Is a certain type of person drawn to a fully manual camera?

aniMal said:
Sorry, I just could not resist to make a pun on what you wrote...

I think it is all too easy to exchange what is best for oneself - and what might be best for others... It is something one has to be aware of in oneself all the time.

When it comes to my own, manual hole, I quite like it in here 🙂 I dont mind getting company, and I dont mind that there are others who stay in other holes!

Then, on the other hand, sometimes other people ask me why I stay in that ****ty old, manual hole... Then is the time to stand my own ground - hopefully with humour! 😀
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Try telling a friend that you like parts of two different political parties, so you consider yourself a member of both. Tell him that you like manual AND auto-everything cameras, and think both are excellent cameras.

These are the things which make people angry who want you to be ONE THING or ANOTHER. You are not permitted to NOT MAKE A CHOICE and be on their side, or against them.

I like doing this, myself. It makes people crazy. During the recent US elections, I said that I liked both candidates. Neither side's supporters believed it, and each accused me of being a 'spy' for the other side. It simply is not possible - according to them - to not prefer one over the other.
 
These are the things which make people angry who want you to be ONE THING or ANOTHER. You are not permitted to NOT MAKE A CHOICE and be on their side, or against them
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Yes... It is really tempting to blow a few fuses by just being myself with people like that!

Although I go for manual modes often, it is really more like a 90-10 mix. If I really have to make it somewhere in comfort and fast, I prefer a recent car. And if I ever get a job that involves a lot of driving again, I would probably demand a good, automatic car as part of the package.

But for myself? Never again... The few times in a month when I really need a car, I am very happy driving my run-down 72´ classic Toyota.

Same goes for cameras, I even use A-mode a lot on both the M8 and nikons - but when I really want to get into it I prefer the old way.
 
There's something to be said for learning how to use all the creative controls of a view camera: the swings and tilts, the rise, fall, and shifts of both the front standard and the rear, as well as the more mundane aspects, like loading a sheet film holder. So far, to the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever put Program Mode on the shutter of a 12 inch Commercial Ektar.
 
I'm clearly not a Luddite. My job is web developer and to some extent I'm positive about technology but I like to step away from it and go back to basics. This is reflected in the fact that I love to go walking to get away from it all, I like a simpler lifestyle that isn't dependent on electronics. I have some friends who are so glued to their mobile phones and e-mails I worry for them. I feel worried for people who feel lost and mood wise they end up grumpy when their mobile phone battery is flat or they somehow forgot it.

I own an EOS 3 and love it to bits, it's a very decent camera and I know how to work it properly. Which is more than can be said for some people posing with SLRs in my experience (posers have a habit of throwing around random photographic terms before proceeding to behave like a chump with every dial and button at random...) but in that respect it's very much an auto-everything camera but that suits sometimes. I also use it in full manual mode sometimes as with black and whiteI get much more tonal control. I rarely use the evaluative meter and with black and white almost exlusively use the spot meter to pick out the 18% grey. I get the results out of it, and I'm happy.

But that said, I have a Mamiya C330 and a Leica M2 now and I just like something a little less automated. It just changes they way you shoot to really think about light and how you want to capture that light with all you have at your disposal to capture that.

Of course there is the aspect that there is something very satisfying doing something that hasn't involved anything more than some film, a controlled light tight box (the camera), some chemicals, papers and an enlarger. No computer, or calculator, just a head for juggling figures and an eye for the scene.

I could go on more about this but essentially I don't want to work a computer when it comes to photography.
 
I'm not sure it's dedication in the sense of martyrdom (know you didn't mean it that way but it sounds like dedication for dedications sake) as much as trying to get what you want in the most direct way possible.
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Right, I meant "dedication" as in "sufficiently interested". I'm not describing a high bar; just consider the sheer numbers of skilled amateur photographers. Yet modern digital point and shoot cameras are hugely empowering to many people. They just want some pictures, not to have to learn a new craft. Such folk, for purposes of discussion, aren't necessarily "dedicated" and that's a good thing.

On the other hand, advanced DSLR functionality is highly automated but far from point-and-shoot. Using such cameras to their potential means working to gain the needed expertise. It's a different need that drives such photographers vs. folks who shoot manual... but I wouldn't consider either group to be inherently less dedicated.
 
There's nothing wrong with automation - it's all in how you use it.

For example, I once spent a day with a friend's Pentax K10D DSLR - he wanted to see how my D300 worked for him. Pentax has an ingenious (and unique?) form of automation in these cameras - it's called 'HyperManual" or somesuch.

How it worked was this: you left the camera in manual mode. However, at any time you could tickle a little green button near the shutter button and the camera would set the appropriate shutter speed and aperture as if it were in program mode, and then instantly revert to manual while keeping those settings! It's the smartest integration of automation I've ever seen in a camera.

I'd be lying if I didn't confess to idly wondering what it would be like to shoot with an M7 instead of my M6 or M3. I could leave it in auto when not actively shooting, and then either switch to manual or simply selectively meter and lock exposure in auto.

I'm with Crankypants Mattock - there's no reason it has to be an either/or issue.
 
Ken Ford said:
There's nothing wrong with automation - it's all in how you use it.

For example, I once spent a day with a friend's Pentax K10D DSLR - he wanted to see how my D300 worked for him. Pentax has an ingenious (and unique?) form of automation in these cameras - it's called 'HyperManual" or somesuch.

How it worked was this: you left the camera in manual mode. However, at any time you could tickle a little green button near the shutter button and the camera would set the appropriate shutter speed and aperture as if it were in program mode, and then instantly revert to manual while keeping those settings! It's the smartest integration of automation I've ever seen in a camera.

I'd be lying if I didn't confess to idly wondering what it would be like to shoot with an M7 instead of my M6 or M3. I could leave it in auto when not actively shooting, and then either switch to manual or simply selectively meter and lock exposure in auto.

I'm with Crankypants Mattock - there's no reason it has to be an either/or issue.
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That sounds like an awesome system!

After reading stuff here, I realized what it is that makes me like manual cameras- I don't like something to try to decide what it thinks is best for me. That's why I really hate driving cars with auto transmissions. While my current car (saab 900) does have an auto trans, I really wish I would have bought one of the 5sp variety. I don't like the car figuring out which gear I'd like and I don't like the car not allowing me to go past 5.5k rpm or so. (will shift long before redline) My last car was also an auto (passat), but the saab's auto is of a much better design...the saab doesn't try to go into top gear while going up a hill 40 mph, like the passat did. 🙂
 
Yes - that sounds like the ideal solution... I will check the K10D out - especially as I recently got an old MX with some lenses...

About M7/8 - the A setting is really good for those less active moments, and makes me get some shots that I might have missed. In the start I tended to use it too much though, but recently I am back to shooting 90% manual and 10% on A with the M8.

I would not mind my M9 having matrix metering, but it is not very important. If I want to get into that mode of shooting, it would be my Nikon dSLRs in A mode anyway.
 
hamradio said:
That sounds like an awesome system!

After reading stuff here, I realized what it is that makes me like manual cameras- I don't like something to try to decide what it thinks is best for me. That's why I really hate driving cars with auto transmissions. While my current car (saab 900) does have an auto trans, I really wish I would have bought one of the 5sp variety. I don't like the car figuring out which gear I'd like and I don't like the car not allowing me to go past 5.5k rpm or so. (will shift long before redline) My last car was also an auto (passat), but the saab's auto is of a much better design...the saab doesn't try to go into top gear while going up a hill 40 mph, like the passat did. 🙂
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Is this guy really just seventeen?....🙄
 
Will not speak about types or categories, though....my 1980 Golf Cabrio gave me similar feelings as I get this days, using old manual cameras. I'm postponing upgrade of car because I don't like things which make me visiting service station to replace light bulb.
 
hamradio said:
That sounds like an awesome system!
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I'll second that motion. Fantastic idea; I'd love to see it adopted elsewhere... alas patents may intervene there.

[...] That's why I really hate driving cars with auto transmissions. [...]
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Funny that. I've really enjoyed my first manual transmission car w/ a decent amount of power, after many years of barely mobile college and grad school clunkers. But after reading this entry in Wil Shipley's blog about the Tesla... I'm willing to kiss manual transmission goodbye. See, the Tesla isn't automatic. It isn't manual. It's just that its powerhouse electric engine needs a transmission like a fish needs a bicycle. Read the article; Wil explains the experience pretty well.
 
I love the driving experience a 5sp trans offers (even if in a non-sporty car...like a turbodiesel rabbit 🙂 ), but another thing is the whole pain of working on a car with auto trans, dealing with problems the transmission gives, etc. Both automatic cars I've owned had lots of transmission related problems. My rabbit's gearbox is pretty worn out, but still works fine after 220k miles. And a replacement is $50 and 4 hours of work, not hundreds of dollars and days of work.
 
bmattock said:
Welcome to the fun world of online discussion, where we classify ourselves into ever-smaller boxes, and then insist that anyone not in that same tiny pigeonhole with us is 'wrong', or at the very least, 'not like us'. If we find ourselves in rare agreement about anything, it is time to redraw the lines even more tightly, so that the group of 'us' ('us' being the smart ones, the 'real photographers') never becomes more than just a few.

It must be some inner desire that humans possess to create an us-vs-them mentality out of everything. Coke and Pepsi, Ford and Chevy, Canon and Nikon, Film and Digital, Auto-Exposure and Manual Exposure, and etc.

Creatures which overspecialize become extinct when the world changes and they've lost the ability to adapt.
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I couldn't write it better. I read this thread from the beginning but even your post can't calm me down. I am really offended now. There are some people here who think their way of taking photos is the only serious method on the planet and everything else is just point/shoot.
I should take a break from this forum.
 
tom.w.bn said:
There are some people here who think their way of taking photos is the only serious method on the planet and everything else is just point/shoot.
I should take a break from this forum.
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Don't let them get to you. Just ignore them. They are a minority here. I think most of us are here to share our photo experience and maybe learn a little.
 
I just find the simpler - aperture, shutter speed, set film speed, and way more fun to use. Ironic that the manuals for one of these things is a small pamphlet while the digital monstrosities come with a paperback to read while you're on the can.

Prefer a manual transmission too, and wear only vintage spring-wound watches.

The only thing that I don't prefer the old school way is shaving. Electric razor guy. Would never go back to using a razor.
 
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