I enjoy reading the musings of Herbert Keppler on his “Speaking Frankly” blog on the Popular Photography website. He often posts his notes and writings from days gone past, and it is interesting to see his perspective today and yesterday, comparing photography now and then. In some ways, we feel everything has changed, yet in other ways, it is just the same discipline with new tools.
He dug out one such comment from his 1969 “Keppler Files” which speaks about the automation of cameras:
It should be evident to anyone dabbling in single-lens reflexes that total automation is just around the corner. We have gone from the hand-held meter to the built-in but not coupled, to the built-in and coupled to the shutter speed only and thence to the almost universally used through-lens metering system coupled to the shutter speed and aperture controls. We simply center the needle and shoot, often much too oblivious to what exposure we use. If the needle’s centered and the exposure’s right, who cares if it is f/4 or f/5.6, if it’s 1/60 or 1/125 sec? We should care but often don’t or we’re too careless in operating the camera or just too lazy to look. As a result we’re ignorant of whether we’ve stopped all the action or how much depth of field we’ve really got. We’re letting the machine do our thinking, and since it can’t think, our thinking is as often as not, not being done at all.
Do I think that automated cameras are evil or something? No, of course not, but our fellow photographer has a point here. I think we need to know when to turn off the automated features and let them take the helm.
Even my all-manual film camera has a simple meter in the viewfinder. I will have to admit that most of the time I would just center that little green circle (in the case of my camera’s light meter) and fire. And with the aperture ring so convenient, comfortably fitted in my left hand, I would usually just fire when I saw the green light. That is not automation, but is accomplishing the same thing.
However, with the manual settings, I was much more aware of what settings were changing, because my fingers had to do the work. And when I wanted something in particular, like the depth of field or sense of action, the camera was my tool to catch that, instead of a computer that I had to convince to do it my way.
With automated cameras (basically, almost every camera on the market today), it is ever so easy to cast those pesky dials out of our photography. When speed is what you need, just go automatic and shoot. Sometimes, you will not capture the picture you need if you do not. If, however, you want to actually learn how to use your camera as a tool, you will have to play with different f/stops and speeds (and oh so many other settings on today’s cameras) to learn how they change the photo.
