Analogue cameras better at exposure?

[hgharib]

I was just looking through my old slides which I took with my humble Pentax ME Super back in 80-90s. A vast majority of the slides are well exposed with deep blue skies.

I look at my recent photos shot on digital and they all appear to have washed-out skies and wishy-washy exposure.

Were the analogue really that good at exposure or I am using my digital camera incorrectly.

[ps I usually shoot in AP mode].

[prinothcat]

I wouldn't say you're using it incorrectly, but I bet you could spend some time working with all the settings and get results that you find more pleasing. You may never match the film exposures because film has a greater exposure latitude. It is sensitive to more variations in color and light intensity. The simplest thing to play with is to try shooting different White Balances. You would be surprised how the cloudy setting under open sky might be more pleasing to the eye than what the camera sets in Auto mode. Try the Tungsten setting under a night sky.
Some one is going to come along and suggest you learn to shoot in RAW mode which is all well and good, it just requires more time on your part to "develop" the images as they come off the camera media. Most people can get what they are looking for by working their way through the image management settings on the camera, and by knowing what White Balance does in various light conditions. Something to remember, the digital camera captures light at the sensor. It then applies a set of "rules" that someone assigned to it to render the final image. Learning the various settings on the camera will let you "bend the rules" to your exact desires.
There is no right or wrong setting. Really all that matters is that the image you get is what you visualized when you pulled out the camera in the first place.
Perhaps this will be helpful,
Chris...

[waggonerphotos]

The old rule of thumb for shooting slides was to expose for the highlights or another way of saying this was to slightly underexpose because the film had little tolerance for overexposure. When you overexpose with a digital camera you get the same result, the highlights are blownout or "Clipped". I would suggest experimenting with different metering patterns and studying the resulting histograms. They are a quick means by which to see whether your highlights or shadows are being clipped and to determine how you should adjust exposure. Best of Luck - Bob

[hgharib]

Thanks for those comments. Time to experimnet now. However, we are not going see many blue skies in the UK for some months now - winter comes.

[namratasnv]

This is what exactly a truth as, when you go for experimenting something then only you can come to know about the flaws or other requirements that are needed while doing photography.

Thanks!

[pentax67]

I was just looking through my old slides which I took with my humble Pentax ME Super back in 80-90s. A vast majority of the slides are well exposed with deep blue skies.

I look at my recent photos shot on digital and they all appear to have washed-out skies and wishy-washy exposure.

Were the analogue really that good at exposure or I am using my digital camera incorrectly.

[ps I usually shoot in AP mode].

I can only speak for film, but the way I see it is simple. The 50mm lens was typical - and you shot most everything with it. You got to "know" it, and probably had a favourite film or two. You got to know them as well. Being able to stop down the lens to achieve a "look" was easy once you knew what to expect from the film - lens combination, and the view finder gave you the visual feed back. Our creative nature would take over - and let the brain and the visual compose the picture.

As long as the shutter speed was OK for hand held - about the only thing to worry about once the shot was composed - shoot it. Bracket the stop in either 1/2 or full stops, depending upon the gut feel - and you would be not far off the mark. The time was spent in the composition to achieve the result, and maybe a filter for effect.

Digital seems to encourage a technical nature to a shot. Menus, histogram, change ISO on the fly, and if it's off a bit - Photoshop. This is NOT a put down to you digital photographers. This is an observation. I've had discussions with digital photographers about this observation, and many have agreed that their composition skills and time taken to make sure the picture was right, have gone by the wayside. Shooting more - deleting more. A visitor up from NY mentioned that on the way back, they would be stopping at Niagara Falls to take some pictures. He intentionally brought along his trusty OM-1 with a roll of film, and his digital camera, to shoot the same scene for comparison. He would shoot the OM-1 first using his remembered skills, then spend the time to get the same shot with the digital camera to see where he was "cutting corners". He had switched to digital 5 years ago. You might want to try something along these lines - do a comparison, take notes on each exposure and settings for each shot, and work from the feedback you see.

I take notes for every single shot - exposure - time of day - conditions etc, etc. Expanded notes if I'm trying to achieve a certain result. Once I scan the film (positives) or check the prints - I compare the results to my notes. If I've achieved the results I was after - looking at the picture - and the notes on technical details - it reinforces the data and visual result to be stored in my memory bank. If the picture was not "right" - then what could I have done differently to get the result.

Another photo session, more notes, and eventually I can truthfully say - before I couldn't spell fotografer - now I are one.

[amoxtli]

Very interesting observations Pentax67. I would like to add that shooting digital discourages the taking of notes as you do, and as I used to do, instead digital photography encourages shooting away as there is no film to waste. Perhaps one needs to slow down and be more meticulous as we were when we shot film. Being more deliberate and more conscious will certainly bring better results.

[madlights]

That's a very good observation Pentax67. I've oftentimes found myself with my DSLR thinking more about what I'm doing with my camera, than what I'm doing with the shot. I've looked at some of my old slides, even taken with very little regard for latitude ( had no clue what it even was back at first, and sometime wonder if I do now and am very surprised that with the problems associated with slide film, and my ignorance of it...how good a lot of the exposures were. I used a little Zeiss Ikon Contessamat for a lot of my early slide stuff...with a fixed 45mm lens and not many shutter speeds, and a weird little meter... but think you are right about getting to know what something does. Now we figure we can fix it in Photoshop, we look at histograms (which can be misleading sometimes- but can be a great help) we think about this and that, and sometimes not the shot itself. Bresson if I'm correct, used zone focusing quite often and primarily a 50mm lens and got very used to his camera, to concentrate on the subject, the timing and composition. Know when I got my first digital, I used it like a machine gun once the memory prices came down. Sometimes I force myself to shoot in jpg now, occasionally (knowing that RAW is way better in tonality) just to make myself know that not as much can be corrected (although that's really not the purpose for shooting RAW...it's the 10-14 bit tonal range depending) RAW still can give that false sense of security in my mind's eye...but nothing can bring back a highlight that's blown. As has been said by amoxtli too, whether we took real notes, or mental ones we still were more careful maybe.

[pentax67]

I used it like a machine gun once the memory prices came down. Sometimes I force myself to shoot in jpg now, occasionally (knowing that RAW is way better in tonality) just to make myself know that not as much can be corrected (although that's really not the purpose for shooting RAW...it's the 10-14 bit tonal range depending) RAW still can give that false sense of security in my mind's eye...but nothing can bring back a highlight that's blown. As has been said by amoxtli too, whether we took real notes, or mental ones we still were more careful maybe.[/quote]

It's interesting to watch others in the process of taking pictures. It can give you an insight into their character, watching the way they shoot, and what the objects are.