jans@mako.UUCP (Jan Steinman) (02/19/85)
[Time to enter the fray...] <953@watdcsu.UUCP> haapanen@watdcsu.UUCP (Tom Haapanen [DCS]) writes, quotes: >>> Whith shutter priority, the lens is wide open until you actually press the >>> shutter. > >That's stopped-down metering... No, that's the exact opposite! One advantage of aperture priority is that one can do stopped-down automatic exposure. This opens up a whole world of cheap "T" mount, preset lenses, non of which will operate (in automatic) on a shutter-preferred camera. (I use my $70 Spiratone 400/5.6 on auto all the time.) >>For what it's worth, it is almost always easier to twirl the aperture ring >>than it is the shutter speed knob on every SLR I've run into. > >Really? On an AE-1 (and T-70 for that matter) it's... much easier to change >the shutter speed than the aperture. Olympus did this right. The shutter speed setting is around the lens barrel, not on top of the camera. This promotes proper handling (with the left hand cradling the lens) and makes aperture, focus, zoom, AND shutter speed all reachable by simply moving a finger and a thumb. One last word on SP vs AP -- an AP camera with real-time (through-the-lens) exposure control is really worth having if you do timed exposures, or shoot through gizmos (bellows, extensions, astro adapters, "T" mounts), or do macro flash. When I bought my first Olympus OM-2, it was the only camera that would do this sort of thing -- there may be others by now. Combine this with a zone-system spot meter and you have the OM-4: the first camera to buck the "do it all for you" trend. (For the uninitiated, "through-the-lens" TTL exposure means that you press the shutter button, the camera stops the lens down (unless you are shooting through a "gizmo", as above), the first shutter curtain is released, the photons bouncing off the film and shutter curtain are counted until the proper amount of light is sensed, the secon shutter curtain is released. For flash, substitute "begin flash" and "end flash" for "first shutter curtain" and "second shutter curtain".) Although I haven't given it much thought, I don't see how a SP camera could ever do real-time exposure control a la Olympus. -- :::::: Jan Steinman Box 1000, MS 61-161 (w)503/685-2843 :::::: :::::: tektronix!tekecs!jans Wilsonville, OR 97070 (h)503/657-7703 ::::::