----- Original Message ----- From: "Cotty" Subject: Re: Pentax * ist D doing badly in Fotomagazin test
> > >It's a replacement for a particular skill. > >All that features do, is allow the photographer to get by with less > >developed skills. > > That is an opinion and not fact. > Really? Ok, lets look at a few skills. Looking at a scene and knowing what the aperture and shutter speed needs to be set at. It can be done without a light meter, if you have developed that skill. Setting aperture and shutter speed efficiently can be done, if you have practiced it enough. Most don't, they have built in light meters, and use some form of exposure automation. Most haven't bothered to develop the skill set required to operate a camera quckly, manually. If speed is thought to be of the essence, they shoot on auto. Focusing can be done manually, and very quickly, provided you know your equipment, and have worked at developing the skill.. Perhaps not fast enough to follow focus a race care going 350km/hr, but certainly fast enough for most requirements, such as following a bride down the aisle. Few people have refined that skill anymore, they use autofocus. These are skills which, once aquired, will get lost if not used. I can no longer operate a camera manually as fast as I would like to. I have fallen into the auto exposure trap myself, and am finding now that I am losing the ability to focus as quickly as well, now that I have aquired and am using more AF technology. I haven't been able to acurately determine exposure without a light meter for a very, very long time, though I was able to estimate within a half stop at one point in my life. I do know of what I speak, and from my own experience, I have found what I said to be fact, not opinion. William Robb
