exceptions but it's pretty hard to outperform it.

This was not a straight forward case and the D300 had a most
interesting time dealing with it. Even then, it needed considerable
massaging in LR to get the result I wanted.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...03/LR--1-5.jpg
This almost certainly is one of your exceptions.

all a camera can do is determine the focus and exposure.

All a camera can do is determine _a_ focus and _an_ exposure. They
arn't necessarily the optimum values. Thats why cameras are now trying
to rcognise faces, give you a choice of exposure points and the
ability to +/- exposures.

most of the time it's optimum and likely as good or better than what
the photographer would have chosen on their own, but nothing is
perfect.

But the current discussion is not about that type of photographer.

then the camera's choice is fine.

What started all this was you questioning Charles' preference for a
camera which leaves all the choosing to the photographer. Charles'
preferred camera would make no choices at all.

there's always the possibility that the photographer may want to
override the focus or exposure (which they obviously can), but that's
the exception.

It might be an exception for you but the majority of photographs I
took with the D750 on my recent trip were deliberately under exposed.

so what? that's what exposure adjustment is for.

You want it both ways: leave it (exposure) to the camera and leave it
(exposure adjustment) to the photographer.

nope.

Even though you have no knowledge of the exposure adjustments I made,
or why I made them, are you saying that I should have left the
exposure adjustment to the camera? Do you think that Nikon should not
have incorporated a +/- adjustment in the camera?

they can also bias the automatic modes for specific
situations, such as shutter priority with a fast shutter speed for
stopping motion or choosing a specific autofocus mode for subject
tracking.

good luck trying to maintain focus on a moving object without autofocus.

Louis Klemantaski seemed to be able to manage it
http://tinyurl.com/nptnnqc

if you're going to post a link, post the actual url. do not hide it in
a url shortener. usenet s not bandwidth constrained.

OK. Try this

https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=lo...0&bih=110 3&s
ource=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIhqbO nr33xgIVQiqmCh0ezgY8

that's a google tracking link.

you could hae just said search on louis klemantaski photos.

But as a sample, see

http://www.windingroad.com/articles/...taski-collecti
on/

anyway, let's see him track-focus a hockey game.

Trying to narrow the argument, eh?

nope.

Yep. The discussion was not about just track-focusing. As you wrote
(see above) it was about "trying to maintain focus on a moving object
without autofocus."

there might be a few individuals who can track-focus something that
isn't moving all that fast or prefocus in a particular area, but they
*can't* track-focus fast action because human reaction time is too
slow. there's no getting around that.

Here is a photograph from the 1970s
http://www.elainelchao.com/slideshow...d-hockey-m.jpg

field hockey?? and running across the frame? the focus isn't going to
change all that much.

also keep in mind back then, most photographers prefocused in an area
and then took a photo when the subject was in that spot. that's not
track-focusing.

Which is why you don't absolutely have to have track focusing. Charles
was not crippling his camera by leaving out autofocus.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On 7/25/15 10:09 PM, in article ,
"Tony Cooper" wrote:

On Sat, 25 Jul 2015 22:45:12 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Tony Cooper
wrote:

Those of
us who used cameras before autofocus learned to take sharp in-focus
shots of rapidly moving objects from sports figures to race cars.

We focussed on where the object would be and tripped the shutter when
the object was there or panned with the subject. We didn't try to
maintain focus on a rapidly moving object.

that's *not* tracking focus.

As you constantly say...I didn't say it was. I said that's what we
did.

only because you had no choice to do that.

you're actually proving my point.

The more important point is that photographers were able to accomplish
things like in-focus shots of rapidly moving objects before autofocus.

It's called "skill": something that is not appreciated much these days,
sadly...

On 7/25/15 10:18 PM, in article ,
"nospam" wrote:

In article , Tony Cooper
wrote:

We focussed on where the object would be and tripped the shutter when
the object was there or panned with the subject. We didn't try to
maintain focus on a rapidly moving object.

that's *not* tracking focus.

As you constantly say...I didn't say it was. I said that's what we
did.

only because you had no choice to do that.

you're actually proving my point.

Your point? What was that? That older cameras don't have tracking
focus ability?

yes.

Is that supposed to be news? Is that supposed to be a point that
needs to be proved?

apparently to you, it does.

The more important point is that photographers were able to accomplish
things like in-focus shots of rapidly moving objects before autofocus.

taking photos of rapidly moving subjects with tracking focus is very
different and something that was not possible back then.

Particularly when the "photographer" doesn't have to worry about being
skillful because of the budget.

Hell, just set the damn thing in video mode @ 60 fps and, like the monkeys,
you are bound to find ONE good shot among the thirty thousand or so frames
you have captured, eh?!?

On 07/25/2015 07:39 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

The "grunt work" (metering and focusing) is a part of the actual photo.

composition is part of the photo.

metering and focusing is not, and is something that a camera can do
better in nearly all situations.

Metering and focusing are all part of the art of composing a
photograph.

no they aren't.

composition is choosing a vantage point, choosing and/or posing the
subject, properly lighting it, clicking the shutter at the optimal
time, etc.

a camera can't do any of that.

all a camera can do is determine the focus and exposure.

there's always the possibility that the photographer may want to
override the focus or exposure (which they obviously can), but that's
the exception. they can also bias the automatic modes for specific
situations, such as shutter priority with a fast shutter speed for
stopping motion or choosing a specific autofocus mode for subject
tracking.

good luck trying to maintain focus on a moving object without autofocus.

So all the sports photos pre-autofocus are out of focus?

A good photographer knows his subject and attempts to predict which way
his moving subject will go. He then either (a) pre-focuses and waits for
the subject to enter the 'good focus zone', or (b) selects his exposure
(possibly by metering and grunting) and provides sufficient depth of field.

Focusing, and selecting what will be in focus or out of focus is part of
the art of creating a photograph.
Metering, so that the desired image is best captured by the film, is
part of the art of creating a photograph.

"all a camera can do is determine the focus and exposure.", based on
averages and concepts selected by the camera designer, which work in the
majority of situations. Woe unto the photographer who wants to create
his own image, focused on what he wants, and exposed the way he wants it.

--
Ken Hart

On 07/25/2015 12:52 PM, Tony Cooper wrote:
On Sat, 25 Jul 2015 10:59:36 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Ken Hart
wrote:

SLR with mechanical shutter speed and aperature controls, along with
ASA setting (ISO I believe is a newer term.) Match needle metering
with option to switch from full screen or spot.

you could have any camera at all and you'd choose one with 50 year old
technology???

Of course.

what on earth for?

do you choose manual typewriters over computers?

Because it still works.

so do modern cameras.

there is *nothing* that a 50 year old relic can do that a modern camera
cannot do better, more accurately and more reliably and with *much*
better results.

not only that, but this thread is about having any kind of camera, one
which would obviously work. why would someone's dream camera be a
camera that is broken?


You have never understood that other people have interests different
from your own, and that their interests may be more important to them
than yours.

While the photograph is the end result, and modern cameras can make
that end result better, more simple to achieve, and less time
consuming to finalize, the "hunt" is more satisfying to some than the
head mounted on the wall.

It was more of a challenge to get the right results with the cameras
we used to use. Meeting that challenge can be the objective of the
photographer.

There was a satisfaction to doing everything right when using the
older cameras that is not really present with today's cameras. The
camera is doing so much of the work that the photographer can only
claim to have seen what to point it at and when to push the button
That's not enough for everyone.

While you deprecate the Luddites who like to try their skill the old
way, your obsessive worship of the modern "let the camera do the work"
is distasteful to some.


Mr Cooper correctly points out the "romance" of using what nospam calls
a "50 year old relic", but I respectfully would point out another
advantage of the 50 year old relic: it STILL works.

Every year, Nikon, Canon, and others come up with the latest whizz-bang
grand slam super fantastic camera that is supposed to be better than
anything from last month.

My Canon FX was the flagship camera for Canon from 1964-66, and
manufacture continued into 1969 (based on date codes). A five year run
of an essentially unchanged camera design- let's see that in this
wonderful digital age. (The placement of the serial number was changed
in 1968.)

As for the 'image sensor' in my camera, a very critical part of the
imaging chain, it has been updated frequently since 1964- every time the
film manufacturers introduce a new film, I get an updated image sensor.


--
Ken Hart