Hi Moose,
I didn't mean to sound like one should be hard on themselves, ascetic
or have a rigid standard of behavior. I think anyone should bracket
exposure whenever they feel the need to. I was responding to the
idea that exposure bracketing was some kind of discipline or good
practice one should follow. If I have the time to make several shots of
the same subject, sometimes I will bracket exposure, but with some
subjects bracketing can waste a lot of film and potentially the best
shot. With fleeting moments, the odds are against me in capturing the
best photo with the best exposure if I rely on bracketing exposure
rather than knowing how to get the best exposure in that moment.
The recent realization *for me* was that if I bracket because I don't
know how to determine the best exposure, I won't learn and improve that
aspect of my photography. But if I always attempt to get the exposure
right the first time, with a consistent method of determining exposure
(a topic in itself), I will make mistakes, but hopefully I will learn
and improve that part of my photography. In some cases I will bracket
to see what the difference is.
Also I am lazy: My OM-4t does not do wonderbrick-auto-bracketing and I
don't take notes or have a great memory, so I much prefer to know how
to get the right exposure in the moment. I shot 8 rolls of film 3
weeks ago and they have yet to return from the lab. I have no notes,
but I will probably know the reason for each good or bad exposures,
because I know how I went about determining exposure. Something
I did not do in the past.
Back to using the C-5050 as a light meter tool, I use it to learn new
things. One new thing I learned was that spot metering on background
greenery may not be a known tonality, and may be the reason many of my
past exposures were off so much. The C-5050, with histogram display,
shows that it is not a known tonality because the histogram is not
sharp. And now I know a bit better how to use the OM4 spot meter, which
is to make sure I spot meter a known tonality whenever possible. I will
have to experiment more with using the C-5050 as a light meter tool.
There are so many variables one can bracket, angle of view, dof, focus,
framing, composition, timing, the moment, exposure... so maybe it all
depends on how we manage uncertainty as to whether we feel the need to
bracket anything. I'm sure Fuji and Kodak would want us to bracket more.
Wayne
At 04:50 AM 9/5/2003, Moose wrote:
><snip>
>It all sounds a bit too ascetic for me, but fine for you and many others. On
>my own behalf and that of those who may be more interested in getting the shot
>than in meeting some rigid standard of behavior, I respectively disagree. I do
>in fact, bracket rather seldom, but do so without flinching in difficult
>situations.
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