On Wed, 31 Mar 1999 19:53:59 EST, ALEXSCIFI@xxxxxxx jammed all night, and by
sunrise was overheard remarking:
> In a message dated 3/29/99 6:00:18 PM Eastern Standard Time, ab-lnc@u-
> picardie.fr writes:
>
> << I would like to know what is your favourite OM body?
> My own favorite OM body is the OM4Ti--why?
My favorite remains my OM-4; I don't have a 4Ti, though I suppose I would
like that even more :-).
> I must add that I was surprised by prior postings to this that still, for many
> people the OM1 or OM2 remain favorites even over the OM 4 with it's super
> elegant metering system and automation--not the mention the continued
> preference of OM over the plethora of autofocus choices today.
It may depend on what and how you learned. As an art supported by
technology, it's impossible to develop a logical formula for a person's
preferences.
I stated out in the world of 35mm with a Konica auto rangerfinder. That
was replaced by an OM-1 (mid 70s), a camera I had researched for over a
year before I could convince my Dad that "WE" could afford it. I used
that until 1984, when it was stolen.
When I went to Japan in '86, I had saved enough money for what I thought
would be an OM-3; I had researched the OM-3 and the OM-4, but didn't
quite see the need for an automatic camera (though my Dad had always used
automatic Konica SLRs). But in actually playing around with the OM-4, it
was the spot metering that got me -- that gave a reason to like
automation.
Today, my Dad traded in his Konicas for auto-everything Nikons. I
recently bought another OM-1 to add to my collection, and it's
immediately my #2 camera, over my OM-PC, OM-G, OM-77, etc. Sure, there
are occasions when auto exposure helps (usually something along the lines
of "I didn't have time to adjust the OM-1"), and even autofocus (more
fast stuff, I suppose). But for me anyway, I find it too easy to to get
lazy and depend on the camera doing the right thing. It won't
necessarily. Sure, you have other systems that follow your eye (to
decide where to autofocus) or pick the exposure from a 50 zone metering
system accessing a library of 25,000 possible shots. Of course, these
puppies have more in common with my vast array of computers than vast
array of OMs -- both in complexity, battery life, and weight. No thanks.
> This seemed to
> me to raise a fundamental question--what is the relationship between system
> complexity and individual creativity?
Well, that's it. When things are instant and automatic, ok, sure, there's
still the composition. But light, exposure, etc. are still part of this
process. At least I think so, and I think most of the time, the
always-computer-perfect shot won't be the better one. Occasionally, it
will be, and certainly in a novice's hands (where, by the way, most SLRs
go these days, a radical departure from when the OM system was launched
and SLRs were used only by pros and "prosumers" -- you see folks wielding
plastic Canon-with-zoom, who would have had 110 or 126 cameras 20 years
back; they look at me funny when I'm changing lens after lens on 2 or 3
bodies. But that's ok -- and the big Sunpack 555 flash usually scares
them away).
> I have to confess that for me, it is frequently inverse--the more "stuff" I
> have the less memorable the shots sometimes. How do others feel about this?
Automating everything makes it easy to simply disengage the brain. I
believe the more think about any single element of a short, the more
you're likely to think about the overall shot. So maybe I don't burn
through a roll quite as fast, but that is a good thing, most of the time.
In five or ten years, we'll all be able to buy digital cameras smaller
than an OM-1, smarter than us, with medium format resolution, 600 shots
per optical memory module, 40x optical zoom (800x if you digitally zoom
in combination), auto-everything, IR and X-ray modes, with automatic
2.5GHz radio link to your pocket computer (which, of course, long ago
replaced those desktop dinosaurs), etc. All of this will cost $275. Of
course, they'll run Windows CE and crash every 10th shot, say "Are You
Sure?" if you click too fast, eat batteries like there's no tomorrow,
and, designed by committee, it'll be virtually impossible to tell the
Kodaks from the Olympuses from the Canons from the Minoltas for the
Epsons, etc. Novices will think this is a good thing...
<sorry, been reading too much Scott Adams lately, I think>
--
Dave Haynie | V.P. Technology, Met@box AG | http://www.metabox.de
Be Dev #2024 | NB851 Powered! | Amiga 2000, 3000, 4000, PIOS One
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