> The principles involved haven't changed much in the intervening decades.
My problem with many old-time tutors is that they refuse to recognize that photography has gotten a lot easier. We don't need to learn the craft the way they did.
For example, you don't need stuff like the "sunny 16" rule of exposure if you have real-time previews in the camera. You use visual feedback, usually with better accuracy.
In the same vein, you probably don't need to learn about flash guide numbers when modern continuous LED illumination covers 99% of use cases without any guesswork.
Or, you don't need to learn about optical filters (perhaps except for the polarizer) when almost all their functions can be accomplished in software without loss in fidelity.
> For example, you don't need stuff like the "sunny 16" rule of exposure if you have real-time previews in the camera. You use visual feedback, usually with better accuracy.
Except that it may not, unless you know what you are doing and press the right button:
> With the monitor or viewfinder, you may see an image with an aperture that differs from the shooting result. Since the blurring of a subject changes if the aperture is changed, the blurriness of the actual picture will differ from the image you were viewing prior to shooting.
> While you press and hold the key to which you assigned the [Aperture Preview] function, the aperture is stepped down to the set aperture value and you can check the blurriness prior to shooting.
> In the same vein, you probably don't need to learn about flash guide numbers when modern continuous LED illumination covers 99% of use cases without any guesswork.
And leaving your camera in "auto" also probably "covers 99% of use cases without any guesswork"… but you give up creative control to the software. Why bother learning what aperture is at all if 99% of the time you won't ever matter to taking a photo?
The whole point of reducing the use of "auto" is to make creative choices yourself.
The point of learning Sunny 16 is that once you’ve internalized thinking in full stops, you don’t need visual feedback, which makes you faster, which can make the difference between getting your shot or not and having a happy or angry client.
> Or, you don't need to learn about optical filters (perhaps except for the polarizer) when almost all their functions can be accomplished in software without loss in fidelity.
I still think it’s a good idea to learn what they do, so you know when to use a (digital) BW red filter because you want brighter skin.
My problem with many old-time tutors is that they refuse to recognize that photography has gotten a lot easier. We don't need to learn the craft the way they did.
For example, you don't need stuff like the "sunny 16" rule of exposure if you have real-time previews in the camera. You use visual feedback, usually with better accuracy.
In the same vein, you probably don't need to learn about flash guide numbers when modern continuous LED illumination covers 99% of use cases without any guesswork.
Or, you don't need to learn about optical filters (perhaps except for the polarizer) when almost all their functions can be accomplished in software without loss in fidelity.