Re: [Leica] Leica technology, creative control

[tedgrant@islandnet.com (Ted Grant)]

Eric wrote:

>In practice, that's not the way it works. You have to keep your mind on
>exposure, but with a Leica, it's much easier to just do it and get on. With
>the new whiz-bang cameras you're always thinking "Am I in the right mode
>for this camera? Opps, gotta change modes, oops, reach back there and
>switch focusing zones, no, that's the wrong zone, there, now you notice in
>the background something happening, and want to increase depth of field,
>move focusing point where  you want it, focus, recompose, oops, in the
>wrong mode, now have to go from manual to depth of field mode...change
>custom settings from A to B (on an F5) because focus priority isn't right
>for this kind of picture, on and on...
>
>Yep, that's getting technology out of the way.>>>>>>>

Hi Eric,

Rather descriptive :) ....... scares the hell out of me re-calling my "once
only" 2 year sentance of auto everything cameras!!!:)

It took me more time to re-adjust all those bells and whistles, twiddly
wheels and mode buttons than it did to take the picture.:) Besides
"twiddly" isn't one of my things! :)

Boy it sure felt great when I got back to my dear old M's to get on with
picture taking with thought.

By the same token I learned that, as carpenters have hand drills, (M6) they
also required power drills. (EOS or F5) There wasn't any question about the
"power drill" auto everything sometimes, but only with sports action. The
rest of the time the bells and whistles got in the road of "thinking
photographically."

I'm the first to admit while using the EOS gear some aspects of my picture
taking improved...higher ratio of infocus images per roll while shooting
sports action.... didn't necessarily make them better pictures...just in
focus more times.

By the same token there was a higher rate of "throw away" images due to
what I call "careless use" of the camera due to allowing the automatic
features overriding the thought process behind the picture taking. In my
case anyway, as I'm not saying it applies to all those using EOS or F5
cameras.

Like the carpenter, some pros use both types of gear as the tool for the
job at hand.  In other words, where the (AF) EOS or F5 are required for the
action of the moment, the M6 can generally look after the rest.

ted