Jock Elliott
Hall of Famer
- Location
- Troy, NY
This AM I got a “thanks” on one of my posts -- Micro 4/3 - Panasonic LX100!!!! Money is flying from my credit card! – and I was rereading it when I was struck by the following phrase: “In fact, lack of straightforward accessibility to controls is kind of a universal problem with all the cameras I own . . .”
It got me to thinking about how I used to shoot with 35mm film cameras and how I shoot now. A lot of the difference is driven by camera design and sensor size.
My Pentax had a 35mm fullframe sensor size (film!) and three readily available controls: aperture, shutter speed, and focus. You chose your ISO by what film you loaded, and fiddled aperture, shutter speed, and focus depending on your desired depth of field, desire to freeze or blur action, and decision of what should be in focus. Exposure compensation was managed through the aperture ring. All this was moderated by what the film required for the desired exposure.
My first digital camera, the Olympus D550, allowed virtually no manual control except for macro focus, focus on infinity, or normal auto focus (and flash on or off). Ironically, I found I was getting more “keepers” because for the first time ever, I could see what I was getting while I was getting it.
For both the Panasonic FZ150 and the FZ200 the most readily available control is the PASM wheel and (in my view) better-than-average manual focus, but aperture and shutter must be accessed, depending on which mode is selected, through the thumb wheel on the back of the camera. ISO is accessible through a button on the back of the camera. Because of the small sensor, everything from the tip of my nose to Proxima Centauri tends to be in focus. The upshot: except for special situations, which I have programmed into saved settings, I tend to shoot in P mode (that stands for Professional, right?) and the only thing I tend to manually fuss with consistently is focus for getting wildlife behind foreground objects, and work-arounds for producing bokeh.
The Canon G12 also lives in P mode when I shoot. Readily available controls include a PASM wheel, ISO (which I rarely adjust), and exposure compensation which I use a fair amount, particularly when photographing the sky. Manual focus is abysmal, controlled by a wheel around the four-way controller on the back of the camera, and I have learned to avoid it, for fear of inadvertently invoking one of the other functions on the four-way controller.
So I have become a lazy photographer, happily snapping away in P mode. What will be interesting to see, as I move forward and acquire a camera with readily available aperture, shutter, and focus controls, is whether I will become a better photographer as a result. Or will I revert to P mode?
Now it’s your turn: what controls do you most often use on your camera and how readily accessible are they?
EDIT: it occurs to me that one interpretation of the above is: Jock, you didn't know what you were doing when you had full control of the camera; you're better off letting the software make the decisions!
Cheers, Jock
It got me to thinking about how I used to shoot with 35mm film cameras and how I shoot now. A lot of the difference is driven by camera design and sensor size.
My Pentax had a 35mm fullframe sensor size (film!) and three readily available controls: aperture, shutter speed, and focus. You chose your ISO by what film you loaded, and fiddled aperture, shutter speed, and focus depending on your desired depth of field, desire to freeze or blur action, and decision of what should be in focus. Exposure compensation was managed through the aperture ring. All this was moderated by what the film required for the desired exposure.
My first digital camera, the Olympus D550, allowed virtually no manual control except for macro focus, focus on infinity, or normal auto focus (and flash on or off). Ironically, I found I was getting more “keepers” because for the first time ever, I could see what I was getting while I was getting it.
For both the Panasonic FZ150 and the FZ200 the most readily available control is the PASM wheel and (in my view) better-than-average manual focus, but aperture and shutter must be accessed, depending on which mode is selected, through the thumb wheel on the back of the camera. ISO is accessible through a button on the back of the camera. Because of the small sensor, everything from the tip of my nose to Proxima Centauri tends to be in focus. The upshot: except for special situations, which I have programmed into saved settings, I tend to shoot in P mode (that stands for Professional, right?) and the only thing I tend to manually fuss with consistently is focus for getting wildlife behind foreground objects, and work-arounds for producing bokeh.
The Canon G12 also lives in P mode when I shoot. Readily available controls include a PASM wheel, ISO (which I rarely adjust), and exposure compensation which I use a fair amount, particularly when photographing the sky. Manual focus is abysmal, controlled by a wheel around the four-way controller on the back of the camera, and I have learned to avoid it, for fear of inadvertently invoking one of the other functions on the four-way controller.
So I have become a lazy photographer, happily snapping away in P mode. What will be interesting to see, as I move forward and acquire a camera with readily available aperture, shutter, and focus controls, is whether I will become a better photographer as a result. Or will I revert to P mode?
Now it’s your turn: what controls do you most often use on your camera and how readily accessible are they?
EDIT: it occurs to me that one interpretation of the above is: Jock, you didn't know what you were doing when you had full control of the camera; you're better off letting the software make the decisions!
Cheers, Jock