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Re: [OM] Digital Exposure in an Analog World

Subject: Re: [OM] Digital Exposure in an Analog World
From: Larry <Halpert@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 22:10:36 -0500
That all makes sense as long as you're not one of those that say record
players sound better than CD's.

Larry

Ken N wrote:

> I must be in a mood right now, because I'm just about to launch
> into rant mode, but will refrain from ranting, but will try to
> place some of our technologies into perspective.  Maybe
> something here will trigger an "oh duh" among people, get
> reposted to every photography related list around the world and
> get me an editor position at some photo rag.
>
> Maybe not.
>
> Why digital ISN'T better:
>
> Exposure Readings:
> Have you looked through the viewfinder of your modern camera
> lately?  Really looked through the viewfinder?  Sure that camera
> is giving you every bit of data known to man, with aperture,
> shutterspeed, in-focus led, flash status, exposure
> compensations, etc., etc.  But is it giving you "relational
> data".  Are you able to instantly determine the relationship
> between one exposure and another?
>
> The basis of our exposures is the EV unit, essentially a
> measurement of light at a given ASA/ISO sensitivity.  The meters
> in our cameras utilize this basic unit of measurement to
> indicate recommended apertures and shutter speeds.  Old "needle"
> style meters measured light with analog technology--light sensor
> generates more or less voltage based on level of light.  These
> meters are nothing more than volt-meters coupled to the light
> sensor through a transister or two.  Instead of showing
> millivolts, the meter will usually be calibrated in EV units.
> When the meter is directly coupled to a camera and "knows" the
> shutter speed or aperture settings, the meter will indicate
> proper exposure through the "bracket" in the middle.  It comes
> down to calibration of the meter to make this meaningful to the
> user.
>
> In the '70s cameras started coming out with auto exposure.
> Initially there were two flavors:  Aperture priority or shutter
> speed priority.  Meters were still very much analog devices and
> so were the "auto" features.  Aperture priority cameras allowed
> the user to lock in an aperture and the swinging meter would
> indicate what the shutter speed would be.  Instead of a
> mechanical shutter, the shutter was electronically timed based
> on the meter's reading.  Still very much an analog device.
> Pointing the camera at different parts of the scene would give
> you what the indicated exposure of that part is.  Without even
> looking at the scale you could know what your shutter speed was
> just by the general position of the needle.
>
> The Canon A1 changed our comfortable little world.  It
> indicated, with LEDs, the shutter speed and aperture.  This
> camera gave the user the additional capabilities of multiple
> auto modes, including program mode where both shutter speed and
> aperture were set by the camera.  Suddenly the relationship
> between light and exposure was broken.  Now as the light level
> changes, numbers will increase, decrease and even go opposite
> directions at the same time.  Nearly every camera developed
> since the A1 has used this new display.  There are rare
> exceptions, but photographers have been led to believe that
> digital readouts are better and provide more accurate
> information.
>
> Accurate information it may be.  Usable information it may not
> necessarily be.  Light is analog.  The movement of a needle (or
> digital scale emulating an analog meter) notes to the
> photographer that the light is increasing or decreasing a rate
> and a relationship to other readings.  Since our measurement
> systems of F-Stops and shutter speeds are based on mathematical
> equations, we continue to display data in that fashion.
> However, if the digital readouts were to be truely intuitive and
> not require translation by the photographer, lens openings and
> shutter speeds would be shown in Metric.  One must KNOW that F8
> is twice the aperture of F11.
>
> When I look at the digital readouts and it tells me "500, 8" I
> must translate that into the analog world where I know that 8
> means F8 (somewhere in the middle of the lens's light passing
> capability) instead of glancing at the lens barrel and knowing
> the physical relationship with light.  In a scale readout, one
> can see the doubling and halving relationships between shutter
> speeds or apertures.  In a digital readout, you must either know
> (and translate) or ignore the information and trust the camera.
> Cameras with this type of readout encourage use of the auto and
> program modes because the meters truely do not represent the
> information in an understandable way to the photographer for
> manual exposure control.
>
> Olympus, when developing the OM-2S and the OM-4 developed a
> digital exposure display that mimicked the analog scale as much
> as possible, while giving many more modern capabilities.
> Without even looking at the scale I can tell when my exposure
> changes by any number of stops.  In the other displays you must
> read the display and try to translate the 6.72 - 9.38 change.
> It only gets worse with the latest offerings showing near
> continous sub-speed changes down to 1/1000 of a second
> resolutions.
>
> Today's cameras have very accurate exposure meters and highly
> advanced program exposure modes.  The Nikon F5/F100 has matrix
> metering which completely isolates the photographer from
> exposure control and interpretation.  The camera essentially is
> a very advanced point and shoot camera.  Only one control is
> used:  "Push Here Dummy".
>
> Exposure Control:
> Changing shutter speeds and apertures on many of today's cameras
> is an operation in computer control, menu selection and
> multi-function buttons.  Older camera designs have aperture
> control right on the lens and is a rotate to the right or left.
> What a novel idea!  Furthermore, the rotating direction matches
> the direction of the analog meter.  Meter below your brackets or
> desired shutter speed?  Rotate the lens to the left and
> amazingly enough it goes right up.  The OM-4's scale is
> "backwards" because of this need to visually couple the meter
> with the lens' aperature ring.  Different manufacturers matched
> the rotating direction of aperture ring to match the position of
> the meter in the viewfinder.
>
> Pushing buttons to change any settings requires a visual
> confirmation of the readouts to verify the setting changes.  In
> "older style" cameras the clicks and finger movement is usually
> more than enough to verify the change.
>
> Focusing:
> Don't get me started on focusing.  I could write about
> auto-focus lenses for days.
>
> Retro Advances:
> The new Contax 645AF is an interesting camera.  Although it uses
> the new "modern" viewfinder exposure display, the controls are
> very much "manual" and "analog".  You can pick up the camera and
> without any training be able to operate every control that a 35
> year old medium format camera has.  Minolta has also introduced
> a retro design that has many of the basic controls of an older
> camera with the advanced exposure modes available at a touch of
> a button.
>
> Is our beloved OM system "out of date?"  In many ways, yes.
> Inferior?  Hardly.  If all camera makers were to follow the
> design methodology of the OM system, there wouldn't be the need
> for all of the various exposure modes to compensate for the
> vastly inferior displays and controls.
>
> I believe that in a few more years we will see more and more
> cameras becoming better through mimicking of the older designs.
> Once the makers realize that we are dealing with an analog
> medium (even digital imaging is just a digital
> capture/storage/retreival system of analog information) we will
> see cameras better deal with that analog information on the
> capture side of the equation.
>
> Even Canon has started the slippery slide back to displaying
> analog exposure information with the EOS-3.  A long way to go,
> but at least it is a start.
>
> The OM series could very well be the prototype of future
> cameras.
>
> We can dream, can't we?
>
> Ken N.
> AG-Schnozz
>
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