Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/04/04

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Subject: [Leica] Re: DSLR confusion
From: nickbroberts at yahoo.co.uk (Nick Roberts)
Date: Tue Apr 4 15:00:13 2006

Just because the camera has a portrait mode doesn't
mean you have to use it. Set Manual mode and work
precisely as you used to, or Aperture Priority if you
want to work a little more quickly. The fully-auto
modes aren't designed for people who know how to set
aperture and shutter speed! Accept that the camera has
hundreds of features you don't need and won't use, and
just use it however is comfortable - that's what
everyone else is doing, too.

Nick


--- lrzeitlin@optonline.net wrote:
> 
> Tina and all,
> 
> I don't mean that I can never master the Olympus
> DSLR user interface. After all, I started computer
> programming in assembly lang
> uage 50 years ago (really) and I can almost work my
> HP Reverse Polish calculator.
> What I'm really pissed at is the fact thal all my
> hard learned film camera skills don't really
> translate well to the new camera without first
> recasting them in the digital context. It's like
> figuring out what I want to do in English, then
> translating to Japanese (where the camera was
> designed) then to Chinese (where the camera was
> made) before pushing the right buttons. Case in
> point: When I want to take a close up portrait in
> film, I focus on the eyes, open the lens wide to
> blur the background, set the shutter speed higher to
> compensate for the wide lens opening, compose, then
> click away. It's almost instinctive. With the
> digital, I must first recognize that the shot will
> be a portrait, then select the portrait mode. I have
> no idea what part of the face the lens is focused on
> or what the background will look like. I just have
> to trust that the electronic elves inside the camera
> will get it righ
> t.
> 
> So far I have not been disappointed. At least for
> most of the shots I've made so far, the elves have
> done a good job. Once in a while I'm surprised by
> the flash popping up because the head elf decided
> that the light was too low and I neglected to inform
> him that I didn't want to use flash today. Picture
> quality has been excellent. No complaints here. But
> having worked in the applied industrial design field
> for many years, I do have to say that the interface
> is not intuitive. It is not just a question of
> offering a lot of possibilities, but of presenting
> those possibilities in a logical order which follows
> tha photographer's though process. This is a camera
> whose control interface was deisgned by engineers,
> not by users. What happened to all that Olympus OM
> experience? The OM  SLRs were paragons of
> convenience and usability. The E-500 is more like
> the Leica III series than the Leica M. Too many
> fiddling little adjustments although the picture
> quality is just as good.
> 
> Oh w
> ell, I suppose in ten years, the Olympus 4/3 cameras
> will be thought of as classics. Right now I'm going
> to follow Ted and Tina's recommendation and shoot
> everything in RAW. This will transfer decision
> making to the complexity of Photoshop, the program
> with the steepest learning curve in the history of
> computerdom. I can hardly wait.
> 
> Larry Z
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for
> more information
> 



                
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Replies: Reply from bdcolen at comcast.net (B. D. Colen) ([Leica] Re: DSLR confusion)
In reply to: Message from lrzeitlin at optonline.net (lrzeitlin@optonline.net) ([Leica] Re: DSLR confusion)