On 29 January 2012 11:02, Larry Colen <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 1/28/2012 6:35 PM, William Robb wrote: >> >> On 28/01/2012 8:21 PM, Larry Colen wrote: >>> >>> >> >> >>> There will always be more that I can know about photography, not to >>> mention room to improve my physical skills to be able to best use what >>> knowledge that I do have. >>> >>> Or it could mean that I'm occasionally prone to minor bursts of >>> hyperbole. >>>> >>>> >> You seem to be one of the people who wants to know precisely how many >> angels can dance on the head of a pin. It's not healthy, and I don't >> think it makes for good photography, at least based on my own experience >> (I cared about angels and pins for a little while, until I realized it >> was wrecking my creativity). > > > I find a lot of my creativity in pushing the performance envelope of my > gear. I find it a lot of fun to look for photos in situations where not long > ago it would have been pretty much impossible to get any photos. > To do this, I really need to know where the edges of that envelope are.
If all you ever do is test the performance limits of your equipment, you end up with nothing but test shots. I recommend focusing less on what the gear is capable of & more time on creating interesting images. > It's kind of like instrumentation in a car. Most people just need a > speedometer, an odometer and a big red "motor meltdown light". Oil > pressure, temperature, tachometer etc. are completely superfluous. When I'm > racing, I use all of those, and often to more accuracy than > "good/indifferent/bad". Using race car driving is a flawed analogy. Driving competitively is a very technical skill. A lot of photography is an art. You can learn the basics of how to drive a camera quite easily, I know, I help teach people new to photography. After 6 hours most people can shoot in Av, & some on full manual, after having always shot on program mode. The hardest part is being creative. Focusing on the technical wont get you that. > There are a lot of technical reasons these days to take control away from > most drivers, and not confuse them with extra information. Automatic > transmissions can do a better job than most drivers can do with a > stickshift. Likewise ABS will outperform most drivers. Other people enjoy > the exercise of doing it themselves, and getting the performance out of > their car, rather than relying on microprocessors to do their thinking for > them. > > That's much the way that I like to take pictures. When I want to make the > decisions for myself, I want reliable, accurate, information with which to > make those decisions. And I do recognize that there are times when the > camera can do a better job than I can, and I want to understand when those > situations are, so I can make the decision to cede control to it. > > > -- > Larry Colen [email protected] (from dos4est) > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
