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Re: [OM] Spot Meter reading vs OTF; Ease of 4T

Subject: Re: [OM] Spot Meter reading vs OTF; Ease of 4T
From: Joel Wilcox <jowilcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 10:08:03 -0500
At 11:58 AM 7/31/1998 +0000, Richard you wrote in part:
>Often I find that a single spot reading on what is closest to 18 0rey is
>sufficient.
>
Hi Richard,

Glad you got your stuff from Focus. Hope you have a blast with it.

Your notes on exposure are interesting apropos the discussion of the OM-4T.
I probably should not comment, but what the heck. There has been more than
an implication in that discussion that "the 4T metering system makes it so
much easier than the OM-2's or -- those old fossils -- the OM-1's." (My
summary words, not quoting anybody.) Indeed, there must be something to
this, since many people have indicated that when they want to simplify,
they stick with the 4T and either get rid of the 1's and 2's or relegate
them to backup service.

What disturbs me about some of the recent discussion is that the
photographer's decision-making role is not more explicitly acknowledged. It
would seem to me that the value of a more complex metering system is not
that it makes metering easier a la point and shoot (although it does or
can), but that it gives the photographer more data to resolve complex
lighting situations. 

Your statement that often a single spot of 18 0ray is enough hits the nail
on the head. That 18 0ray spot is the Holy Grail in any shot. The camera
cannot decide what is 18 0ray, or more properly, what should be *placed*
at 18 0ray (or Zone V), only the photographer can.

I have a 1 degree handheld spot meter. I rarely use it because I've learned
to read those portions of a scene with an averaging meter which allow me to
get values where I want them, or close enough that half-stop brackets will
nail the exposure. To me any shot worth taking is worthy of at least two
half-stop brackets (slide film anyway) when that is possible. I have an
OM-2S and, my most recent acquisition, an OM-2N. I view these cameras as
most useful in focus-and-shoot situations using aperture priority mode and
in some other situations where it is useful having an
electronically-controlled shutter (really long exposures and flash too). I
bracket with these wherever I can, and with the 2S use the timer to get
mirror lockup in pre-fire whenever feasible.

But the bedrock of control is the OM-1. Its simple meter seems sufficient
to get apparently exact exposures among the three provided by half-stop
bracketing. It's fun to forget about exposure issues for a while with the
2's, but I never want to lose the intellectual challenge of finding the
Zone V in the shot that *I want*.  This is why I shy away from the 4T. It's
allure as described fits more the situations in which I find the 2's to be
sufficient and satisfying, but it seems to offer me nothing that displaces
the elegant simplicity of the OM-1, which occasionally I will shoot with
the meter turned off, following good old Sunny 16.  Can't get more
elemental -- or exact, if it is *your* decision -- than that.

It would be fun to play with multi-spot averaging, but I strongly feel that
this would lead me into complacency. It should make exposure control
harder.  It should introduce more steps to a final decision about the
exposure.  But I sense that it is simply used to achieve higher percentages
of focus-and-shoot pictures. Nothing wrong with that in itself.  Also
nothing wrong with P&S and AF.  That's just not the way I want to go about it.

Hope I haven't offended the many lovers of the 4T on the list. Since it's a
camera I don't know, please set me straight where I've erred in my thinking.

Joel

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