"Thomas Prufer" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 24 Sep 2015 17:31:20 +0100, "NY" wrote:

My compact camera doesn't have the option of shooting in RAW.

Look at some of the alternative operating systems for cameras:-)

F'rinstance, there's "CHDK" for many Canon compact cameras: RAW, also:
timelapse, macros that take a picture when lightning flashes, that take
pictures
when something moves, etc. etc. I copied the list below.

All goes on a SD card: move the write proctection to "lock", and you are
running
CHDK, move it back, and it's out-of-the-box original.

That sounds fantastic if you can load alternative firmware/OS into a camera.
My old Minolta digital had the ability to take timelapse (photos of a
morning glory flower opening as the sun came up) but I've never seen it on
any of the more recent cameras, whether compact or SLR.

I'll give it a try!

"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
So what is the advantage of RAW, and what is the equivalent in film.

It is very approximately the equivalent to going back to the negative and
printing it at a different exposure or with different colour-correction
filters so you map a different part of the wide exposure latitude of the
negative onto the more restricted latitude of the print. Many automatic
printmaking shops have their machine set to clip the brightest 5% of the
print (the darkest part of the neg) to white and the darkest 5% to black
(thus losing detail at those two extremes) because this produces more
contrasty, less muddy prints.

For digital, some cameras are set to do the same sort of thing when going
from the sensor image to the JPG, as well as to apply some sharpening and
JPG compression, whereas AFAIK the raw file is not lossy compressed, is not
sharpened and often doesn't have any white balance correction; you are left
to do all those things to your own preference using proprietary RAW -
JPG/TIFF/PNG software that comes with the camera or with packages such as
Photoshop which can read various cameras' RAW formats. Some cameras' RAW
files actually have the suffix DNG (digital negative) because that is
effectively what the file is - what the sensor saw before any in-camera
corrections.

My SLR
does and I have set it to take both JPG and RAW for every photo. I
still
underexpose by 1/3 stop on both cameras for the benefit of the JPG, but
I don't think it affects the RAW (I could be wrong on that).

It should affect both but 1/3 of a stop isn't really much unless you are
on the limit.

a 1/3rd of a stop surely with digital this should be expressed as 0.33333
of a stop and what is a stop in digital terms ;-)

As with film photography, 1 stop is a halving/doubling of the amount of
light getting through the lens (eg f 5.6 - f8) or a halving/doubling of the
shutter speed. Maybe 1/3 stop should be expressed as 0.33 recurring, as you
say :-)

On Friday, 25 September 2015 13:37:14 UTC+1, dennis@home wrote:
On 25/09/2015 11:56, whisky-dave wrote:
On Thursday, 24 September 2015 20:45:59 UTC+1, dennis@home wrote:
On 24/09/2015 16:44, whisky-dave wrote:
On Thursday, 24 September 2015 15:44:03 UTC+1, NY wrote:


Yes, I suspect that some of the "film is better than digital"
is like the old "LP is better than CD", which relies partly on
personal preference and partly on "it's better because I say
it's better", the old "stands to reason" defence :-)

nothing to do with that.

If you were teaching sonmeone how to sign would you employ
someone that could sing or introduce them to an auto-tuner.

which is best for teaching singing.


What's that got to do with digital or film cameras?

the differnce between gettin the picture you want and getting a snap
shot.

More rubbish, there are a few people about that can get decent pictures
from film cameras so not all film is snap shots.

No idea where that sentance came from.
There are a number of people that can get decent results with film.
There's alos plenty of peole that can't take a good picture with a digital camera.


what you see on the LCD of a digital camera isn't the same as what
you get as the captured image, but then again only someone that knows
a bit about photography.

What you see through the view finder isn't what you get on film and what
you get on print isn't what you got on the film either. But at least you
can see if its close on a screen.

close in what sense ?
Are you sure all those 'photographers' you see taking flash picures at the olmypics and other stadiums are getting what they see on the LCD. ?

Seems quite common to see loads of people flashing didn't see that even 20 years ago.



Are you comparing iPhones to SLRs and saying the SLR is better
because its manual?

No. I'm saying that to teach photgraphy film is a better option
because as you've proved digital has many distractions such as the
LCD which as you claim shows you in advance what you 'get'.

So what do you recommend a box brownie so all you can change is the
viewpoint and the lighting?

No but being able to change shutter speeds and aperature are a
distict advantage when teaching photography which is why you can't really teach photography on a mobile phone.


That will teach a lot about photography and
you can buy a digital to do that.

you can learn photgraphy without a camera.




Why does the tutor need to be able to sing?

They don't have to be. But would yuo take singing advice
from someone that couldn't sing but have a really good auto tuner ?



Do you just want to copy
someone else? Is that your idea of photography, being able to copy
someone else?

In order to be able to copy someone else you need the skills.
Whether it be singing or photography.

If you want to know how to cook a book on microwave cooking is hardly the way, but you can make yourself something to eat.
Cooking and reheating AREC differnt you may not be able to tell but other can.

"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
Whats that got to do with film vs digital?
Digitals can be manual the same as film can be automatic.

which digital camera would you choose for teaching photography ?
could you treach photography without a battery ?
Can you take a photo without the aid of electricity ?

Any camera (film or digital) that has the ability to turn off its automatic
features which are useful when time is tight and they are the difference
between getting reasonable picture or not getting it because you're still
making manual adjustments such as focus, aperture and shutter speed, but
which should not be relied on in all situations because, as you rightly say,
the settings are not always correct and because they don't encourage you to
acquire a greater understanding of the techniques of taking photos and the
variables that you can adjust.

That probably includes many compact cameras (eg Canon G9, Canon SX260) which
have auto-everything modes but also have manual focus, shutter/aperture
priority (as opposed to Program mode) and also have Manual mode which give
you control of both aperture and shutter speed.

Results with one of those cameras are surprisingly good, but there is
noticeable "noise" (random speckle, analogous to film grain) and optical
distortion from a fairly cheap lens.

So maybe you need an SLR - again, with auto-everything if you need it but
with the same degree of manual or semi-auto settings. A larger sensor and
better, interchangable lenses give better quality images.

Incidentally, the same degree of auto-everything but also manual focus,
exposure etc that I had on my film camera (a Canon SLR with motor drive,
roughly 1990 vintage) with various metering modes (spot, centre-weighted,
average over whole frame); my previous one (my dad's old Yashika from the
1970s) had manual focus and manual meter only, with ground-glass focussing
screen and metering that required you to adjust aperture and/or shutter
speed until neither a --- (underexposure) nor a -- (overexposure) LED came
on. I have to admit that it was easier to judge manual focus with the older
camera's ground-glass and split-screen focussing screen than it was with the
Canon's focussing screen which was ground glass only with no split screen.

One thing you don't get with compact cameras (film or digital) is the
ability to stop down the lens to see what DOF the aperture will give you.


As regards getting a photo without a battery, I think you'd struggle to find
a film camera that didn't need a battery. All the ones I've had over the
past 40 years, except my grandpa's old Voigtlander that had a passive meter
(*), have needed a battery at least for the exposure meter and also with
some for the film advance motor drive. I *think* that those cameras would
not even fire the shutter without a battery, even if you used an external
meter to determine aperture/shutter speed.


(*) ie a photo-voltaic light cell in the light path generated a voltage
proportional to light intensity and drove a needle, without needing a
battery; it also had a dual viewfinder (not through the lens) which
presented two images from about 2" apart in the camera and relied on
parallax to show you when those images overlapped and hence you had focussed
on the correct distance

"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
From the teachiong point of view it is better to use film than digital
because there's less distractions, you can concentrate on ONE aspect at a
time.

I could make a case for saying that the developing and printing stage of
film is a distraction in the sense that it introduces extra parameters that
can be varied, after taking the photo, to affect the final image. Or am I
being a devil's advocate? :-)


you don't need autofocus and 10 fps bursts or know about diffraction
limiting
on sensors to leanr photogrpahy which is the 'art' of using light NOT
paint.

But that's a different subject to whether film is better than
digital for learning on: a manual-capable digital camera is more use for
learning that an auto-only film camera.

there are few auto only flim camera in existance today, there's plenty of
auot only 'cameras' around today and most peole have them min their
phones, using such a device is NOT the best way to learn photography.
Photography and gettign a selfie IS NOT the same. This is why peolpe still
employer photographers at wedding rather that rely on friends and family
to take 'good' picutes with their phone.

I fully agree. Do you accept that not *all* digital cameras are "toys" like
this and that many give you the same level of manual override that you'd
have with a film SLR? It is those (and not the fully-auto cameras in phones)
that I think the rest of us on this thread are talking about when we say
that digital has the manual modes to aid teaching but additionally, over and
above film, the instant feedback of what effect these manual adjustments
have on your photo.

"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
what you see on the LCD of a digital camera isn't the same as what
you get as the captured image, but then again only someone that knows
a bit about photography.

What you see through the view finder isn't what you get on film and what
you get on print isn't what you got on the film either. But at least you
can see if its close on a screen.

close in what sense ?
Are you sure all those 'photographers' you see taking flash picures at the
olmypics and other stadiums are getting what they see on the LCD. ?

Depends whether you mean the live view as they are taking the photo (answer:
not it definitely isn't) or whether you mean the photo as recorded on the
memory card and which they may play back immediately after taking the photo.
If they bothered to look at the played-back photo and wondered why it was
mostly black apart from the back of the head of the person in front, they
might learn why. Of course they could make the same mistake with a film
camera in thinking that the optical viewfinder always showed them what the
film photo would look like - but it would take them until they had the film
developed to see that.

On Friday, 25 September 2015 14:36:09 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
So what is the advantage of RAW, and what is the equivalent in film.

It is very approximately the equivalent to going back to the negative and
printing it at a different exposure or with different colour-correction
filters so you map a different part of the wide exposure latitude of the
negative onto the more restricted latitude of the print. Many automatic
printmaking shops have their machine set to clip the brightest 5% of the
print (the darkest part of the neg) to white and the darkest 5% to black
(thus losing detail at those two extremes) because this produces more
contrasty, less muddy prints.

But yuo don;t do that sort of thing with film.
There's no such thing as RAW in the film world.

The only reason people use RAW is because the digital jpegs aren't good enough for what they want to do with them, so what does that say about digital.


For digital, some cameras are set to do the same sort of thing when going
from the sensor image to the JPG, as well as to apply some sharpening and
JPG compression, whereas AFAIK the raw file is not lossy compressed, is not
sharpened and often doesn't have any white balance correction; you are left
to do all those things to your own preference using proprietary RAW -
JPG/TIFF/PNG software that comes with the camera or with packages such as
Photoshop which can read various cameras' RAW formats. Some cameras' RAW
files actually have the suffix DNG (digital negative) because that is
effectively what the file is - what the sensor saw before any in-camera
corrections.

so it's the equivalnet of film in that you get everything rather than a cut down amount of data that you get with jpeg. Sure it might be good enough.

try expaining why you'd use jpeg to someone that has only used film.
Why do yuo want a lower quaility image i.e a jpeg when yuo can have maxium quality





a 1/3rd of a stop surely with digital this should be expressed as 0.33333
of a stop and what is a stop in digital terms ;-)

As with film photography,

NO, I said explain what a stop is in digital remmeber you haven't a film canera yuo are teaching with a digital camera.
So what is a stop and what does it mean.
Why call it a stop one have such strange stop numbers.......
why does f5.6 let in twice that of f8



1 stop is a halving/doubling of the amount of
light getting through the lens (eg f 5.6 - f8) or a halving/doubling of the
shutter speed. Maybe 1/3 stop should be expressed as 0.33 recurring, as you
say :-)

with shutter speeds even digital camera, you select 1/125 or 1/250
why not have the dial set to 187ms exposure ?

Why does the image on my LCD look the same irrespected of the aperature and shutter speed I set.

On Friday, 25 September 2015 14:52:01 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
From the teachiong point of view it is better to use film than digital
because there's less distractions, you can concentrate on ONE aspect at a
time.

I could make a case for saying that the developing and printing stage of
film is a distraction in the sense that it introduces extra parameters that
can be varied, after taking the photo, to affect the final image. Or am I
being a devil's advocate? :-)

Coudl I also say that worrying about what sort of monitor you'll be using fopr viewing yuor digitasl images, should you got HD, 4K or imac 5K
and the4n there's the indivual manufactors that also suplpy curved screens is that not a disctaction or do you only view you images on the cameras LCD.

If you're going to print them then there's even more problems of which printer , which papar, should I use 3rd party inks and papers.
or are yuo saying there's no differnce between the basic office printers
and the photo printers ?



I fully agree. Do you accept that not *all* digital cameras are "toys".

I'd say that even fewer film cameras were toys.

like
this and that many give you the same level of manual override that you'd
have with a film SLR?

I'd say no, they are differnt.

It is those (and not the fully-auto cameras in phones)
that I think the rest of us on this thread are talking about when we say
that digital has the manual modes to aid teaching but additionally, over and
above film, the instant feedback of what effect these manual adjustments
have on your photo.

so a photo shot at say f11 at 1/125th is the same as f4 at 1/1000
on the LCD the picture looks the same.
what if you either change the film from ISO 400 to 100 ?

does shutter speed and aperature actually matter if the exposure
as seen on the LCD looks correct.
is that all you need to do is check the brightness of the LCD.

On Friday, 25 September 2015 14:52:04 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message


Any camera (film or digital) that has the ability to turn off its automatic
features which are useful when time is tight and they are the difference
between getting reasonable picture or not getting it because you're still
making manual adjustments such as focus, aperture and shutter speed, but
which should not be relied on in all situations because, as you rightly say,
the settings are not always correct and because they don't encourage you to
acquire a greater understanding of the techniques of taking photos and the
variables that you can adjust.

1st you have to understand why your adjusting those variables and why.


That probably includes many compact cameras (eg Canon G9, Canon SX260) which
have auto-everything modes but also have manual focus, shutter/aperture
priority (as opposed to Program mode) and also have Manual mode which give
you control of both aperture and shutter speed.

which is why you'll find most photographers choose such cameras.

Results with one of those cameras are surprisingly good, but there is
noticeable "noise" (random speckle, analogous to film grain) and optical
distortion from a fairly cheap lens.

So how come those with the lower end cameras don't notuice such things.

which is were the interesting point comes in , if you give an
person a FF fully features DLSR with they get a better picrure than they would from a cheap camera. The coirrect answer is they wiull get a better quailty image, whch says nothing about the quality of the photograph they end up with.

Giving a person a DSLR does NOT make them a photographer.
They may well find it easier to take a photo but that's not the point.


So maybe you need an SLR - again, with auto-everything if you need it but
with the same degree of manual or semi-auto settings. A larger sensor and
better, interchangable lenses give better quality images.

but doesn't make you a better photgrapher, or better at taking photos.


Incidentally, the same degree of auto-everything but also manual focus,
exposure etc that I had on my film camera (a Canon SLR with motor drive,
roughly 1990 vintage) .

I had a canon A1 with the MA motor drive that took either 8 or 12 AA batteries .

with various metering modes (spot, centre-weighted,
average over whole frame); my previous one (my dad's old Yashika from the
1970s) had manual focus and manual meter only, with ground-glass focussing
screen and metering that required you to adjust aperture and/or shutter
speed until neither a --- (underexposure) nor a -- (overexposure) LED came
on. I have to admit that it was easier to judge manual focus with the older
camera's ground-glass and split-screen focussing screen than it was with the
Canon's focussing screen which was ground glass only with no split screen.

Lucky 'bstard my first camera was a Praktica L no battery, no meter,
My next was the Praktica VLC 2 which had a meter and a battery and a detachable top.


One thing you don't get with compact cameras (film or digital) is the
ability to stop down the lens to see what DOF the aperture will give you.

Probbably not but its a function I rarely use as I have an approxamate appreciation of what DoF is.
DoF isn't an exact sceince it depends on many things.







As regards getting a photo without a battery, I think you'd struggle to find
a film camera that didn't need a battery.

My practica L didn;t neither did my fathers camera that were 2/ 14 square. My ploriod land 110B camera doesn;t have a battery either.
Olympus trip.



(*) ie a photo-voltaic light cell in the light path generated a voltage
proportional to light intensity and drove a needle,

Yep the LTL3 I borrowed had that.
Trouble with those cds cells was their memeory.

without needing a
battery; it also had a dual viewfinder (not through the lens) which
presented two images from about 2" apart in the camera and relied on
parallax to show you when those images overlapped and hence you had focussed
on the correct distance.

I have a lieca rangefinder add on but not the camera.

On 25/09/15 09:54, NY wrote:
"DJC" wrote in message
...
For a SLR the time is limited by the speed of the mirror.

I'm intrigued by this statement. Surely the mirror remains down at all
times except for the brief instant either side of the shutter opening.

The time between pressing the shutter and the exposure. It will be the
same for a digital as a film SLR as there is no difference in the
process. However if using a digital 'live view' or a 'mirror-less'
camera then the shutter has to close and the sensor be set before the
exposure can begin. 'Electronic first curtain' eliminate this delay.





The autofocus time is governed by where the lens is currently focussed
(ie was it previously focussed close-up and you're now focussing on
something in the distance) and on how complex the picture is - how much
the object that you are focussing on can be distinguished from the
background, which governs whether the mechanism needs to "hunt" either
side of the focus point to select the focus that gives the sharpest
focus (which I think is often judged by the camera as being the highest
contrast on an edge-detector).

SLR use 'phase detect' autofocus which is faster than hunting for edge
sharpness as the system knows which way to focus (ie near or far). Some
newer mirror-less such as the Fuji have phase detect sensors on the main
sensor (in SLRs it is a separate system).



€¦snip€¦

This really is a very demanding test of autofocus - and a situation
where manual focus almost certainly isn't much use because the human eye
can't react quickly to keep an object in focus where the distance is
rapidly changing, and if you choose a fixed distance and wait until the
bird's path takes it to that distance, you are dependent on reaction
speed which makes things very hit and miss.


Try manual pre-focus: set the focus point to where the subject is likely
to be, concentrate on tracking alone, press shutter when in range.



If only puffins could be made to follow designated flight paths so you
could position yourself where you were a constant distance away as they
fly! ;-)


--
DJC
(–€Ì¿Ä¹Ì¯–€Ì¿ Ì¿)

On 25/09/15 11:44, whisky-dave wrote:
On Thursday, 24 September 2015 20:36:15 UTC+1, dennis@home wrote:
On 24/09/2015 17:31, NY wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
web.com...
On 23/09/2015 13:41, NY wrote:
8

But set against that is the fact that if you *are* willing to learn from
your mistakes, the fact that all your photos are free means that you can
experiment, and you can see instantly which is the right exposure in a
situation where an automatic meter would be fooled. Admittedly, because
the exposure latitude of digital is less (it is very easy to overexpose
and irrecoverably burn out details in the highlights) you *need* to get
the exposure more correct,

Are you shooting in RAW?
I ask because modern digital sensors have a higher dynamic range than
most films available. The range is chopped off to make the JPEGs and
you may then lose shadow or highlight detail. Its where the HDR images
come from, compressing the middle of the range rather than the ends.
If it is consistently over exposed then there is probably a metering
fault.

My compact camera doesn't have the option of shooting in RAW.

I bought one that did and they are difficult to find.

So what is the advantage of RAW, and what is the equivalent in film.
Of course I have a pretty good idea as I know a bit about photography and taking snap shots.

RAW is equivalent to having a negative. i.e. (in principle) a record of
the light level falling on each pixel of the sensor. JPEG is lossy
compression you cannot recover the lost detail.



--
DJC
(–€Ì¿Ä¹Ì¯–€Ì¿ Ì¿)

"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
I fully agree. Do you accept that not *all* digital cameras are "toys".

I'd say that even fewer film cameras were toys.

Instamatic? Other similar cameras with no accurate control of exposure other
than "sunny/cloudy/flash" settings and constant shutter speed. Though maybe
not quite as bad as the cameras in some mobiles.


like
this and that many give you the same level of manual override that you'd
have with a film SLR?

I'd say no, they are differnt.

What additional manual override do you get with film SLR that you don't with
digital SLR? In what other ways (apart from the obvious one of silcon versus
film for sensor) are they significantly different and how might you learn
less with a digital SLR?

It is those (and not the fully-auto cameras in phones)
that I think the rest of us on this thread are talking about when we say
that digital has the manual modes to aid teaching but additionally, over
and
above film, the instant feedback of what effect these manual adjustments
have on your photo.

so a photo shot at say f11 at 1/125th is the same as f4 at 1/1000
on the LCD the picture looks the same.

There are some photos (static subject, everything at infinity) where you'd
be hard-pressed to distinguish the pictures even at full size never mind on
an LCD screen. At the other end of the scale, a subject with a very large
range of distances would look different at the two different apertures, even
on small LCD; likewise for a fast-moving subject where the amount of blur
would be different. But the LCD gives you a more approximate impression
mainly to check brightness (ie do you want f11, f8 or f5.6 at 1/125). Which
you can tell even in the live view before exposing. Those are the sort of
things where the instant nature of digital probably offers its greatest
advantage, although there's nothing to stop you checking the taken proto on
the LCD, maybe magnifying some critical part to check that what you want to
be in or out of focus really is.

Accurate focussing is easier on an optical viewfinder than an LCD, which is
why I prefer a DSLR with this feature or a film SLR over a camera that
*only* has an LCD viewfinder.

A digital SLR, if you decide not to view the playback of taken photos, is
no worse than a digital, assuming you view you photos at a reasonable size
on a computer afterwards. You can take as many variants as you like without
having to pay for them, which encourages experimentation, and each photo is
tagged with the parameters that you might need to note for the future,
without you having to keep a separate paper note of them and match them to
the correct frame of film, especially if the slides or prints are not
labelled with frame number. Only Kodak numbered their slide mounts on
Kodachrome; when I had Ektachrome developed in my local photo shop the
mounts were invariably un-numbered.

what if you either change the film from ISO 400 to 100 ?

Digital camera users are almost spoilt for choice here because you can take
different photos at different ISO numbers and see *some* difference, though
probably less than with film. You don't get the increase in contrast and
garish colours if you push-process Ektachrome by 3 stops (been there) and
you don't get such an increase in graininess. Indeed I've take found
identically framed/exposed pictures at 3200 ASA and averaged them to produce
a result that is virtually indistinguishable from one at 200 ASA. Even if
you could register the film accurately, I think the increase in grain of an
average of the film frames would be noticeable compared with 200 ASA film.



does shutter speed and aperature actually matter if the exposure
as seen on the LCD looks correct.
is that all you need to do is check the brightness of the LCD.

There is a tendency (and I'm guilty of this myself) to let the camera choose
its own aperture and shutter speed - both on digital and film. For many
subjects it doesn't matter much. But I'm well aware of when it is critical -
which is why I'd use aperture priority if I wanted to force a very deep or
shallow DOF (and preview the effect in the viewfinder or else the LCD [maybe
magnified] on a camera that had not optical viewfinder or DOF preview;
conversely I'd use shutter priority if I wanted deliberately slow shutter
speed to blur the water of a waterfall or else deliberately fast to catch
the droplets of a fountain - and digital would give me the opportunity to
see what effect this had to check if I need to retake with even slower or
even faster.

The times when this level of checking is needed are relatively small, but
it's nice to have to opportunity if necessary.

Is there anything where a film camera plus close examination afterwards of
slides/prints can teach you more than a digital camera plus close
examination on a PC screen of the photos, assuming in both cases you use an
SLR with the same degree of manual or semi-auto (aperture/shutter priority)
settings and turn off autofocus and any other auto settings if they inhibit
learning.

It's a shame that a lot of lenses (especially zoom) are not made any more
with focussing markings on the barrel to show, for a given focus point,
roughly what range of distances should be in focus at a given aperture.
Obviously it's bit more difficult with a zoom lens rather than a prime lens
because you need curved lines to indicate reducing DOF, for a given
aperture, as you increase the focal length, and you can only do it for a
zoom with trombone rather than twist ring adjustment of focal length.
Without these lines it's harder to learn about setting hyperfocal distance.
But that applies to both film and digital - indeed if you have a DSLR with a
35mm sensor you'd use the same lens as for a film camera.

On 25/09/15 16:27, whisky-dave wrote:
On Friday, 25 September 2015 14:36:09 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
So what is the advantage of RAW, and what is the equivalent in film.

It is very approximately the equivalent to going back to the negative and
printing it at a different exposure or with different colour-correction
filters so you map a different part of the wide exposure latitude of the
negative onto the more restricted latitude of the print. Many automatic
printmaking shops have their machine set to clip the brightest 5% of the
print (the darkest part of the neg) to white and the darkest 5% to black
(thus losing detail at those two extremes) because this produces more
contrasty, less muddy prints.

But yuo don;t do that sort of thing with film.
There's no such thing as RAW in the film world.

Because in the film world you have to make the choice of which film to
load. Digital enable you to choose that later (with RAW) or decide
in-camera from shot to shot (if JPEG only)





try expaining why you'd use jpeg to someone that has only used film.
Why do yuo want a lower quaility image i.e a jpeg when yuo can have maxium quality


Because RAW to JPEG is the equivalent of developing a film. Most people
only want a postcard size print from film, you wouldn't pay to have a
10x8 print of every shot.








a 1/3rd of a stop surely with digital this should be expressed as 0.33333
of a stop and what is a stop in digital terms ;-)

As with film photography,

NO, I said explain what a stop is in digital remmeber you haven't a film canera yuo are teaching with a digital camera.
So what is a stop and what does it mean.
Why call it a stop one have such strange stop numbers.......
why does f5.6 let in twice that of f8

inverse square law.
A stop is a stop, digital or analogue, It is the effect of the iris in
the lens






--
DJC
(–€Ì¿Ä¹Ì¯–€Ì¿ Ì¿)

On 25/09/2015 11:18, whisky-dave wrote:


From the teachiong point of view it is better to use film than
digital because there's less distractions, you can concentrate on
ONE aspect at a time.

There aren't any more distractions with a digital camera than with a
film camera. The fact that a digital camera has a display doesn't mean
its a distraction. If you are that concerned then a camera with shutter
speeds and aperture settings is a distraction from composition so use a
box brownie.



Now you're saying it's better to learn on a manual camera (or at
least an automatic one with the manual features capable of being
turned off for learning purposes).

Yes.

You are wrong a manual camera has controls you don't need that are a
distraction from taking pictures.


Any I fully agree with that one. My philosophy is that just about
any gadget that has automatic modes should have a way of turning
those off for the times when they get it wrong - or when turning
them on would hinder learning.

you don't need autofocus and 10 fps bursts or know about diffraction
limiting on sensors to leanr photogrpahy which is the 'art' of using
light NOT paint.

You don't need film either. You just like to assume digital does it for
you when in reality you can do as much or as little as you choose.


But that's a different subject to whether film is better than
digital for learning on: a manual-capable digital camera is more
use for learning that an auto-only film camera.

there are few auto only flim camera in existance today,

I have several auto only film cameras including a Nikon SLR. They don't
make them much these days as only odd people think film is the best way.


there's plenty of auot only 'cameras' around today and most peole
have them min their phones, using such a device is NOT the best way
to learn photography. Photography and gettign a selfie IS NOT the
same.

So most cameras around today are auto and most of them are digital so
digital is bad and old fashioned film is good, strange logic at work there.

This is why peolpe still employer photographers at wedding rather
that rely on friends and family to take 'good' picutes with their
phone.


You can get perfectly good wedding pictures on some phones these days,
even Apple has made the camera a bit better than 35 mm cameras can
manage under good conditions. They employ professionals because the
friends are there to take part in the wedding not do crowd control which
is what wedding photography is all about. The pictures will be fine on a
fully auto camera 99+% of the time.

On 25/09/2015 16:41, whisky-dave wrote:
On Friday, 25 September 2015 14:52:01 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
From the teachiong point of view it is better to use film than
digital because there's less distractions, you can concentrate on
ONE aspect at a time.

I could make a case for saying that the developing and printing
stage of film is a distraction in the sense that it introduces
extra parameters that can be varied, after taking the photo, to
affect the final image. Or am I being a devil's advocate? :-)

Coudl I also say that worrying about what sort of monitor you'll be
using fopr viewing yuor digitasl images, should you got HD, 4K or
imac 5K and the4n there's the indivual manufactors that also suplpy
curved screens is that not a disctaction or do you only view you
images on the cameras LCD.

Most people do only view them on screen these days but you can always
adjust them to suit what you want to see. If you want to match it to
comercial printer colours you can use a colorimeter to calibrate your
screen.

With film prints you print them and use a "panatone" swatch and try
again until its close. You do this for every print if you need accuracy.
You can automate it with digital as you can photo a swatch and print it
and then photo it again and compare the differences and calibrate your
printer if you want to. It will stay calibrated until you change inks
unlike your film and paper that change with age, temperature and
exposure (you did know that the different layers in colour film have
different exposure characteristics so colour balance is not constant
over the exposure rang of most cameras (not including bulb)).


If you're going to print them then there's even more problems of
which printer , which papar, should I use 3rd party inks and papers.
or are yuo saying there's no differnce between the basic office
printers and the photo printers ?


There are even more variables if you use an enlarger and paper..
paper type
chemical type
temperature
exposure time
filter settings
which enlarger lens
where have you dodged
where have you burnt in
what type of film was it
did you force the ASA rating
etc
etc





I fully agree. Do you accept that not *all* digital cameras are
"toys".

I'd say that even fewer film cameras were toys.

Kodak sold a lot of instamatics, Polaride sold a lot of toy cameras, I
bet the percentage of digital cameras with manual settings is higher
than it ever was with film.
You can still buy disposable film cameras that you consider to be toys.


like this and that many give you the same level of manual override
that you'd have with a film SLR?

I'd say no, they are differnt.

How so, you still haven't said what bit of digital is not what you want.


It is those (and not the fully-auto cameras in phones) that I think
the rest of us on this thread are talking about when we say that
digital has the manual modes to aid teaching but additionally, over
and above film, the instant feedback of what effect these manual
adjustments have on your photo.

so a photo shot at say f11 at 1/125th is the same as f4 at 1/1000 on
the LCD the picture looks the same. what if you either change the
film from ISO 400 to 100 ?

What's the subject?


does shutter speed and aperature actually matter if the exposure as
seen on the LCD looks correct. is that all you need to do is check
the brightness of the LCD.

You can check what the LCD tells you to know if the exposure is correct
if you used a digital camera you would know that the LCD is far more
than a display to look at pictures on.
Some cameras even have built in guides to explain how to make better
pictures, like

composition guides
when to use a faster shutter
how to blur the background
etc
etc

On 25/09/2015 17:51, NY wrote:

indeed if you have a DSLR with a 35mm sensor you'd use the same lens
as for a film camera.


You need to be careful doing that, old designs for film cameras aren't
good enough to get the best out of digital sensors these days.

You could put a new digital camera lens on film and it would be as good
as the old ones.

You will notice this effect more with wide angles than telephotos.

On 25/09/2015 12:48, whisky-dave wrote:
On Thursday, 24 September 2015 21:07:54 UTC+1, dennis@home wrote:
On 24/09/2015 16:17, whisky-dave wrote:


And most of them don't use film for a good reason, digital is
now better than film in just about everything.

Yes I agree but that isn't the point, the point is which is best
for teaching photography and most peole that teach it seem to
prefer film.

The best for teaching photography is a camera and digital gives you
the results when you need to see the results.

But isn't as good for teaching photgraphy.

Why?



If you want to teach darkroom techniques then use film.

well you'd need a darkroom too.

You could also simulate it with an app, you wouldn't need a darkroomm
to teach darkroom techniques. But I'm bettign if teaching darkroom
technigues you'r be better off in a parkroom than on a PC
simulation.




Photography is the art of taking pictures not printing them.

Photography is the art of use light to form an image.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography

Rubbish.



People who insist that it needs film to be a photographer are
living in the past. Photography is a wide subject and
photography with film is a very narrow bit of it.

yes but teaching it isn't In the same way when I went on a course
30 years ago we were given manual cameras for a good reason. we
could have got good pictures just by setting my A1 to P mode No
one would have had to learn what an aperature was or what
shutter speed or ASA or ISO was, I wouldn't need to know what DoF
was or what a correct exposure was, but as we were meant to learn
photography rather than how to take photos those sort of things
are important even today.

Whats that got to do with film vs digital? Digitals can be manual
the same as film can be automatic.

which digital camera would you choose for teaching photography ?
could you treach photography without a battery ? Can you take a photo
without the aid of electricity ?

I can do it without light which proves the definition you quoted above
is rubbish.






Some can get good images without even using a camera.

Its not photography without a camera.

correct so you need a camera. A PC can produre photographs, but we
don't think of them in that way.

It can produce images,



It is photography without film.

Camera obscura that doesn't have film or a lens nearly 1000 years
ago.

It didn't do photos either.

Yet again you are trying to make out that digital does it all for
you.

It does most of it for you.

It does what you tell it, the same as a film camera.

This is plain wrong you may as well say film cameras do it all for
you if you buy one that only does auto.

film does not change it's sensitity,

Yes it does, it varies with exposure time and colour film varies
differently for each layer.

contrast,

Yes it does, see above

colour/monochrome,

You can print using panchromatic paper so colour does go to B&W.

fast/slow by pressing a button on it. With film you have to know what
you want before you even load it into the camera. Sure it's more
convinet and useful to be able to change your mind after taking the
photo has it's advantages but does it make you better at the job.

So take colour pictures and print B&W if thats what you want, you don't
have to decide before you load the camera.



If you think the ability to analyze the image on digital makes you
a worse photographer then you don't understand photography.

and if you think having a digital camera means you're a better
photography .....

It opens up new creative ways of doing things so yes it does make some a
better photographer. Teaching people to only use film limits what they
can do so it makes them a worse photographer. If you teach them to use a
digital camera then all you need to use film is to know what films you
can still buy, which isn't a lot.

On Friday, 25 September 2015 14:52:04 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
Whats that got to do with film vs digital?
Digitals can be manual the same as film can be automatic.

which digital camera would you choose for teaching photography ?
could you treach photography without a battery ?
Can you take a photo without the aid of electricity ?

Any camera (film or digital) that has the ability to turn off its automatic
features which are useful when time is tight and they are the difference
between getting reasonable picture or not getting it because you're still
making manual adjustments such as focus, aperture and shutter speed, but
which should not be relied on in all situations because, as you rightly say,
the settings are not always correct and because they don't encourage you to
acquire a greater understanding of the techniques of taking photos and the
variables that you can adjust.

That probably includes many compact cameras (eg Canon G9, Canon SX260) which
have auto-everything modes but also have manual focus, shutter/aperture
priority (as opposed to Program mode) and also have Manual mode which give
you control of both aperture and shutter speed.

Results with one of those cameras are surprisingly good, but there is
noticeable "noise" (random speckle, analogous to film grain) and optical
distortion from a fairly cheap lens.

So maybe you need an SLR - again, with auto-everything if you need it but
with the same degree of manual or semi-auto settings. A larger sensor and
better, interchangable lenses give better quality images.

Incidentally, the same degree of auto-everything but also manual focus,
exposure etc that I had on my film camera (a Canon SLR with motor drive,
roughly 1990 vintage) with various metering modes (spot, centre-weighted,
average over whole frame); my previous one (my dad's old Yashika from the
1970s) had manual focus and manual meter only, with ground-glass focussing
screen and metering that required you to adjust aperture and/or shutter
speed until neither a --- (underexposure) nor a -- (overexposure) LED came
on. I have to admit that it was easier to judge manual focus with the older
camera's ground-glass and split-screen focussing screen than it was with the
Canon's focussing screen which was ground glass only with no split screen.

One thing you don't get with compact cameras (film or digital) is the
ability to stop down the lens to see what DOF the aperture will give you.


As regards getting a photo without a battery, I think you'd struggle to find
a film camera that didn't need a battery. All the ones I've had over the
past 40 years, except my grandpa's old Voigtlander that had a passive meter
(*), have needed a battery at least for the exposure meter and also with
some for the film advance motor drive. I *think* that those cameras would
not even fire the shutter without a battery, even if you used an external
meter to determine aperture/shutter speed.


(*) ie a photo-voltaic light cell in the light path generated a voltage
proportional to light intensity and drove a needle, without needing a
battery; it also had a dual viewfinder (not through the lens) which
presented two images from about 2" apart in the camera and relied on
parallax to show you when those images overlapped and hence you had focussed
on the correct distance

Zenit SLRs don't need a battery. Pretty dated stuff though.


NT

On 25/09/2015 14:46, NY wrote:

As regards getting a photo without a battery, I think you'd struggle to
find a film camera that didn't need a battery. All the ones I've had
over the past 40 years, except my grandpa's old Voigtlander that had a
passive meter (*), have needed a battery at least for the exposure meter
and also with some for the film advance motor drive. I *think* that
those cameras would not even fire the shutter without a battery, even if
you used an external meter to determine aperture/shutter speed.



I have a Pentax MX, the battery went flat years ago so I just use my
experience to get the exposure correct, the same as I sometimes do on my
digital camera.

I haven't run a film through it for a few years now, it costs too much
and there aren't many good places to get the film developed and even
fewer places that do good prints.

I did send one film off to somewhere that returned a CD of digitised
negatives but they were a pathetic 25k byte jpegs when they came back so
that was a waste of time and money.
I scanned the ~6,000 negatives I have myself and that took months of
part time effort.

On Friday, 25 September 2015 16:41:31 UTC+1, whisky-dave wrote:
On Friday, 25 September 2015 14:52:01 UTC+1, NY wrote:

I fully agree. Do you accept that not *all* digital cameras are "toys".

I'd say that even fewer film cameras were toys.

There were loads of toy film cams out there. Most digitals aren't in that they normally do make effort to get a relatively good pic from the hardware, unlike the who cares attitude of so many low end film cams.


NT

On 25/09/2015 17:09, whisky-dave wrote:

1st you have to understand why your adjusting those variables and
why.

So you get your digital camera out and adjust the settings and see what
happens. With film you adjust the settings wait three days and forget
what setting you adjusted. There are no settings on a good film camera
that aren't on a good digital camera. You can even tell them to record
in B&W if you want to, but it only saves a bit of space on the card so
why bother?


Results with one of those cameras are surprisingly good, but there
is noticeable "noise" (random speckle, analogous to film grain) and
optical distortion from a fairly cheap lens.

So how come those with the lower end cameras don't notuice such
things.

they do but they remember how bad film was so don't care.


which is were the interesting point comes in , if you give an person
a FF fully features DLSR with they get a better picrure than they
would from a cheap camera. The coirrect answer is they wiull get a
better quailty image, whch says nothing about the quality of the
photograph they end up with.

You give the same person a to flight film camera and they will get the
same results, so what?


Giving a person a DSLR does NOT make them a photographer. They may
well find it easier to take a photo but that's not the point.

It is the point, you want to teach them to make better pictures not prat
about with stuff they don't need to know about to make an equivalent
picture using film.


If the object is to enable them to take better pictures then don't throw
old obstacles in the way. You may as well teach them to paint.

So maybe you need an SLR - again, with auto-everything if you need
it but with the same degree of manual or semi-auto settings. A
larger sensor and better, interchangable lenses give better quality
images.

but doesn't make you a better photgrapher, or better at taking
photos.

How does using film?


Incidentally, the same degree of auto-everything but also manual
focus, exposure etc that I had on my film camera (a Canon SLR with
motor drive, roughly 1990 vintage) .

I had a canon A1 with the MA motor drive that took either 8 or 12 AA
batteries .

with various metering modes (spot, centre-weighted, average over
whole frame); my previous one (my dad's old Yashika from the 1970s)
had manual focus and manual meter only, with ground-glass
focussing screen and metering that required you to adjust aperture
and/or shutter speed until neither a --- (underexposure) nor a --
(overexposure) LED came on. I have to admit that it was easier to
judge manual focus with the older camera's ground-glass and
split-screen focussing screen than it was with the Canon's
focussing screen which was ground glass only with no split screen.

Lucky 'bstard my first camera was a Praktica L no battery, no meter,
My next was the Praktica VLC 2 which had a meter and a battery and a
detachable top.


One thing you don't get with compact cameras (film or digital) is
the ability to stop down the lens to see what DOF the aperture will
give you.

Probbably not but its a function I rarely use as I have an
approxamate appreciation of what DoF is. DoF isn't an exact sceince
it depends on many things.


What you do get with digital is the ability to take a shot and SEE what
the DoF is.


As regards getting a photo without a battery, I think you'd
struggle to find a film camera that didn't need a battery.

My practica L didn;t neither did my fathers camera that were 2/ 14
square. My ploriod land 110B camera doesn;t have a battery either.
Olympus trip.


So you want to teach photography using a film camera without batteries now?

(*) ie a photo-voltaic light cell in the light path generated a
voltage proportional to light intensity and drove a needle,

Yep the LTL3 I borrowed had that. Trouble with those cds cells was
their memeory.

without needing a battery; it also had a dual viewfinder (not
through the lens) which presented two images from about 2" apart in
the camera and relied on parallax to show you when those images
overlapped and hence you had focussed on the correct distance.

I have a lieca rangefinder add on but not the camera.


I don't need a rangefinder I can estimate distances to a few percent
with ease.

On 25/09/2015 11:44, whisky-dave wrote:
On Thursday, 24 September 2015 20:36:15 UTC+1, dennis@home wrote:
On 24/09/2015 17:31, NY wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
web.com...
On 23/09/2015 13:41, NY wrote:
8

But set against that is the fact that if you *are* willing to learn from
your mistakes, the fact that all your photos are free means that you can
experiment, and you can see instantly which is the right exposure in a
situation where an automatic meter would be fooled. Admittedly, because
the exposure latitude of digital is less (it is very easy to overexpose
and irrecoverably burn out details in the highlights) you *need* to get
the exposure more correct,

Are you shooting in RAW?
I ask because modern digital sensors have a higher dynamic range than
most films available. The range is chopped off to make the JPEGs and
you may then lose shadow or highlight detail. Its where the HDR images
come from, compressing the middle of the range rather than the ends.
If it is consistently over exposed then there is probably a metering
fault.

My compact camera doesn't have the option of shooting in RAW.

I bought one that did and they are difficult to find.

So what is the advantage of RAW, and what is the equivalent in film.
Of course I have a pretty good idea as I know a bit about photography and taking snap shots.

RAW is the equivalent of film in that its the total range of values the
sensor has captured. JPEG is just a processed and compressed RAW, the
equivalent of a print. As a consequence some information has been thrown
away in the JPEG just as it is in a print.

If you shoot in RAW it just means you are saving all the data and so you
can do more with it later.



My SLR
does and I have set it to take both JPG and RAW for every photo. I still
underexpose by 1/3 stop on both cameras for the benefit of the JPG, but
I don't think it affects the RAW (I could be wrong on that).

It should affect both but 1/3 of a stop isn't really much unless you are
on the limit.

a 1/3rd of a stop surely with digital this should be expressed as 0.33333
of a stop and what is a stop in digital terms ;-)

The same as film but you think its different for some reason.

On 25/09/2015 16:27, whisky-dave wrote:

But yuo don;t do that sort of thing with film. There's no such thing
as RAW in the film world.

Yes there is its called a film.
You capture as much information as you can on the film.

You then post process it (print) and throw some of it away.


The only reason people use RAW is because the digital jpegs aren't
good enough for what they want to do with them, so what does that say
about digital.

It says that JPEG is good enough to reproduce what people used to get
with film and prints.



For digital, some cameras are set to do the same sort of thing when
going from the sensor image to the JPG, as well as to apply some
sharpening and JPG compression, whereas AFAIK the raw file is not
lossy compressed, is not sharpened and often doesn't have any white
balance correction; you are left to do all those things to your own
preference using proprietary RAW - JPG/TIFF/PNG software that
comes with the camera or with packages such as Photoshop which can
read various cameras' RAW formats. Some cameras' RAW files actually
have the suffix DNG (digital negative) because that is effectively
what the file is - what the sensor saw before any in-camera
corrections.

so it's the equivalnet of film in that you get everything rather than
a cut down amount of data that you get with jpeg. Sure it might be
good enough.

try expaining why you'd use jpeg to someone that has only used film.
Why do yuo want a lower quaility image i.e a jpeg when yuo can have
maxium quality

Explain to them why they want prints rather than a negative and a
magnifying glass.


a 1/3rd of a stop surely with digital this should be expressed as
0.33333 of a stop and what is a stop in digital terms ;-)

As with film photography,

NO, I said explain what a stop is in digital remmeber you haven't a
film canera yuo are teaching with a digital camera. So what is a stop
and what does it mean. Why call it a stop one have such strange stop
numbers....... why does f5.6 let in twice that of f8

Its the same as a film camera, where do you think it differs?
Why do you even think it might differ?

1 stop is a halving/doubling of the amount of light getting through
the lens (eg f 5.6 - f8) or a halving/doubling of the shutter
speed. Maybe 1/3 stop should be expressed as 0.33 recurring, as
you say :-)

with shutter speeds even digital camera, you select 1/125 or 1/250
why not have the dial set to 187ms exposure ?

You can on some, why do you restrict yourself to such limited steps?
what advantage does 1/250 give you over 1/180 that is the flash sync
speed on my film SLR?


Why does the image on my LCD look the same irrespected of the
aperature and shutter speed I set.

Because you have a cr@p camera and can't set the image to look correct
at a guess. On mine if you stop down, the image darkens when you do DoF
preview just like an old fashioned camera.

On 25/09/2015 14:59, NY wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
what you see on the LCD of a digital camera isn't the same as what
you get as the captured image, but then again only someone that knows
a bit about photography.

What you see through the view finder isn't what you get on film and what
you get on print isn't what you got on the film either. But at least you
can see if its close on a screen.

close in what sense ?
Are you sure all those 'photographers' you see taking flash picures at
the olmypics and other stadiums are getting what they see on the LCD. ?

Depends whether you mean the live view as they are taking the photo
(answer: not it definitely isn't) or whether you mean the photo as
recorded on the memory card and which they may play back immediately
after taking the photo. If they bothered to look at the played-back
photo and wondered why it was mostly black apart from the back of the
head of the person in front, they might learn why. Of course they could
make the same mistake with a film camera in thinking that the optical
viewfinder always showed them what the film photo would look like - but
it would take them until they had the film developed to see that.

You saw just as many flashes at the olympics when they were all film
cameras. They probably did the same the following day and the day after
as all the photolabs were days behind so they wouldn't know it didn't
work until a week or so after the event.
At least with a digital on auto the stadium was bright enough to
actually get a picture as long as there wasn't anything close to
influence the flash meter. With film it wouldn't have the exposure
latitude to cope.

"dennis@home" wrote in message
web.com...
film does not change it's sensitity,

Yes it does, it varies with exposure time and colour film varies
differently for each layer.

Ah yes, I forgot to mention film's reciprocity failure with very long/short
exposures and digital's lack of susceptibility to it.

"dennis@home" wrote in message
web.com...
I did send one film off to somewhere that returned a CD of digitised
negatives but they were a pathetic 25k byte jpegs when they came back so
that was a waste of time and money.

You're kidding! What a load of morons!

I scanned the ~6,000 negatives I have myself and that took months of part
time effort.

I bet it did. As a matter of interest, what scanner and software do you use?
I have a Minolta Scan Elite II and I use VueScan. I ought to try again to
install Minolta's own software on Windows 7, because I seem to remember I
got better results with it than VueScan, but that was back in the days of XP
where it installed properly.

I can get good results from slides - even from very overexposed ones from
Mum and Dad's honeymoon (they probably had other things on their mind!) and
likewise some very overexposed ones I took at night time of illuminated
buildings, when I guessed the exposure wrongly.

However I have great difficulty getting realistic ones from colour negs:
they tend to look low-contrast and rather artificial. The best way of
describing them is like colour photos in a book from the 1940s or 50s. I've
tried different settings for film manufacturer and type, as well as tweaking
other variables. Also there is a coarse net curtain effect overlaying the
results, as if the film grain is exceptionally coarse. I seem to need wildly
different exposure and colour balance settings for every frame from the same
strip of negatives.

Sometimes I get very good results and can bring out highlight and shadow
detail that is missing from the prints that the photo shop made, but it's
very hit or miss.

"dennis@home" wrote in message
web.com...
with various metering modes (spot, centre-weighted, average over
whole frame); my previous one (my dad's old Yashika from the 1970s)
had manual focus and manual meter only, with ground-glass
focussing screen and metering that required you to adjust aperture
and/or shutter speed until neither a --- (underexposure) nor a --
(overexposure) LED came on. I have to admit that it was easier to
judge manual focus with the older camera's ground-glass and
split-screen focussing screen than it was with the Canon's
focussing screen which was ground glass only with no split screen.

Lucky 'bstard my first camera was a Praktica L no battery, no meter,
My next was the Praktica VLC 2 which had a meter and a battery and a
detachable top.

My first camera was a Polaroid B&W camera. That was crap (which is being
kind to it) but the pictures *were* near-instantaneous.

My first proper camera (which got me interested in B&W developing and
printing) was my grandpa's Voigtlander 35 mm - manual focus with
rangefinder, manual exposure (move aperture and/or shutter speed until ring
matches a needle moved by a light meter). Fixed 50 mm lens (ie not
interchangeable). But it could sync with flash up to 1/500 because it had an
iris shutter, which was useful for doing fill in flash on a bright day out
doors. Towards the end the rangefinder developed a fault and indicated
correct focus when image on film was not quite sharp; might have been a lens
error because the infinity end of its focus actually began to focus "beyond
infinity". Luckily it was a constant error throughout the range of distances
so I worked out where to draw a new reference mark: focus according to
rangefinder and then move indicated distance number to a new mark on the
ring.

When dad got an Olympus OM2 he gave me his old Yashika which I used
extensively along with its 35, 50 and 200 mm lenses which were bloody good,
even with the 50 at its widest f1.7 aperture. I even managed to glue the
mirror back on when it fell off the metal tray that it was mounted on; I was
terrified that if I didn't get it in exactly the right place or get the
right thickness of glue, the light path may be too long/short, meaning that
the focus indicator on the viewfinder would have a bias, but it seemed to be
fine.

I treated myself to a Canon film SLR with motor advance and 18-70 and a
70-210 zoom lenses which were OK but I regretted buying third party ones
(Sigma, I think) rather than better quality Canon lenses because they
suffered from quite bad barrel distortion: somewhere I have some test photos
of the horizontal slats on the garage door to show the amount of bowing at
different zoom settings of each lens. Nowadays for critical photos where the
bowing shows, I can scan the print or slide and correct it with PTLens.

I then had a nice Minolta A2 digital "SLR-like" camera (non-interchangeable
18-200 equivalent lens but SLR shape body, eyepiece LED viewfinder as well
as conventional LED screen (you could switch from one to the other). Nice
features like timelapse. Eventually that suffered a failure of the sensor or
electronics, producing pink pictures with an overlaid venetian blind, by
which time it was out of warranty and Minolta had gone out of business
anyway.

When my wife got a swanky Nikon DSLR I got her old Canon DSLR which was OK
but her short zoom lens suffered element slip (blurred photos on one side of
frame) which couldn't be seen in the viewfinder, only on the photos. I got
into the habit of checking most photos I took with that lens, just in case I
needed to re-take (zooming out and back in, and defocussing and refocussing
would fix it for a while. Something else stopped working (I forget what) so
rather than just buying a new lens I treated myself to a Nikon DSLR (so we
can share lenses!) and also a Canon compact for record shots and less
critical artistic ones. Sadly neither of these had the useful feature that
the Minolta had: a tiltable screen so you could put the camera low down or
hold it above your head and still see the screen for framing shots.


I don't need a rangefinder I can estimate distances to a few percent with
ease.

Lucky b'stard :-) I seem to have been born without the estimating gene (for
anything in life) and have to measure everything otherwise my "estimates"
are hopelessly wrong and more like wild guesses.

On Saturday, 19 September 2015 18:29:33 UTC+1, alan_m wrote:
On 19/09/2015 16:54, Chris French wrote:
Eldest daughter (14) is very much getting into photography. Digital of
course, but she likes the idea of having a play with film.

IMO, the best thing that happened to photography was digital. Your
daughter is likely to abandon the idea after processing a few rolls of
film and finding from the 70 shots she has only got a few usable images
worthy off taking through the printing stage for an enlarged image.

With digital there is no cost in taking a 1000 bad shots and then
deleting them from the SD card.

For film I used to go under the stairs in the dark for 5 minutes to load
it onto the spiral for the developing tank. Afterwards developing etc.
is in full light, usually at the kitchen sink.

For the enlarger and developing trays you need a flat surface. You
don't particularity need running water in the dark room. By the time the
photo needs to be rinsed in running water it's already developed and
fixed so it can be transferred to the kitchen sink in full light.

Yup.

Don't go to too much trouble until you find out that its a fad, or not.

^^^^^^^^^ This!

On 25/09/2015 21:44, NY wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
web.com...
I did send one film off to somewhere that returned a CD of digitised
negatives but they were a pathetic 25k byte jpegs when they came back
so that was a waste of time and money.

You're kidding! What a load of morons!

I scanned the ~6,000 negatives I have myself and that took months of
part time effort.

I bet it did. As a matter of interest, what scanner and software do you
use? I have a Minolta Scan Elite II and I use VueScan. I ought to try
again to install Minolta's own software on Windows 7, because I seem to
remember I got better results with it than VueScan, but that was back in
the days of XP where it installed properly.

Thats a good question, its been in the atic for about three years now,
IIRC it s a HP scanjet 4800 flatbed with a full sized coldcathode lamp
in the lid.
It will do five strips of 35 mm at a tie or a 10x8 plate if I had one.

Its not very quick but it does good scans at 16 bits per channel and
2400 dpi.


I can get good results from slides - even from very overexposed ones
from Mum and Dad's honeymoon (they probably had other things on their
mind!) and likewise some very overexposed ones I took at night time of
illuminated buildings, when I guessed the exposure wrongly.

However I have great difficulty getting realistic ones from colour negs:
they tend to look low-contrast and rather artificial. The best way of
describing them is like colour photos in a book from the 1940s or 50s.
I've tried different settings for film manufacturer and type, as well as
tweaking other variables. Also there is a coarse net curtain effect
overlaying the results, as if the film grain is exceptionally coarse. I
seem to need wildly different exposure and colour balance settings for
every frame from the same strip of negatives.

Sometimes I get very good results and can bring out highlight and shadow
detail that is missing from the prints that the photo shop made, but
it's very hit or miss.

I didn't have much in the way of problems like that but I suspect it was
the 16 bit depth that helped.

"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 25/09/2015 16:27, whisky-dave wrote:
Why call it a stop one have such strange stop
numbers....... why does f5.6 let in twice that of f8

f number is a measure of aperture *diameter* relative to lens focal length.
As diameter is doubled (eg f8 - f4) area of aperture (and hence amount of
light let in) increases by factor of four. So you multiply or divide an f
number by square root of two = 1.4 to go from a given aperture to one that
lets in half/double the amount of light. That's why one stop (a doubling or
halving of aperture) is a strange number:

- start at f1
- multiply by 1.4 to get f1.4
- multiply by 1.4 to get f2
- multiply by 1.4 to get f 3.5
- multiply by 1.4 to get f4
- multiply by 1.4 to get f5.6
- multiply by 1.4 to get f8
- multiply by 1.4 to get f11
- multiply by 1.4 to get f16
- multiply by 1.4 to get f22

Its the same as a film camera, where do you think it differs?
Why do you even think it might differ?

My thoughts exactly. I can't work out whether he really doesn't know or is
winding us all up. Film and digital cameras have more in common that maybe
he realises. Matters of basic optics are common to both. Even a pinhole
camera has a sort of f number: diameter of pinhole divided by length from
pinhole to plane where film is placed. I proved this by making two pinhole
cameras from different sized cocoa tins. Same pinhole (ie same piece of
tinfoil with pinhole made in it, transplanted from one camera to the other)
gave same darkness of negative on photographic paper if I adjusted exposure
time in proportion to ratio of lengths of camera to compensate for change in
f number.

1 stop is a halving/doubling of the amount of light getting through
the lens (eg f 5.6 - f8) or a halving/doubling of the shutter
speed. Maybe 1/3 stop should be expressed as 0.33 recurring, as
you say :-)

with shutter speeds even digital camera, you select 1/125 or 1/250
why not have the dial set to 187ms exposure ?

You can on some, why do you restrict yourself to such limited steps?
what advantage does 1/250 give you over 1/180 that is the flash sync speed
on my film SLR?

Yes if you set the camera on aperture priority and look at EXIF data of the
resulting photos taken in various lighting conditions, you'll see a variety
of unusual shutter speeds - whatever the meter judges is correct; likewise
for aperture when in shutter priority. I *think* most film cameras with
aperture priority also do this - it's just a matter of varying the spacing
between the two curtains of the focal plane shutter which needn't move in
discrete jumps corresponding to 1/125, 1/250, 1/500 etc, although usually in
shutter priority this is all you can set and then lens then stops down to
some obscure aperture like f4.75 or f7.9 according to exactly what the meter
says.

Why does the image on my LCD look the same irrespected of the
aperature and shutter speed I set.

Because you have a cr@p camera and can't set the image to look correct at
a guess. On mine if you stop down, the image darkens when you do DoF
preview just like an old fashioned camera.

On Friday, 25 September 2015 22:49:23 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 25/09/2015 16:27, whisky-dave wrote:
Why call it a stop one have such strange stop
numbers....... why does f5.6 let in twice that of f8

f number is a measure of aperture *diameter* relative to lens focal length.



Its the same as a film camera, where do you think it differs?
Why do you even think it might differ?

My thoughts exactly. I can't work out whether he really doesn't know or is
winding us all up. Film and digital cameras have more in common that maybe
he realises.

They sure do, but there are some important differncies.

Yes if you set the camera on aperture priority and look at EXIF data of the
resulting photos taken in various lighting conditions, you'll see a variety
of unusual shutter speeds - whatever the meter judges is correct;

yes the meter is judging this isn't good if you're teaching the subject.



Why does the image on my LCD look the same irrespected of the
aperature and shutter speed I set.

Because you have a cr@p camera

wrong answer .

and can't set the image to look correct at
a guess. On mine if you stop down, the image darkens when you do DoF
preview just like an old fashioned camera.

does it still darken if you don't do a DoF. ?

Seems you're getting corect exposure and DoF confused.

"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
On Friday, 25 September 2015 22:49:23 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 25/09/2015 16:27, whisky-dave wrote:
Why call it a stop one have such strange stop
numbers....... why does f5.6 let in twice that of f8

f number is a measure of aperture *diameter* relative to lens focal
length.



Its the same as a film camera, where do you think it differs?
Why do you even think it might differ?

My thoughts exactly. I can't work out whether he really doesn't know or
is
winding us all up. Film and digital cameras have more in common that
maybe
he realises.

They sure do, but there are some important differncies.

OK. So what do you think these important differences are? Do you use the
aperture and shutter speed controls differently for digital compared with
for film? Do the optics of lenses behave differently? Does the reciprocity
law (halve shutter speed so double aperture etc) behave differently?
Actually that last one is a trick question because it is one case where film
*does* behave differently because the reciprocity law stops working for very
short (eg 1/5000 second) or very long (eg 60 seconds) shutter speeds and
you need to correct the exposure using characteristics that change from one
make of film to another; you also need coloured filters to correct colour
cast because the three different emulsions have different non-linear
characteristics at extreme exposures; thankfully digital sensors don't
suffer from this.


Yes if you set the camera on aperture priority and look at EXIF data of
the
resulting photos taken in various lighting conditions, you'll see a
variety
of unusual shutter speeds - whatever the meter judges is correct;

yes the meter is judging this isn't good if you're teaching the subject.


Right, so you'd prefer people to use manual metering (or even an external
meter) while learning about exposure. Fair enough. You can insist that the
pupil uses manual mode on the digital camera *in exactly the same way as you
would insist that they did for a film camera*. You might be making life more
difficult for him if you make him avoid using P or Av/Tv mode, but it will
make it easier to learn initially.

Now let's have an example of something where a digital camera with the same
auto and manual settings as a film camera, and the same rules about which
settings are forbidden whilst learning, makes it more difficult to learn
than on the equivalent film camera.


Why does the image on my LCD look the same irrespected of the
aperature and shutter speed I set.

Because you have a cr@p camera

wrong answer .

So what's your answer? Is it that the image on an LCD screen (either when
used as a viewfinder or when examining the pictures after taking) is too
small to be able to distinguish clearly between in-focus and out-of focus
parts of the scene?

If so, you may have a valid point, although I can usually tell reasonably
well.

So maybe for learning you need an SLR which has features such as:

- ability to turn off automatic-only settings (although most compact digital
cameras allow this as well; may well be true for compact film cameras)
- optical through the lens viewfinder (as opposed to rangefinder viewfinder
for film or LCD viewfinder for digital)
- ability to preview the image with the lens stopped down to judge DoF

Now assuming that we exclude cameras in mobile phones because they are
auto-everything and usually have poor sensors, lenses and too much
post-processing, and that we exclude compact cameras because they don't have
optical TTL viewfinder and ability to preview DoF...

If we insist on an SLR for learning on, is there anything that makes it
harder to learn on a digital than a film camera?



I presume to begin with we are just teaching about using a camera, and that
we leave manipulation of the pictures in the darkroom or using Photoshop as
a separate exercise, so we just get the slides developed or the negs printed
at default settings, and that we examine the un-modified digital photos on a
PC screen. Then for the next lesson we go on to how we can modify what the
camera has taken to improve it:

- cropping the picture to exclude unwanted sections that don't fit a
standard film/digital frame
- correcting colour cast
- altering brightness and contrast to correct for minor exposure errors or
to emphasise certain parts of the subject
- retouching blemishes, unwanted parts of the subject etc
- correcting parallelogram errors due to not being able to take picture
square-on
- arty things like cutting out parts of the subject and placing it on a
different background
- merging photos to create a panorama or to simulate a wide angle lens when
you only have a telephoto with you (*)


(*) Yes, this can be done with film: I remember seeing a book about press
photographs and how they could be manipulated, either to tell lies or to
correct for not having the right equipment. And there was an example of the
interior of a church where the photographer only had an 80 mm lens instead
of the 28 mm that he would have liked, so he took a series of photos all at
the same exposure and from the same viewpoint; he then printed them all
using identical settings and cut them along various boundaries in the
subject to disguise the cutting lines, and stuck them all together and
re-photographed the result. If you looked closely you could see
discontinuities here and there but he'd done a fantastic job and the fact
that it was a paste-up probably wouldn't have been noticeable with normal
coarse-screen newspaper printing. The same process can be carried out
digitally far more easily and sometimes so well that you'd have trouble
seeing the joins, but it's not impossible with film, given a bit of
patience.

On Monday, 28 September 2015 14:57:17 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
On Friday, 25 September 2015 22:49:23 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 25/09/2015 16:27, whisky-dave wrote:
Why call it a stop one have such strange stop
numbers....... why does f5.6 let in twice that of f8

f number is a measure of aperture *diameter* relative to lens focal
length.



Its the same as a film camera, where do you think it differs?
Why do you even think it might differ?

My thoughts exactly. I can't work out whether he really doesn't know or
is
winding us all up. Film and digital cameras have more in common that
maybe
he realises.

They sure do, but there are some important differncies.

OK. So what do you think these important differences are? Do you use the
aperture and shutter speed controls differently for digital compared with
for film?

To some extent yes. You need to understand them more than you do with digital.

Do the optics of lenses behave differently?

No that I know of.

Does the reciprocity
law (halve shutter speed so double aperture etc) behave differently?

Yes significantly.

Actually that last one is a trick question because it is one case where film
*does* behave differently because the reciprocity law stops working for very
short (eg 1/5000 second) or very long (eg 60 seconds) shutter speeds

reciprocity depends on the film speed too and it can have an effect even at 10 seconds or less. The last tiume I encounted this was when a friend asked me what the R failure would be at 8 seconds I said about a gnats bollock worth.
She was using 120 roll film in a mamyai I think with long exposures.
I was right as she phoned here boyfriend who looked at the data sheet and it was about .2 secopnd on 8 seconds or so.


you need to correct the exposure using characteristics that change from one
make of film to another;

yuo don;t get that with digital, you don't even have to think about it.

you also need coloured filters to correct colour
cast because the three different emulsions have different non-linear
characteristics at extreme exposures; thankfully digital sensors don't
suffer from this.

So when studying photogrphy like my friend was who won a pjhopt comp in spain.
She works at a uni teaching photography and is an adobe registered certified to teach.


Yes if you set the camera on aperture priority and look at EXIF data of
the
resulting photos taken in various lighting conditions, you'll see a
variety
of unusual shutter speeds - whatever the meter judges is correct;

yes the meter is judging this isn't good if you're teaching the subject.


Right, so you'd prefer people to use manual metering (or even an external
meter)

external meeting is better but not always practical, but when teaching photography you should also teach reflective and incident meter reading.
Not sure how you'd do this with a digital camera.

while learning about exposure. Fair enough. You can insist that the
pupil uses manual mode on the digital camera *in exactly the same way as you
would insist that they did for a film camera*.

Cabn insist all you like, yuo can insist they don't chew gum, but part of teaching is outsmarting the students.

You might be making life more
difficult for him if you make him avoid using P or Av/Tv mode, but it will
make it easier to learn initially.

They have to know what those terms mean and why you use them.


Now let's have an example of something where a digital camera with the same
auto and manual settings as a film camera,

difficult to imagine, but carry on.

and the same rules about which
settings are forbidden whilst learning, makes it more difficult to learn
than on the equivalent film camera.

You give a kid a digital camera that is **** compared to their mobile phone
they get board unintrested and disruptive.
Now you have 20 kids around you not concentrating they'd rather use their phone to get a far better picture than they could ever get with the digital camera you've supplied.



Why does the image on my LCD look the same irrespected of the
aperature and shutter speed I set.

Because you have a cr@p camera

wrong answer .

So what's your answer? Is it that the image on an LCD screen (either when
used as a viewfinder or when examining the pictures after taking) is too
small to be able to distinguish clearly between in-focus and out-of focus
parts of the scene?

No because when you lok at the screen you see what you might end up with.


If so, you may have a valid point, although I can usually tell reasonably
well.

you are going to take a p[icture of usain bolt in teh 100 meters on the left is the start on the right is the finish.
Are yuo saying they'll be no differnce whether the exposure is
1/1000 or 1 second. the aperature will take care of itself, but will what you see on the screen be the same as the images yuo take.
NO.



So maybe for learning you need an SLR which has features such as:

- ability to turn off automatic-only settings (although most compact digital
cameras allow this as well; may well be true for compact film cameras)
- optical through the lens viewfinder (as opposed to rangefinder viewfinder
for film or LCD viewfinder for digital)
- ability to preview the image with the lens stopped down to judge DoF

Now assuming that we exclude cameras in mobile phones because they are
auto-everything and usually have poor sensors, lenses and too much
post-processing, and that we exclude compact cameras because they don't have
optical TTL viewfinder and ability to preview DoF...

If we insist on an SLR for learning on, is there anything that makes it
harder to learn on a digital than a film camera?



I presume to begin with we are just teaching about using a camera, and that
we leave manipulation of the pictures in the darkroom or using Photoshop as
a separate exercise, so we just get the slides developed or the negs printed
at default settings, and that we examine the un-modified digital photos on a
PC screen. Then for the next lesson we go on to how we can modify what the
camera has taken to improve it:

- cropping the picture to exclude unwanted sections that don't fit a
standard film/digital frame
- correcting colour cast
- altering brightness and contrast to correct for minor exposure errors or
to emphasise certain parts of the subject
- retouching blemishes, unwanted parts of the subject etc
- correcting parallelogram errors due to not being able to take picture
square-on
- arty things like cutting out parts of the subject and placing it on a
different background
- merging photos to create a panorama or to simulate a wide angle lens when
you only have a telephoto with you (*)


(*) Yes, this can be done with film: I remember seeing a book about press
photographs and how they could be manipulated, either to tell lies or to
correct for not having the right equipment. And there was an example of the
interior of a church where the photographer only had an 80 mm lens instead
of the 28 mm that he would have liked, so he took a series of photos all at
the same exposure and from the same viewpoint; he then printed them all
using identical settings and cut them along various boundaries in the
subject to disguise the cutting lines, and stuck them all together and
re-photographed the result. If you looked closely you could see
discontinuities here and there but he'd done a fantastic job and the fact
that it was a paste-up probably wouldn't have been noticeable with normal
coarse-screen newspaper printing. The same process can be carried out
digitally far more easily and sometimes so well that you'd have trouble
seeing the joins, but it's not impossible with film, given a bit of
patience.

On 28/09/2015 12:42, whisky-dave wrote:
On Friday, 25 September 2015 22:49:23 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 25/09/2015 16:27, whisky-dave wrote:
Why call it a stop one have such strange stop
numbers....... why does f5.6 let in twice that of f8

f number is a measure of aperture *diameter* relative to lens focal length.



Its the same as a film camera, where do you think it differs?
Why do you even think it might differ?

My thoughts exactly. I can't work out whether he really doesn't know or is
winding us all up. Film and digital cameras have more in common that maybe
he realises.

They sure do, but there are some important differncies.

You still haven't said what they are, I don't think you know.


Yes if you set the camera on aperture priority and look at EXIF data of the
resulting photos taken in various lighting conditions, you'll see a variety
of unusual shutter speeds - whatever the meter judges is correct;

yes the meter is judging this isn't good if you're teaching the subject.

So you propose not using a light meter while teaching photography.


Why does the image on my LCD look the same irrespected of the
aperature and shutter speed I set.

Because you have a cr@p camera

wrong answer .

It was the polite one.


and can't set the image to look correct at
a guess. On mine if you stop down, the image darkens when you do DoF
preview just like an old fashioned camera.

does it still darken if you don't do a DoF. ?

Why should it, the diaphragm in the lens doesn't close unless you do a
DoF check, the same as on a film camera or are you proposing that only
manual lenses are allowed.


Seems you're getting corect exposure and DoF confused.

Seems you're getting photography confused.

On 28/09/2015 17:03, whisky-dave wrote:

OK. So what do you think these important differences are? Do you
use the aperture and shutter speed controls differently for digital
compared with for film?

To some extent yes. You need to understand them more than you do with
digital.

They are the same.


Do the optics of lenses behave differently?

No that I know of.

They behave differently as film has a different response to off axis
images than a digital sensor does.


Does the reciprocity law (halve shutter speed so double aperture
etc) behave differently?

Yes significantly.

they are the same.


Actually that last one is a trick question because it is one case
where film *does* behave differently because the reciprocity law
stops working for very short (eg 1/5000 second) or very long (eg
60 seconds) shutter speeds

reciprocity depends on the film speed too and it can have an effect
even at 10 seconds or less. The last tiume I encounted this was when
a friend asked me what the R failure would be at 8 seconds I said
about a gnats bollock worth. She was using 120 roll film in a mamyai
I think with long exposures. I was right as she phoned here boyfriend
who looked at the data sheet and it was about .2 secopnd on 8 seconds
or so.


It only matters in extreme cases.


you need to correct the exposure using characteristics that change
from one make of film to another;

yuo don;t get that with digital, you don't even have to think about
it.

You can change how the sensor responds and what is recorded so you do
need to think about it.


you also need coloured filters to correct colour cast because the
three different emulsions have different non-linear characteristics
at extreme exposures; thankfully digital sensors don't suffer from
this.

So when studying photogrphy like my friend was who won a pjhopt comp
in spain. She works at a uni teaching photography and is an adobe
registered certified to teach.

???



Yes if you set the camera on aperture priority and look at EXIF
data of the resulting photos taken in various lighting
conditions, you'll see a variety of unusual shutter speeds -
whatever the meter judges is correct;

yes the meter is judging this isn't good if you're teaching the
subject.


Right, so you'd prefer people to use manual metering (or even an
external meter)

external meeting is better but not always practical, but when
teaching photography you should also teach reflective and incident
meter reading. Not sure how you'd do this with a digital camera.

The same way as a film camera.


while learning about exposure. Fair enough. You can insist that
the pupil uses manual mode on the digital camera *in exactly the
same way as you would insist that they did for a film camera*.

Cabn insist all you like, yuo can insist they don't chew gum, but
part of teaching is outsmarting the students.

You might be making life more difficult for him if you make him
avoid using P or Av/Tv mode, but it will make it easier to learn
initially.

They have to know what those terms mean and why you use them.

That is what you are teaching isn't it?



Now let's have an example of something where a digital camera with
the same auto and manual settings as a film camera,

difficult to imagine, but carry on.

and the same rules about which settings are forbidden whilst
learning, makes it more difficult to learn than on the equivalent
film camera.

You give a kid a digital camera that is **** compared to their mobile
phone they get board unintrested and disruptive. Now you have 20 kids
around you not concentrating they'd rather use their phone to get a
far better picture than they could ever get with the digital camera
you've supplied.

So what are you trying to teach them if its not how to get a better
picture, it sounds like you have given them cr@p and expect them to use
it. I take it your film camera of choice is a box brownie.

Why does the image on my LCD look the same irrespected of
the aperature and shutter speed I set.

Because you have a cr@p camera

wrong answer .

So what's your answer? Is it that the image on an LCD screen
(either when used as a viewfinder or when examining the pictures
after taking) is too small to be able to distinguish clearly
between in-focus and out-of focus parts of the scene?

No because when you lok at the screen you see what you might end up
with.

That is what you use a viewfinder for to see what you may get.

If so, you may have a valid point, although I can usually tell
reasonably well.

you are going to take a p[icture of usain bolt in teh 100 meters on
the left is the start on the right is the finish. Are yuo saying
they'll be no differnce whether the exposure is 1/1000 or 1 second.
the aperature will take care of itself, but will what you see on the
screen be the same as the images yuo take. NO.

That is true of the viewfinder on your camera and is no different to a
digital camera., especially an SLR.

So far you haven't pointed out any difference between learning on a
digital and a film camera other than the ability to view the results.

On Monday, 28 September 2015 17:50:29 UTC+1, dennis@home wrote:
On 28/09/2015 12:42, whisky-dave wrote:
On Friday, 25 September 2015 22:49:23 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 25/09/2015 16:27, whisky-dave wrote:
Why call it a stop one have such strange stop
numbers....... why does f5.6 let in twice that of f8

f number is a measure of aperture *diameter* relative to lens focal length.



Its the same as a film camera, where do you think it differs?
Why do you even think it might differ?

My thoughts exactly. I can't work out whether he really doesn't know or is
winding us all up. Film and digital cameras have more in common that maybe
he realises.

They sure do, but there are some important differncies.

You still haven't said what they are, I don't think you know.

if you don't know I'm not listing them for you.
We are also talking about qwhich is best for teaching photography.
Teaching photography adn gettiogn a good picture aren't the same.



yes the meter is judging this isn't good if you're teaching the subject.

So you propose not using a light meter while teaching photography.

No I've vere said that. are you sugeswstin we don;t need a light meter because we have a digital camera ?.


Why does the image on my LCD look the same irrespected of the
aperature and shutter speed I set.

Because you have a cr@p camera

wrong answer .

It was the polite one.

but still wrong.


and can't set the image to look correct at
a guess. On mine if you stop down, the image darkens when you do DoF
preview just like an old fashioned camera.

does it still darken if you don't do a DoF. ?

Why should it,

cause the f..king sun goes in or it gets dark or night approaches.
you know brightness changes throught they day.
Your LCD and eyes react to changing light levels differntly and to colur differntly.




the diaphragm in the lens doesn't close unless you do a
DoF check,

or when taking a photo.

the same as on a film camera or are you proposing that only
manual lenses are allowed.

if you want to learn about lenses use a manual lens, just like you would a car.




Seems you're getting corect exposure and DoF confused.

Seems you're getting photography confused.

On 29/09/2015 12:05, whisky-dave wrote:
On Monday, 28 September 2015 17:50:29 UTC+1, dennis@home wrote:
On 28/09/2015 12:42, whisky-dave wrote:
On Friday, 25 September 2015 22:49:23 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 25/09/2015 16:27, whisky-dave wrote:
Why call it a stop one have such strange stop
numbers....... why does f5.6 let in twice that of f8

f number is a measure of aperture *diameter* relative to lens
focal length.



Its the same as a film camera, where do you think it
differs? Why do you even think it might differ?

My thoughts exactly. I can't work out whether he really doesn't
know or is winding us all up. Film and digital cameras have
more in common that maybe he realises.

They sure do, but there are some important differncies.

You still haven't said what they are, I don't think you know.

if you don't know I'm not listing them for you. We are also talking
about qwhich is best for teaching photography. Teaching photography
adn gettiogn a good picture aren't the same.

There are no differences, if you can't list them i will continue to
state there are no differences. Its up to you to state what you think
they are or stop saying there are differences.




yes the meter is judging this isn't good if you're teaching the
subject.

So you propose not using a light meter while teaching photography.

No I've vere said that. are you sugeswstin we don;t need a light
meter because we have a digital camera ?.

Well its obvious that you can get the exposure by trial and error and
that you can do that trial and error there and then with a decent
digital camera. you will claim that that's too easy which i will ignore.



Why does the image on my LCD look the same irrespected of
the aperature and shutter speed I set.

Because you have a cr@p camera

wrong answer .

It was the polite one.

but still wrong.


and can't set the image to look correct at
a guess. On mine if you stop down, the image darkens when you
do DoF preview just like an old fashioned camera.

does it still darken if you don't do a DoF. ?

Why should it,

cause the f..king sun goes in or it gets dark or night approaches.
you know brightness changes throught they day. Your LCD and eyes
react to changing light levels differntly and to colur differntly.

Your eyes do, the camera doesn't.
You can see what the changes mean on a digital camera after you take a
picture you can only guess with film until you have it processed. Having
such a long delay doesn't aid teaching so digital is best there too.



the diaphragm in the lens doesn't close unless you do a DoF check,

or when taking a photo.

Well there's the obvious.


the same as on a film camera or are you proposing that only manual
lenses are allowed.

if you want to learn about lenses use a manual lens, just like you
would a car.

A manual lens and an auto iris lens produce the same images. Only
preview and metering differ and they differ the same for film and digital.

On Monday, 28 September 2015 18:48:46 UTC+1, dennis@home wrote:
On 28/09/2015 17:03, whisky-dave wrote:



Do the optics of lenses behave differently?

No that I know of.

They behave differently as film has a different response to off axis
images than a digital sensor does.

As far as I know the light traveling through lenes behaves the same irrespective of whether the camera has a film or sensor in it.



Does the reciprocity law (halve shutter speed so double aperture
etc) behave differently?

Yes significantly.

they are the same.

wrong.


It only matters in extreme cases.

so they aren't the same then are they.



you need to correct the exposure using characteristics that change
from one make of film to another;

yuo don;t get that with digital, you don't even have to think about
it.

You can change how the sensor responds and what is recorded so you do
need to think about it.

yuo can't change how a sensor responds. It is an electronic device which has charastretics which the user can NOT change.




So when studying photogrphy like my friend was who won a pjhopt comp
in spain. She works at a uni teaching photography and is an adobe
registered certified to teach.

???

teaching photography is differnt to getting someone to take the same snapshot as you can.



You might be making life more difficult for him if you make him
avoid using P or Av/Tv mode, but it will make it easier to learn
initially.

They have to know what those terms mean and why you use them.

That is what you are teaching isn't it?

Yes, and you DON'T even need a camera to teach that.


You give a kid a digital camera that is **** compared to their mobile
phone they get board unintrested and disruptive. Now you have 20 kids
around you not concentrating they'd rather use their phone to get a
far better picture than they could ever get with the digital camera
you've supplied.

So what are you trying to teach them if its not how to get a better
picture, it sounds like you have given them cr@p and expect them to use
it. I take it your film camera of choice is a box brownie.

No, but you wouldn't give them a smart phone, even though most people
could get better pictures with it.


Why does the image on my LCD look the same irrespected of
the aperature and shutter speed I set.

Because you have a cr@p camera

wrong answer .

So what's your answer? Is it that the image on an LCD screen
(either when used as a viewfinder or when examining the pictures
after taking) is too small to be able to distinguish clearly
between in-focus and out-of focus parts of the scene?

No because when you look at the screen you see what you might end up
with.

That is what you use a viewfinder for to see what you may get.

exactly what you may get.


you are going to take a p[icture of usain bolt in teh 100 meters on
the left is the start on the right is the finish. Are yuo saying
they'll be no differnce whether the exposure is 1/1000 or 1 second.
the aperature will take care of itself, but will what you see on the
screen be the same as the images yuo take. NO.

That is true of the viewfinder on your camera and is no different to a
digital camera., especially an SLR.

No it's not. A LCD well most DLSR or digital camera LCDs change brightness depending on your setting or AP and Tv so you can still see teh display and the brightness of teh dispalay will change depending on you;'r settings.
This is NOT true of a film SLR.


So far you haven't pointed out any difference between learning on a
digital and a film camera other than the ability to view the results.

So far you have proved you know noting about teaching.

On Tuesday, 29 September 2015 12:22:48 UTC+1, dennis@home wrote:
On 29/09/2015 12:05, whisky-dave wrote:


My thoughts exactly. I can't work out whether he really doesn't
know or is winding us all up. Film and digital cameras have
more in common that maybe he realises.

They sure do, but there are some important differncies.

You still haven't said what they are, I don't think you know.

if you don't know I'm not listing them for you. We are also talking
about qwhich is best for teaching photography. Teaching photography
adn gettiogn a good picture aren't the same.

There are no differences,

I can tell the differnce you can't.


No I've vere said that. are you sugeswstin we don;t need a light
meter because we have a digital camera ?.

Well its obvious that you can get the exposure by trial and error.

with a DIGITAL cameras can be acheived by just loking at the LCD.
Now tell me how you can do this with a film camera looking through the viewfinder.

THIS IS A DIFFERENCE


this can be achived and
that you can do that trial and error there and then with a decent
digital camera. you will claim that that's too easy which i will ignore.

Of course you'll ignore it, because it proves you're wrong.
Try adjusing the aperature and the exposure time on a SLR film camera and see if teh viwfinder image changes in any way.
THIS IS A DIFFERENCE

You can select the 'speed' aka ISO of the 'sensor' either increase it or decrease it for any frame or picture.

Now coem on tell me how you do this with film in the camera what button do you use to increase/decrease the films speed.
THIS IS A DIFFERENCE .

With a DIGITAL camera you can increase/decrease Ap Tv and ISO.
With a film camera you CAN NOT change the ISO unless you change film
or change the way you process it AFTER taking the picture.
THIS IS A DIFFERENCE

which means with film you have to THINK before you even put the film in the camera, you don;t have the same thoughts choosing a memory card do you.
THIS IS A DIFFERENCE

With film you have to decide whether or not you're taking colour or monochrome,
or transparancies, although colour film can be converted to monochrome it's a bit wasteful. No sucvh thing with digital cameras is theres.
THIS IS A DIFFERENCE







cause the f..king sun goes in or it gets dark or night approaches.
you know brightness changes throught they day. Your LCD and eyes
react to changing light levels differntly and to colur differntly.

Your eyes do, the camera doesn't.

yes it does compared to your eyes.
have you never heard of tungsten film ?
THIS IS A DIFFERENCE


can yuo tell me what AWB is and what other options there
are on a typical digital camera can you show me these option for film ?
THIS IS A DIFFERENCE


You can see what the changes mean on a digital camera after you take a
picture you can only guess with film until you have it processed.

THIS IS A DIFFERENCE

Having
such a long delay doesn't aid teaching so digital is best there too.

No it doesn't as few even notice. A friend of mine spent quite a time in a musuem takign videos all with a yellow orange cast he thought there's was something wrong with his camera, of course he didn;t realise this until he got home.
Me I knew immediatly what the problem was because I know about film and digital and the differencies between them. I'd have set the white balance before I started recording. He thought the scene looked OK no colour cast and digital cameras arn;t effected by such things as colour temerature of teh light source.
THIS IS A DIFFERENCE.



the same as on a film camera or are you proposing that only manual
lenses are allowed.

if you want to learn about lenses use a manual lens, just like you
would a car.

A manual lens and an auto iris lens produce the same images.

my lenes from my film cameras have aprature rings I can turn to stop down the lens. They also have a DOF scale and an IR mark, even a distance scale on some.



Only
preview and metering differ and they differ the same for film and digital..

I've never seen image stablisation on a lens designed for film cameras.

"whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
f number is a measure of aperture *diameter* relative to lens focal
length.



Its the same as a film camera, where do you think it differs?
Why do you even think it might differ?

My thoughts exactly. I can't work out whether he really doesn't know
or is
winding us all up. Film and digital cameras have more in common that
maybe
he realises.

They sure do, but there are some important differncies.

You still haven't said what they are, I don't think you know.

if you don't know I'm not listing them for you.
We are also talking about qwhich is best for teaching photography.
Teaching photography adn gettiogn a good picture aren't the same.

Sorry. Anyone who says "you are wrong but I can't be bothered to explain
why" has just proved that they are not worth listening to.

You may have a very good point to make - there may be differences in the way
that you use aperture and shutter speed between film and digital, but I
can't think of any and neither can dennis@home. Sadly you're not prepared to
share your wisdom with us, so there's only one conclusion that we can draw:
that you've lost the argument and aren't man enough to admit it.

You've implied that a camera with manual settings (and maybe even with no
automatic settings) is needed to teach photography. To some extent I agree
with you - about the former, if not the latter. Where you would find such a
camera out of current models of film and digital camera is the problem.

But you've not made a convincing case for saying that a film camera is
better than a digital camera for learning the principles of photography,
because every time you've been challenged to elaborate your sweeping
statements, you've ducked the issue.