"A better photographer, built in."

[Isaac]

"Instead of teaching people to take better photos, why not teach the camera?"

iPhone 5s advert

[kencameron]

Auto modes on cameras are getting more sophisticated. It would be interesting to see a properly conducted test on the results of using auto mode versus the settings technically skilled photographers came up with on a given scene.

[Rob C]

After some time relying on Nikon's Matrix metering in the D700, I wouldn't bet against the cameras!

Okay, I often make fine-tune adjustments on static, tripod subjects, but for action and walkies it's just great, and I'm sure absolutely close enough to make not a jot of difference in the real world.

If Matrix works by making judgement calls from a databank base of thousands of similar subject brightness ranges and proportionate balances of tone blocks, why would anything else defeat the technology?

Rob C

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I just had the "Ansel Adams" button removed from my camera and added an "Edward Weston" button instead.   

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

I just got the famous "immediate autocancel" script added to the firmware which activates itself after every shot. 

[Jim Pascoe]

Not forgetting the key point, that if you point a camera at a pile of poo, the picture will still be a load of sh....

And anyway, if there is no photographer input there is no photographer choices, making the whole exercise fairly futile for most skilled/creative photographers.

Jim

[Rob C]

Not forgetting the key point, that if you point a camera at a pile of poo, the picture will still be a load of sh....

And anyway, if there is no photographer input there is no photographer choices, making the whole exercise fairly futile for most skilled/creative photographers.

Jim

True, but the camera will still feel smug!

Rob C

[Isaac]

And anyway, if there is no photographer input there is no photographer choices, making the whole exercise fairly futile for most skilled/creative photographers.

I can see how that would make the photographer redundant, but is that "the whole exercise" or is there some audience apart from the photographer?

[Jim Pascoe]

I can see how that would make the photographer redundant, but is that "the whole exercise" or is there some audience apart from the photographer?

I am supposing that most "skilled/creative photographers" will want to capture their own personal take on a scene, and possibly want to share that with other people after the event.  When we introduce more automation we end up reducing the variation.

Jim

[RSL]

I'm with Jim. Automation can't produce a "better" photograph, except in a technical sense, which misses the point completely. I always come back to what HCB said:

"I am constantly amused by the notion that some people have about photographic technique – a notion which reveals itself in an insatiable craving for sharpness of images. Is this the passion of an obsession? Or do these people hope, by this trompe l’oeil technique, to get to closer grips with reality? In either case, they are just as far away from the real problem as those of that other generation which used to endow all its photographic anecdotes with an intentional unsharpness such as was deemed to be 'artistic.'"

I'm amused by that kind of diversion from the real problems too.

[Isaac]

Says the man with the Nikon D800 :-)

[RSL]

Right, Isaac. But the D800 takes the place of my old 4 x 5 view. When I'm on the street, I'm carrying an Olympus E-P1 with a 50mm equivalent Summicron and pre-focusing. What do you carry when you're on the street? When you're using a tripod?

[kencameron]

I am not sure if it is possible to conclude from the HCB quote that he would have had any problem with cameras that reliably automate exposure and focus. He seems to be saying that getting them "right" is trivial and that what matters is what you find in your viewfinder.

[Alan Klein]

Getting the proper exposure has little to do with creativity and content.

[Ray]

Getting the proper exposure has little to do with creativity and content.

On the contrary, getting the right exposure has a lot to do with creativity and content. So much so in fact, that the difference between a proper exposure and an overexposure could be the difference between a masterpiece and a reject. Overexposure always results in a loss of content. Didn't you realise that, Alan? 

Underexposure can also result in a loss of content, particularly in the shadows, although sometimes that defect might not be as serious as overexposure, especially if one is using a modern Nikon DSLR. 

[Alan Klein]

Well I suppose if you forget to put film in your camera, you can't be creative either.  I bracket my shots to assure I get the right exposure.  What does that have to do with creativity?  You can have a perfectly exposed picture with no content, no creativity.  Exposure it's basically a technique, like banging a nail into a piece of wood.  But it takes an artisan to produce a beautiful piece of furniture.

I think too many photographers, including me, often get caught up in the technical aspects.  How many pixels?  What can I pull out its the shadows?  What it's the DR of the camera or film?  What is the gamut of the printer?  These distractions cause us too miss that photos require soul and content to make them valuable to the viewer.  The rest is just hitting the nail with a hammer.

[Isaac]

But the D800 takes the place of my old 4 x 5 view.

"... an insatiable craving for sharpness of images." ;-)

[Isaac]

What does that have to do with creativity?

What if you underexpose or overexpose to destroy detail you don't want in the picture?

[Ray]

Well I suppose if you forget to put film in your camera, you can't be creative either. 

There are certain very basic requirements one has to get right before one can begin to make creative pictures using a camera. For a start, one has to have a camera. If it's a film camera, one needs to have film in the camera. It also helps greatly to remove the lens cap before attempting to be creative, although that might not always be absolutely essential. 

I bracket my shots to assure I get the right exposure.

Bracketing shots is fine when the subject is static. If the subject is moving, it can be too much of a 'hit and miss' affair. The shot that is preferred with regard to the expression on the subject's face, might be the overexposed shot with blown highlights on the face and/or loss of cloud detail in the background. The ideal exposure might be the last one in the bracketed sequence when the subject just happened to blink and is portrayed with closed eyes.

Alternatively, the best exposure out of the 3 or 5 bracketed shots might be the one with the slowest shutter speed that has resulted in significant blurring.

You can have a perfectly exposed picture with no content, no creativity.

One really can't have a perfectly exposed picture with literally no content. A picture with no content is not a picture. Even a picture taken without the lens cap removed, is still a picture. It's called a black frame. On screen or print it would fit into the category of modern Color Field art, a plain black square with a few bright speckles from stuck pixels and perhaps a hint of banding streaks, all nicely framed to catch the attention of the viewer when mounted on a pale cream wall.

"Wow! Such gorgeous, deep blacks, and those speckles make me think of the outer galaxies and the more distant stars that are hardly visible on a clear night." 

[Alan Klein]

You're selectively editing what I said.  I didn't just say content is important, refering to silver halide in film or digital pixels.  I said content that is creative.  Let's not play word games.