Shooting in P mode

[Rick58]

Something I have not heard of, but which I think would be a neat feature would be to change the labels on things.

What if the P mode display changed not from 500 2.8 --> 250 4.0 --> 125 5.6 but: Freeze Motion -> Some Depth -> More Depth or something? That's what we're thinking anyways when we're setting stuff, this process of converting these stupid numbers to desired effects is a good part of what "understanding exposure" is about.

Some people really like the technical stuff, and I struggle to not hate them for it. There's nothing wrong with just plain digging the gear and the numbers and farting around with them. Some people can't stand the gear and the numbers and the technical stuff. It's silly to say "You must learn exposure first, and then art". It's like saying "you have to learn to sail before you can bake a cake". Photography is both, to be sure. Some people like the sailing, some people like the baking, and you gotta have some understanding of both sides to make much headway. Still, you can learn them in parallel, and, depending on what you really want to do, sometimes you can skate by with some pretty skinny sailing or baking skills.

Disagree. It's more like handing someone who never sailed that same sailboat and saying, "Go win the Worlds cup"

 

[thetrue]

Hey guys, what is this rule of thirds I see tossed around here?

Isn't that where you have every third picture come out perfect? I'm really not sure, but I noticed my camera had this really cool tic-tac-toe board on the screen. I just can't stop playing that game now, but I wished it was easier to erase the board when we finish.:mrgreen:

If that's the rule, I'm far exceeding it :lmao:

Tic tac toe is the only game I can seem to find though. I was hoping to find pacman or something!!!

 

[oldhippy]

Why is that a problem for you?




I used to to be proud to be a "Professional Photographer"!! Now they are just a dime a dozen, and most are as useful as tits on a boar hog!![/QUOTE]
Thats true unless you are a truely sensual boar hog, like our old boar, Billy Bob IMHO

 

[The_Traveler]

There is nothing that is more certain to set off a chicken fight than even hinting to a photographer that the way he/she learned to do things or the way they do things now may not be the absolute best way it can be done.

The mere expression of a contrary opinion - and maintaining it - just sets people off.

 

[HughGuessWho]

There is nothing that is more certain to set off a chicken fight than even hinting to a photographer that the way he/she learned to do things or the way they do things now may not be the absolute best way it can be done.

The mere expression of a contrary opinion - and maintaining it - just sets people off.

Its not about how they learned or continue to do. Its their inability yo accept that some people are not stuck in the 70's and actually embrace the modern day.

 

[The_Traveler]

Let's go after this a little differently and maybe people can ignore my underlying beliefs.

How about we try, whenever possible and appropriate, to insert a little higher level abstraction in our c/c and frame it in terms of the impression we get from the image, what we think the photographer was after and what technical issues stand in the way.

That will frame the issue of 'corrections', not a purely a technical matter aimed at perfection but one that is aimed towards the best possible impact of the image.

 

[unpopular]

I think there is room for both. That's what I try to do, obviously hearing for the upteenth millionth time the laundry list of technical faults isn't very useful.

It's easy to see the technical issues. What a photograph means as an art object takes a bit more concentration.

 

[amolitor]

Many photographers of a certain sort actually cannot see anything except the technical details.

When you spend a great deal of effort learning something, you inevitably wind up with the impression that what you have learned is the Important Thing. When you look at a photograph, you will notice the Important Things, and they will make it extremely difficult to see anything else (not literally, but you'll have a hard time noticing and reacting to other things). Photographers on internet forums has spent a lot of effort learning technical things, and the rest follows pretty much inevitably.

On the one hand, I think it's valuable to regularly talk about these things, to keep up the pressure on the other side, and to support the idea that non-technical things matter, so I applaud these threads, always. On the other hand, I think that it's water off a duck's back to many people reading these threads.

 

[christop]

Something I have not heard of, but which I think would be a neat feature would be to change the labels on things.

What if the P mode display changed not from 500 2.8 --> 250 4.0 --> 125 5.6 but: Freeze Motion -> Some Depth -> More Depth or something? That's what we're thinking anyways when we're setting stuff, this process of converting these stupid numbers to desired effects is a good part of what "understanding exposure" is about.

I'd go for something like Freeze Motion -> Some motion/some bokehs -> Lots of bokehs.

 

[skieur]

Absolutely none of the technical elements means anything unless the image has some meaning or impact..

I would say it in reverse and of course that changes the meaning

The image has no meaning or impact if the viewer is distracted by major defficiencies in the technical elements.

skieur

 

[bratkinson]

I think we all pretty much learned to drive a car by first having someone demonstrate how to adjust the seat, perhaps the mirrors, turn it on, and start the car moving by watching our parents go through the 'mechanics' of driving an automobile. When it came our turn, they were with us teaching us how the clutch and gas were basically opposite each other, and with a lot of bucking, we could actually make the car go forward. OK, I'm an old geezer! Automatic transmissions simply made driving easier. Now that we could make the car 'go' simply by starting it, pressing on the gas, and steering in the right direction, we were now classed as 'drivers'. We were certainly nowhere NEAR ready for driving in ice and snow, and definitely not ready for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but we at least thought we could...until sliding into a snowbank....or another car. How to learn to handle snow and ice? Practice, practice, practice...and more than a couple bent bumpers in my case.

Is this much different than photography? Simply pointing a cellphone in the right direction and clicking the shutter will yield a picture...typically reasonably lit, focused, etc. Not much harder than learning to drive a bumper-car in the travelling carnival. And when advancing to a point and shoot? I'm guessing 95% of the point-and-shoot people never get beyond the green "A" and are happy with the results. They're not out to capture or create 'art'. They want to record history...where they were, what Aunt Mary looked like when we saw her...Little Sarahs' high school graduation...and on and on.

Then they (we) discover we want to get decent looking shots in a very dark setting, or a beautifully blurred background, and the green "A" only produces a well lit photograph, not the scene as we see it...or want to record it. NOW comes the time of "OK, how do I do (or get) THAT image into the camera? Not what the camera wanted, but what I want!". THAT'S the motivation to learn the mechanics of photography. Some may become overwhelmed, confused, or just unable to 'figure out' how the exposure triangle works and the benefits and negatives of varying a particular setting. They go back to the green "A" or even try the 'scene' modes like portrait, sports, etc. They're happy enough.

But wait...where's the art in photography? As mentioned above, a skilled 'artiste' with a paintbrush or pen and ink has an idea in their head, but not a clue how to perform the photography mechanics necessary to achieve it. Similarly, a photography 'technician' may be able to make 1000 perfect exposures a day under all conditions, but every picture looks 'blah'. No art...no 'life'...no 'texture'...no 'feeling'. For many of the best-known artists, whether graphic arts or musicians, or actors, etc...they haven't a clue about what makes a car run (fuel, air, spark), but at least they can drive. They likewise have no clue about the exposure triangle. I've seen this first hand with a couple of performer friends as well as my retired university art department chair brother in law. And on the other side of the coin...the 'technicians' (I'm mostly in that camp) don't have a clue WHY the Mona Lisa is a great work of art any more than a 3 year olds' finger painting doesn't qualify as art. So when I try to take some 'artsy fartsy' photograph, I really don't have a clue whether it's art or just a waste of pixels. Every now and then, I get lucky and get a 'great' picture...but rarely of the 'artsy fartsy' kind.

As a retired computer consultant, I saw many that had a college degree in computer sciences and couldn't write a simple minded program without having their hand held the entire way. Knowing all the technicalities and details, they completely lacked the ability to visualize any logical 'flow' to get from 'this' to 'that' in a program. Some programmers will never 'get it'. The same holds true in photography...many will never see the 'art' in a simple shot of a lone tree on a small hill with the setting sun behind it AND know how to compose it and artfully capture it in pixels....I'm one of them. I'll take a dozen shots and hope one comes out 'looking nice'. I may trash them all, too. Needless to say, my photography falls entirely into the 'documentary' category...not 'art'.

In my mind, "A" is a great way to take a decent picture, 'artsy' if you will, without having to understand a thing about how a camera works. It frees the artist to capture the image, without having to fuss around with a lot of seemingly unrelated technical details. But "A" and its' brother "P", offer a great starting point to learn the details of photography from seeing what the camera would do and experiment from there. Is "A" and "P" (not the grocery chain) good for everyone? How many, or more appropriately, how FEW Ansel Adams were/are out there that have fully mastered the art AND camera?

 

[The_Traveler]

Absolutely none of the technical elements means anything unless the image has some meaning or impact..

I would say it in reverse and of course that changes the meaning

The image has no meaning or impact if the viewer is distracted by major defficiencies in the technical elements.

skieur

This is not an exhaustive statement because there may be no distracting technical elements and the image may still not have impact.

 

[Derrel]

Sooo...shooting in P mode...it CAN produce some pretty decent results with a d-slr. Why? Because a d-slr is a modern, 21-st century device, filled with computer power, evaluative metering, and a HUGE memory bank of actual photographs that have been analyzed by the camera company, and programmed into the camera. In the case of Nikons made since 1996, there is full red-green-blue or RGB color metering analysis in each camera, with 420 to 1,005 to what is it now? 3,000 measured color metering points in the D800 and D600 and D4? The camera is always shooting "color positive" (well, for the most part). Not "color negative" and not "B&W negative", which is a HUGE distinction, because with old, color-blind light metering, color NEGATIVE required the users to ADD exposure time on white subjects, whereas with color SLIDE film (aka color positive film, which is like digital) the photographer needed to MINUS exposure, so as not to "blow out" a white object that he aimed his meter at. The d-slr has ONE, specific capture medium, its own specific sensor, that is used for ALL exposures. Not one of 350 film types...

P mode in a modern d-slr, one that has evaluative metering, and color-aware metering, and distance-aware metering, can actually deliver pretty good exposures. The focal length in use can be a factor. So can be the city programmed into the camera's memory, as well as the day and date; combined with the 24-hour clock, and those clues can be used as a part of the metering evaluation matrix; for example, on July 4 at 2:00 PM in any North American city, the light is most likely going to be BRIGHT, and if the EV level is ABOVE EV 13, the camera "KNOWS" that it is being used outdoors. Similarly, on July 4, at 10:30 PM, with an EV value of 1, the camera KNOWS that it is DARK outside in North America. For certain. Nikon invented Matrix light metering and the concept of tens of thousands of pre-analyzed scenes programmed onto a computer chip hooked to the light metering system wayyyy back in the mid-1980's, and premiered the idea in the Nikon FA. And yet, some people do seem to act like it is the 1970's...before P mode was even ON most cameras at all!!!

 

[christop]

Not "color negative" and not "B&W negative", which is a HUGE distinction, because with old, color-blind light metering, color NEGATIVE required the users to ADD exposure time on white subjects, whereas with color SLIDE film (aka color positive film, which is like digital) the photographer needed to MINUS exposure, so as not to "blow out" a white object that he aimed his meter at. The d-slr has ONE, specific capture medium, its own specific sensor, that is used for ALL exposures. Not one of 350 film types...

I'm a little confused by what you're saying here. If you meter off a white object, the exposure will be set to make that object appear as middle gray, whether it's exposed onto negative or slide film. On either medium you would have to add to the exposure to make the object appear white on film (so the photo doesn't look underexposed). Perhaps since slide film is less forgiving of overexposure than negative film, you wouldn't overexpose the white object as much as you would with negative film--maybe only a stop for slide film versus two stops or more for negative film--but it's still adding exposure.

 

[skieur]

Absolutely none of the technical elements means anything unless the image has some meaning or impact..

I would say it in reverse and of course that changes the meaning

The image has no meaning or impact if the viewer is distracted by major defficiencies in the technical elements.

skieur

This is not an exhaustive statement because there may be no distracting technical elements and the image may still not have impact.

This is why that BOTH technique (the technical elements) AND composition the artistic elements are a necessary part of an excellent photo.

As you say in effect, if the technical elements are perfect and there is no centre of interest and no impact, then the photo is poor/weak etc.

BUT, the reverse is also true: If the photo is compositionally excellent but the viewer is distracted by technical deficiencies such as severe overexposure, flare, poor colour etc., then the photo is equally poor/weak etc.


Both the technical and the compositional aspect are excellent in an excellent photo and therefore BOTH are equally important.

skieur