Wallace Koopmans Artlog

It’s my experience that Program mode on cameras is somewhat misunderstood and maligned by a considerable number of people. It’s often derided as letting the camera make all the decisions, regarded little more than an auto or scene mode. It doesn’t need to be like that at all. After spending likely a large sum of money on a modern marvel of technology why would you then put it in manual mode and use it like it was a camera from 1951? New Photographers are often told to shoot in manual mode so they learn the effect the different settings have which is a good idea for a time however I believe they are encouraged to continue this practice for too long. It is better to allow the camera to meter and to only concentrate on the other aspects that will deliver the image they want. You can learn all the technical aspects of photography in a short time yet spend the rest of your life learning composition.

Before going further let me say there are many reasons to use manual mode such as when working with flash, stitching images, exposures outside of the range of metering or sometimes just for creative control or because you feel like it. Another thing I need to assume for the purpose of this discussion is that the camera also allows shifting of settings in program mode and that’s the key to its effective use.

My first contact with Program mode came with the Minolta X700 a film SLR from the 1980s. With the x700 in Program the camera chose the shutter and aperture for you based on its metering. In fact there is no indication of the aperture that is being used. This is not what you want when you want creative control. One strike against Program mode and a reason for it to be dismissed at the time. The earlier Canon A1 was actually the first SLR to offer a program mode you needed to set a lever to TV and the shutter speed to P at this point the camera would choose the shutter speed and aperture along a ‘program line’.  It did tell you what aperture and shutter speed it was selecting but you also had no control over them.

The camera is changing these settings in a predictable linear way based on the metered amount of light, along that program line.  (See the modern example below)

The top of the graph indicates the exposure level, the bottom is shutter speed and the right side indicates aperture.  The red line indicates where these variables meet inside the camera at a given ISO.  Taking EV10 as an example the camera would choose 1/60 sec at f4.0

In the case of the A1 it used center weighted metering which was good but not infallible. Again the lack of control in this mode set the stage for considerable controversy around Program mode. Many people considering its use to be against the idea that the photographer should be in control. I believe these biases against Program mode still persist passed down from photographer to photographer. ‘Real photographers shoot in manual’

I want to jump ahead to today and how Program mode differs from these early versions and why it is so useful.

The program line still exists but can often be modified or selected based on needs. With my Pentax DSLR I can select a program line for shutter speed or aperture either for depth or shallow depth of field or the best optical performance of the mounted lens or ignore all that completely. The program line though should be thought of as the exposure level that the camera has determined for the scene and a starting point.

I’m going to stick with Pentax for this example but it’s true for other advanced cameras though with some differences.  While the camera is metering such as after a half press of the shutter button it will determine a combination of shutter speed and aperture for the scene. Taking this as your starting point you can then change a variable such as aperture and the camera will shift the shutter speed to maintain the exposure it believes is correct. In this way it maintains the same amount of light reaching the sensor as you shift through different combinations of shutter and aperture.
And here I must digress again for most scenes the camera is going to be better at determining that exposure than you can. My camera has a multi pattern metering sensor with 86000 RGB points it looks at for any scene. Nikon cameras call this matrix metering and Canon call it evaluative metering. Mirrorless cameras like many Sonys, Panasonic, Fuji or Olympus one up this by metering right off the image sensor. My point is that the meters in these cameras are incredibly accurate and you paid for it.

To use Program mode to its full potential though you need to take this metered value and then adjust the other parameters such as aperture, shutter speed or ISO to achieve the effect you want. Additionally you can vary from the program line using exposure compensation. The reason that you might want to do it this way is that you have a baseline of what a proper exposure would be and you can quantify how much you want to vary from it.

As an example let’s say the camera has metered a scene and selected 1/250 of a second at f5.6 but you want to have a shallower depth of field than that would provide. By altering the aperture to say f2.8 the camera will react by changing the shutter speed to 1/1000 of a second.  It’s simple and powerful and places all the variables relating to exposure under your immediate control nothing like the Program mode of old.

As I stated earlier different cameras deal with Program mode differently in the case of Pentax it is incredibly powerful and I’ve found misunderstood by photographers that use different brands. To be fair after doing some research on other camera brands it became clear why it isn’t used as much, it just isn’t as well implemented. In the end you want to take a picture as you expect it to be and how you use your camera to get there is not as important.

The image above illustrates using Pentax’s Hyper-Program mode.

At the other end of the scale is Canon who unfortunately left things not much different from their first implementation. In ‘Program AE’ you can vary along the program line by rotating the input dial just behind the shutter button but as soon as you take a picture the camera will revert back to the program line. This makes this mode not that useful on a Canon.

Nikon’s ‘Flexible Program Mode’ also allows you to vary along the program line by using the rear command dial, it retains this offset between pictures so is far more useful but not as flexible as the Pentax

Sony calls it ‘Program Shift’ and it works in much the same way you turn the control dial or wheel to alter your settings while maintaining the same overall exposure unfortunately it reverts back to the program line after the display times out also making it less useful.

Panasonic ‘Program AE Mode’ allows Program shift through turning of the rear dial when in Program mode much like Nikon.

Unfortunately there are many more aspects that aren’t covered so easily such as using auto ISO in combination with Program mode and all the different variations of cameras even from the same manufacturers.  It just isn’t possible to write about it all but I do encourage people to try Program mode and not be swayed by the notion that it makes you less of a photographer.  So continue to shoot in manual and treat Program as if it were some automatic mode that takes all control away from the photographer if you must but remember how versatile it can be and that you paid for it.

Style over function is what the Olympus LT-1 is.  The association that is often made between something wrapped in leather and quality is broken by the plastic Lt-1. All this would be forgiven of course (by me) if it was a good camera but sorrowfully it is not.  It has a 35mm f3.5 three element lens that is said to be the same as the Olympus Stylus and to be honest I have to go against the prevailing notions and say it isn’t that great.  I know the Stylus (not to be confused with the Stylus Epic) is an important camera that sold in the millions but I find that wide open there is a lot of softness and aberrations in the corners with this lens.  Also lacking in the functional department is the on/off switch, whereas the Stylus and the Epic turn on by sliding open their clamshells, here you need to pull the leather lens flap away and fiddle with the switch beside the lens on the side of the camera you are supposed to be pointing at something rather than looking at.  And that flap is always threatening to include itself in your pictures doing what flaps do…flapping.

On the positive side of things it is a nice looking and feeling camera and it stands out as different, and sometimes isn’t that what you want?  A camera that is a lifestyle choice rather than pure performance. If your using this camera you’ve already chosen to use film so it probably matches your handmade leather belt and satchel.

One thing about one camera:  LT stands for leather tech and if you don’t like the notion of your camera being covered in an animal you can relax it is faux leather.

Pentax has released a new camera the K-1 and there are a lot of technological things to talk about with this camera but I wanted to focus on one particular aspect and that is its Pixel Shift technology and how that could be applied when capturing artwork or for still life’s.  The Pentax K-1 has a 36.2 Megapixel sensor that produces an image that is 7360 pixels x 4912 pixels printed at 300DPI that would produce a print of  24″ x 16″ easily but could be printed larger at lower DPI.  The sharper and more detailed the image the better it will handle the enlargement.

The K-1 pixel shift works by moving the sensor minute amounts taking four separate images that it combines internally.  In this way it is able to capture the Red/Blue/Green components of each pixel rather than using algorithms to guess as nearly every other camera does including the K-1 in non pixel shift mode.

The result is a much more detailed image of the same size.  Here is an example of the difference taken from two sample images from Pentax.

While the ability to use this feature in conditions where things are moving may improve its primary purpose and where it works best is with static subjects.  This is why I make the assertion that it will be the best camera available for reproducing art work.  There may be some very expensive Medium format alternatives for this type of work and in fact this may place this camera in direct competition with Pentax’s own 50 Mpixel 645Z medium format camera.  At a suggested retail price of US $1799 and with the exceptional Pentax smc Pentax-D FA 100mm f/2.8 WR Macro Lens available for under $500 it leaves the 50Mpixel  Canon 5Ds r at $3900 and the 36Mpixel Nikon D810 at $2800 costing considerably more without either offering this capability.

Here is a link to the Pentax sample images I used so you can see for yourself the entire image and what a difference Pixel shift can make.   Pentax K-1 Sample Images

What happens when you use 25 year old Fuji Super HR 100 film in a camera of about the same age?  It’s a trick question because the camera doesn’t matter but the film went through some weird colour transformations.  I should mention that I exposed the film as if it were 50 ASA which was intended to help compensate for the loss of sensitivity over time of the film.  No matter what you do though there is no getting past the fact that the film is irrevocably outdated.  The blacks turned a toxic green and much of the contrast was lost, its fantastic.  Perhaps its a little rebellion against the perfection others are striving to achieve with digital photography.  Much as a painter laying down a stroke of thick paint can’t fully predict the result the uncertainty of film and especially expired film is a welcome diversion from high megapixels and just how much detail an image can capture before its heavily edited and shrunk down for posting to social media.

For a point and shoot camera I really like the look of the Canon Classic 120.  There is no doubt that they made an effort to evoke the feeling of rangefinders like the Canon QL17 and maybe even a little bit of the Demi from the mid 1960’s but it contains as advanced electronics as existed for point and shoot cameras in 1999.  The autofocus is touted as being able to focus on subjects not positioned in the center of the frame and that it uses a hybrid active and passive autofocus.  What this means is that the autofocus sensor is augmented in low light by a second system that sends out an infrared beam and determines the distance using this.  This is what Canon had to say about it

Active/passive hybrid 3-point dual AI-AF. AF working range: 0.6m – infinity (normal mode), minimum focusing distance of 0.43 – 0.58m (close-up mode). Focusing point selection: 3-point AF, manual selection of center-point AF. AF modes: one-shot AF, servo AF mode. AF in-focus indicator: The green LED lights when subject is in-focus, or blinks as a too-close warning. Prefocus.

And translated into something a little more understandable

It focuses good.  It focuses from arms length to those mountains in the distance when not set to macro and down to one and a half size twelve feet in macro.  You can select the center focus point.  It can focus on one point and lock while you press the shutter.  It can continue to try to focus as you waste film in servo mode.  A little green light comes on if it thinks its done good and flashes if its bad.  You can point the camera at something press the shutter half way and hold it there and then recompose the picture with the same focus setting or as they concisely say ‘Prefocus’.

The cameras biggest drawbacks are its need for two expensive CR2 batteries and its slow f10.9 aperture at 120mm.

When I visit a place and I mean practically any place I like to take pictures no matter what the circumstances.  This time I found myself spending 5 days in Harrison Hotsprings B.C.  The trick was I was occupied from sunrise until long after sunset pretty much everyday as well as the draw of soaking in the warm water.  Even under these circumstances a little lunch time walk here and a pre dinner one there coupled with a late night excursion produced a few images.  After all if I didn’t have pictures how would I demonstrate I was ever there.  These images are from my Pentax K-3 with the Pentax smc DA* 16-50mm f/2.8 ED AL (IF) SDM and the PENTAX-DA 50-200mm F4-5.6 ED WR lenses and also a few from my LG G4 cell phone.  The film pictures will just have to wait.

Since my first foray with the Olympus RC with some terrible film I have fed it some more delicious Kodak Ektar 100.  And the results as expected are far better and give a good indication of the cameras ability.  Shooting manually provides the control that allows the camera to shine.  Lets be honest older exposure systems of this age are not that great but using the readings from an accurate meter (ie a digital camera histogram) allows you to select the best combination for the conditions.  The five element 42mm lens is very good across the frame and is a terrific focal length to have in combination with another camera with something like a 28mm lens.  It sits neatly between the more common 35mm and 50mm focal lengths and because of its small size it doesn’t take up much room.

An amusing look at Calgary Alberta with a bow[sic] to the Calgary Tower which makes its appearance through out.
The quality of the Blurb premium magazine is great and its nice to have a tangible representation of a photographic story.  There is a mix of images from various film and digital cameras.

Calgary Tower by Wallace Koopmans | Make Your Own Book

The defining feature of this camera has to be that 38-180mm focal length lens.  A lens that I might point out has an aperture of f12.9  at the long end.  Doing a little math in the form of a word problem.

Q: On a nice clear day Little Suzy has a Canon Z180 loaded with 400 ASA film and wants to take a picture of her friend Phil who is off in the distance on the edge of the woods looking like a hipster lumberjack.  If Suzy zooms to 180mm how much motion blur will the picture have?

A:  As Phil is in the shade of the woods and has a dark beard the light is likely to be around EV 11 so the camera would select a shutter speed of around 1/60 of a second or about 2 stops too slow for that focal length on 35mm film resulting in just enough blur to make you say ‘Ugggg where is my digital camera and is that a squirrel attacking Phils face’

I also don’t think that the focusing is quite up to the zoom factor of the lens as it seems to miss focus more than less ambitious zoom models.

One thing about one camera:  You can set the flash to always be off through this simple method.  With the camera off hold down the timer button then press the flash button, CF 1-0 will show on the LCD (That’s custom function 1 – off) press the zoom in button once to select CF 2-0 now press the flash button to set it to CF 2-1 (Custom function 2 – on) , turn the camera on to finish the setting.  Now when you turn the camera off it will remember the shooting and flash mode so you can disable the flash and keep it that way.  Super easy, Ugggg where is my digital camera?

Every once and a while I try a camera so bad that I have to ask myself whether I should destroy it to spare any other poor soul from its awfulness.  In this case I present to you the Fuji S which I can only assume stands for (S)hit.  It’s not that I had high expectations for this camera that were dashed.  It’s cheap plastic materials and 125gram weight ease that notion from your mind.  No it’s the fact that it offers a 26mm lens which is unique enough to stir attention but it turned out to be as soft as a flaming marshmallow.  The lens is made from 3 elements in three groups and has a maximum aperture of  f5.6.  The shutter speed is fixed at 1/70 second which is fast enough but if it doesn’t vary and the aperture doesn’t vary then essentially the exposure doesn’t vary. The camera does take AAA batteries which is nice.  Fuji has made some incredible cameras over the years so when they produce something like this 2004 abomination it seems out of step.  So if your holding a roll of film in one hand and a Fuji S in the other do yourself a favour and recycle the camera and put the film into something more worthy like a Fuji Dl Super Mini or if you need 26mm a Canon Sure Shot BF-10 which will give you that and shutter speeds from 1/250 second to 1/40 second to boot.