Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/04/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]My experience with photography has been that automatic cameras require more work in the darkroom. If I meter carefully, set the exposure once, and then shoot the whole session at that exposure, the images for that shoot are all consistent. So, in the darkroom, I can usually just crank out the prints, with perhaps a little dodging here or there. When I use an automatic camera, which readjusts the exposure for every shot, I have to spend a lot more time on each print. You can really see this difference if you look at a 35mm contact sheet of a roll shot with manual metering and compare it with a contact sheet of a roll shot at the same time with automatic metering. The difference is striking. This phenomenon is exactly the same with electronic cameras: if you use automatic metering, in which every shot is differently exposed, you have to spend more time in the darkroom. But here the "darkroom" is Photoshop. When I use a digital camera I always turn off all of the in-camera processing, because I know that, whatever computing it can do, Photoshop can do better, and I want the original data. I have a Canon G3 digital camera, which I use from time to time, and I find that if I meter, put the thing on manual, and then shoot, the images are much more consistent. The only real difference is that it's more difficult to set an electronic camera on manual and meter properly with its internal metering. But light is light, and my handheld Gossen meter works just as well for my Canon G3 as it does for my Leica M6. I save the automatic metering for times when I want to get a small number of shots quickly and I trust my ability to fix problems in the darkroom. - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html