[Leica] Photography - It's all in knowing how.

[lrzeitlin at aol.com (lrzeitlin at aol.com)]

 George,
        You and Ted are missing my point. I am not against non-automatic 
KISS cameras. In fact I'm all for them. All I'm saying is that it is wrong 
to assume that a novice photographer can pick up one and get consistently 
properly exposed, correctly focused pictures. Your results, and those of 
Ted, and those of most of the LUGGERS using basic film cameras are the 
result of years of experience in photography. You say that you can estimate 
light intensity to within half a stop of that given by a light meter. Could 
you do that when you picked up your first camera? Can your grandchild do it? 
I know that I couldn't do it. My wastebasket was filled with over exposed, 
under exposed, and out of focus negatives.
        I was a consultant to Kodak back in the bad old film days. Much of 
the research effort was to widen picture taking tolerances so that the 
average film buyer would get acceptable results. Most amateur film, both B&W 
and color, had at least three stop tolerance. Kodachrome was the exception 
and sales to amateurs were comparatively low. Kodak introduced the first 
auto exposure camera, the Auto 620, almost three quarters of a century ago 
in an effort? to let the inexperienced expose film of the 30s properly. The 
most widely sold cameras of the 30s and 40s were Brownies with fixed focus 
lenses, one exposure, and a curved film plane to minimize the effect of lens 
aberrations. KISS was the mantra then.
        Of course technology of the last quarter of a century has enabled 
the encapsulation of most of your, Ted's and my mechanical skills into a 
silicon chip worth only a couple of dollars. It is hard to believe that 
that's all our years of experience is worth but unfortunately it is true. I 
resisted it for years. My favorite camera is a Leica IIIC. I drove a sports 
car with a manual transmission. But now I drive an auto transmission car and 
use a DSLR. Life is simpler now. Choosing content is another matter but 
great artists have been doing it for hundreds of years. No camera necessary.
        And George, I showed your comment:
"Photography IS pretty damn simple.
Focus. Shutter. Aperture. Expose (meaning press the damn button)." to one of 
my neighbors, an indifferent photographer but a world class surgeon. He told 
me that a similar thing could be said about brain surgery. "Make the cut, 
expose the brain. remove the impacted tissue, and close the wound." It's so 
simple, a child can do it. It's all in knowing how.
Larry Z