Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/08/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]In a message dated 8/13/03 12:04:35 AM Pacific Daylight Time, pklein@2alpha.net writes: > And shooting at the lowest ISO is counter-intuitive. Auto-ISO I can > see--let the camera decide whether it needs to "turn up the gain." In the > situation at my parents', I would have been shooting between 1/8 and 1/4 at > ISO 100. RAW mode plus deliberate underexposure is possible in a digicam > that has RAW, but mine doesn't. Also, your 5050 has f/1.8 max, mine is > f/2.5. Please explain further. - ------------------------------ Peter, Based on my personal experience with the 5050, I'm coming around to the conclusion that when I use a digital I must change my mindset. Whatever Nikon, Olympus, Canon say in their manuals, digital technology is really canned stuff. The camera is preset at the factory to deliver viable exposures within a wide range of light conditions because that is required by the nature of the beast. You can attenuate (A or S) the presets to your detriment or occasionally in bright light to your advantage, but on average your best setting is that of a point and shoot. In short, Auto ISO and [P]rogram. And let AF do the rest. Your basic lookout is to compose and avoid backlight, unless you use fill flash. I know this is a shock to our SOP, but until the engineers come up with a truly variably sensitive sensor in the same league with film, those are the conditions which prevail -- to quote the immortal Jimmy Durante. Film is a constant. A sensor isn't. Its performance is intrinsically modified by the amount of power available and the type of light that it's subject to. Rather than trust the sensor to these unpredictable variables, the engineers have decided to average them out and augment the sensor with algorithms that will produce a viable image. Leave the technology to them. You drive the visualization. So I steer clear of Manual and A and S. The 5050 also has prepackaged modes for portrait, landscape, movie, etc. I think they're all slight modifications of the basic modus operandi and so they come with some guarantee that you'll get an acceptable image because they're kept within the parameters of the sensor preset. As far as the lens speed, whether 1.8 or 2.5, the system seldom selects the max f-stop anyway. Lens speed is so compromised by the zoom that you can only mess things up if you choose A. Maybe if you spend $4Kon a full scale 35mm type digital reflex, you might have some real imput, using standard lenses. I wouldn't bet on it. Digital here and now is a different cat. You can't ride it as though it were a thoroughbred, like a Leica M or R. But you can try. Again, this is only one man's opinion. br - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html