P.J. Alling wrote:
Bottom line is the only reason that makes any real sense.
The rational has variously been that it was inaccurate, but it isn't as
inaccurate as stop down metering can be.
OK, this really confuses me, because when you meter wide open, you are
assuming perfect linearity from wide open to the projected aperture, and
I seem to recall reading an article that explains wu this assumption
tends to be overly optimistic, without even considering the difference
between t-stops and f-stops. I believe that the problem is also
exacerbated on digital sensors which are also particularly sensitive to
the direction at which light hits the sensor (though less so now). I've
got a few brain cells that are tickled thinking that this might be
related to why split prism (and microprism) viewfinders look so much
darker at smaller apertures than at larger ones.
Also, while things seem to have improved in the past few years, I have
found Pentax metering so unpredictably inaccurate that if I don't want
my highlights blown out, in the vast majority of cases I use the green
button (or other exposure estimation), a test exposure and the histogram
(or at least bracketing) for the vast majority of my shots anyways, so
my workflow with K and M lenses, even without an aperture simulator, to
usually be identical to using A and AF lenses.
Since every moving part increases complexity, cost, and opportunities
for the camera to break, the ability to use unreliable auto exposure on
a few $40 used lenses falls somewhere between un-needed and undesirable
to me.
Features that I would like to see, which would cost Ricoh nothing but a
little bit of programming (which I'd probably do for them for free given
the source code):
Having the RAW/Fx button not only put the camera into on occasionally
used mode, but take it out of that mode with a simple press. As it is,
if I press the button accidentally, it will change the mode of my
camera, and then I have to go through the menus to undo what I
accidentally did.
Having the histogram read raw files, rather than the jpegs so I can tell
what my sensor is really doing.
Having astrotracer read the lens focal length from the manual settings
so I can use it with manual focus lenses (or telescopes).
Restore the ability to set astrotracer to times less than 10 seconds.
Often, when shooting the full moon, I'll want astrotracer to stop the
blur, but only want a 1 second exposure. Honestly, I'd rather it went
down further than that.
While we're at it having a lunar astrotracer mode, because the moon
moves differently than the stars relative to the ground.
Having astrotracer work like every other exposure mode so that I don't
have to go through all of the menu rigamarole everytime I want to review
a frame or change the shutter time.
Have bracketing work on astrotracer.
Have astrotracer/non-astrotracer bracketing so that when you are
shooting night landscapes you can get clear shots of both the foreground
and the stars to recomposite later.
(come on guys, astrotracer is cool, you advertise it, polish it up so
that it's not just a kludgey parlor trick).
Being able to set exposure times longer than 30 seconds, with the mode
of being able to easily take dark field frames at the times of my own
choosing without having to fiddle with a lens cap.
Have a metering mode that takes a sample picture (or several) and get
set the exposure (or exposure and bracketing) to capture all of the
data, rather than taking a guess and having to guess based upon the
inaccurate jpeg based histogram. While we're at it, have the info
display report percentage of blown out pixels, and noise levels based on
analysis of the data.
When shooting for HDR, being able to bracket more than two stops between
exposures. When I've got 14 stops of latitude, adding two or four stops
doesn't really gain me a lot in the cases where I need the added
latitude, and I don't want to have to shoot five exposures to get the
latitude I want.
Being able to choose bracketing independently of what the auto exposure
value is.
Being able to bracket the focus (when shooting macros with an autofocus
lens).
Recording the shutter press time stamps more accurately than the nearest
round second, and by when the shutter is activated rather than when the
file is written. I'm not sure which of these cause bracketed photos to
show up in lightroom in some bizarre, semi random order.
Wifi based flash control (now theoretically possible with the K-1).
The only one that makes sense is Pentax thought that they could get away
with orphaning all those K mount lenses prior to the A series and add a
few bucks per unit to the bottom line. The Shit Storm that hit them was
a huge surprise, (which shows how tone deaf a company can be), so they
got some software engineers to institute the green button kludge.
The other explanation is that to the vast majority of their customers an
aperture simulator is about as useful as being able to use a hand crank
to start their car if the battery is dead.
--
Larry Colen [email protected] (postbox on min4est) http://red4est.com/lrc
--
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.
