Manual Reminiscence Friday November 10, 2006
In my teenage years, I read Amateur Photographer every week. It was a Saturday morning rendezvous at the local library, where they only had a limited selection of photography books. My sister was a fan of Canon SLRs, and I decided I disliked their multi-function complexity. I remember one AP article describing Henri Cartier-Bresson, stalking Paris with a battered Leica hidden in a leather jacket. I liked his work, I liked his style; I decided the minimalist approach was for me. I dreamed of an ideal outfit of just three prime lenses: 35 mm, 50 mm, and 135, because zooms were too gimmicky and distracting. If Cartier-Bresson achieved all of that with just one standard lens, I could extend the range just a little but beyond that I wasn’t interested.
That was my first encounter with the culture of photography, and the different ideas people have. I also recall advice about automatic or manual cameras, and it was a time when the latter were more common and the former were not yet fully accepted. I preferred old-school; simple, discreet, with craftsmanship rather than technical wizardry. Manual cameras, the AP said, were best to learn on. You had to learn about aperture and shutter speeds and their different visual effects, as part of an understanding of exposure. This idea still exists in photography culture, and it tends to be mythological rather than substantive.
I did actually learn on manual cameras, beginning with my Dad’s Zenit, a Practika MTL3, a Yashica I borrowed from school and graduating to an Olympus OM10, a cut-down version of an OM1 with similarly proficient metering and an excellent Zuiko lens. But that’s not advice I would necessarily give; I don’t think aperture and shutter speeds are a big or difficult concept, and it’s quite possible an automatic camera will suit a beginner better. Even experienced professionals differ on this; there are those who prefer the old-school approach with manual control, and others who appreciate the convenience of not thinking about it. Manual for beginners, automatic for the pros, could easily be reversed when you consider that photography is not about technique or equipment, but a creative mind and a visual appreciation: which is partly instinctive, and can partly be learnt. So unless a beginner enjoys learning the technical points and deliberately exploring them, it’s quite possible an automatic camera will suit them better. They can hone their technical understanding later after they’ve developed their photographic instinct and have some photographs to evaluate. How would that have been improved with a larger aperture, and an expanded depth of field? How might that have been more creative, with a slower shutter speed and a deliberate use of blur? – and so on.
There are popular myths in photographic culture, and the auto-manual debate is one of them. In reality, all the auto camera does is select the aperture and shutter speed for you, saving a little time and effort. It doesn’t mean you don’t understand what it’s doing; it means it does it for you. For sports photographers this convenience is almost essential and rather obvious; you are severely restricted if you rely on manual controls during a football game. It’s not impossible; Cartier-Bresson anticipated his ‘decisive moments’ by pre-selecting an aperture and exposure suitable for the lighting and the depth of field he wanted. But it’s certainly more difficult, if you rely on prediction and anticipation that may or may not work, rather than an instant electronic response.
But here’s another myth: you only need automatic function for sports photography. Actually, it’s very handy for landscape work. Many times, you will find that changing light presents you with a great picture for just a few seconds. This is especially true in Britain when you might experience bright sunshine one moment, clouds and rain the next, and that brief illumination is the only photo opportunity for the entire morning or even the entire day. Landscape is not a fast moving subject, but light changes rapidly and has the greatest influence on photographic possibility. The last time I experienced this was walking up a wooded track in Wales, when the sun was illuminating the trees contrasting beautifully against a sombre grey sky. I reached for my camera casually – I’d only just arrived, and had barely set off – and in those intervening seconds the sun disappeared and, even more depressing, it never came back the entire afternoon. That one moment was the best opportunity I had, it was a great shot, and I lost it. Not, admittedly, because I was using a manual camera; but the point is the same. Other times I’ve lost shots because the batteries were cold, and my camera was slow to respond or, even more disastrous, wouldn’t work at all. It’s the same idea: fast response is also beneficial for landscape work particularly if, like me, you photograph as you walk rather than stay in one spot for several hours. As clouds flit across British skies you’ll find – I do constantly – an auto camera allows you to capture a moment of brightness in an otherwise dull day, where auto function gives you a great advantage. And if you photograph throughout the year as I do, you will eventually experience cold conditions where you barely manage a few seconds of camera-action, before you have to thrust your hands back into thick gloves and warm pockets.
Auto or manual, for beginner or pro? It depends on the circumstances, what you are doing, and which you prefer. If it’s a leisurely shot where fast response is unnecessary, you may enjoy spending a few seconds setting it up manually. I rarely do that, because I’m not especially interested. The picture is what concerns me and an auto camera makes instantaneous adjustments that I do monitor, but for which I feel no need for set manually. This frees me from thinking about it unduly, allowing me to get on with picture-making.
i am not a photograper my self but i am doing some stuff about cameras in I.T. in college an would realy apruciate if you coud just tell me a little about a few different types of cameras thanks alot :-)
— josh wilson · Nov 13, 12:31 PM · §
It’s probably best to research that on the internet. It’s a bit like saying ‘what different kinds of car are there’ – a very big subject that’s difficult to respond to if there aren’t any boundaries and parameters to it, or a context that clarifies what the objectives to such a question are!
However, there are some broad categories such as
1) Large format film
2) Medium format film
3) 35 mm film SLR
4) 35 mm based digital SLR, using the 35 mm dimensions as the core design for both the image sensor and the camera body, though many cameras in this category use a slightly smaller sensor because when they were first on the market the sensors were hugely expensive to manufacture
5) Compact cameras, where the digital sensor is smaller again.
6) 35 mm film rangefinder cameras, which don’t have the mirror assembly of SLRs and where the design, function, advantages and disadvantages are different. The Leica is the most famous example, and only very recently did Leica release a digital model called the M8. Epson made a digital rangefinder 2/3 years ago but the last I looked, it was discontinued.
— James Lomax · Nov 14, 01:52 PM · §