At 12:16 PM 6/18/99 +0200, Olaf you wrote:
>
>Yes, the OM-40 is (IMO) a very nice camera, it's just a pity it doesn't have
>a spot meter... I have even been looking with great interest at the OM-2S as
>a third body, to kind of have the OM-40 with a spot meter.
>
>Now, I read in a subsequent post about the opinion on how often the Program
>mode is actually used. Well, this really depends on just "how many of the
>parameters" you want to control yourself. For a great many years (when I
>wasn't so much into photography yet) I solely used the camera in program
>mode and it (almost?) always gave me properly exposed pictures. Nowadays I
>find myself using the camera in Auto (i.e. aperture preferred) mode most of
>the time, just so I know for sure what diafragm is actually used.
The OM-2S is my body of preference at the moment, but I was recently
considering the OMPC [40] as a gift for my wife. My idea was that she could
pretty much keep the camera in program mode and just focus and shoot. I
don't shoot the OM-2S in program mode at all, so I was reading about it in
a book I got recently (thanks Keith) and discovered that program mode can
be especially limiting with flash, where its algorithm tends to restrict
DOF well below the capabilities of the flash and far more than in auto mode.
Still, in situations where the subject in the direct field of focus is the
critical element (i.e., snapshot photography?), I would think program would
be great either in nature or artificial light.
>At times
>when doing deliberate counterlight pictures of a big enough object, I switch
>off the ESP, get close to the object, measure the light of it (using the
>camera), enforce this value in the Manual mode, determine the composition
>and then fire away. This is what I would call the way to perform a
>"spot-metering" with the OM-40, mind you, having to perform this little
>procedure over and over again finally made me switch to the OM-4Ti. A lot of
>people don't take pictures in difficult light conditions though, so then you
>don't have to bother using such an approach.
Yes, I think that you would like the OM-2S, since this is a very useful
technique for using both auto/averaging and manual/spot to determine
exposure in non-standard situations. You're really using information from
both systems to make the exposure, even though you're shooting in manual
mode. It's a very ingenious system that Olympus came up with IMHO.
Joel Wilcox
Iowa City, Iowa USA
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