hgharib wrote:I was just looking through my old slides which I took with my humble Pentax ME Super back in 80-90s. A vast majority of the slides are well exposed with deep blue skies.
I look at my recent photos shot on digital and they all appear to have washed-out skies and wishy-washy exposure.
Were the analogue really that good at exposure or I am using my digital camera incorrectly.
[ps I usually shoot in AP mode].
I can only speak for film, but the way I see it is simple. The 50mm lens was typical - and you shot most everything with it. You got to "know" it, and probably had a favourite film or two. You got to know them as well. Being able to stop down the lens to achieve a "look" was easy once you knew what to expect from the film - lens combination, and the view finder gave you the visual feed back. Our creative nature would take over - and let the brain and the visual compose the picture.
As long as the shutter speed was OK for hand held - about the only thing to worry about once the shot was composed - shoot it. Bracket the stop in either 1/2 or full stops, depending upon the gut feel - and you would be not far off the mark. The time was spent in the composition to achieve the result, and maybe a filter for effect.
Digital seems to encourage a technical nature to a shot. Menus, histogram, change ISO on the fly, and if it's off a bit - Photoshop. This is NOT a put down to you digital photographers. This is an observation. I've had discussions with digital photographers about this observation, and many have agreed that their composition skills and time taken to make sure the picture was right, have gone by the wayside. Shooting more - deleting more. A visitor up from NY mentioned that on the way back, they would be stopping at Niagara Falls to take some pictures. He intentionally brought along his trusty OM-1 with a roll of film, and his digital camera, to shoot the same scene for comparison. He would shoot the OM-1 first using his remembered skills, then spend the time to get the same shot with the digital camera to see where he was "cutting corners". He had switched to digital 5 years ago. You might want to try something along these lines - do a comparison, take notes on each exposure and settings for each shot, and work from the feedback you see.
I take notes for every single shot - exposure - time of day - conditions etc, etc. Expanded notes if I'm trying to achieve a certain result. Once I scan the film (positives) or check the prints - I compare the results to my notes. If I've achieved the results I was after - looking at the picture - and the notes on technical details - it reinforces the data and visual result to be stored in my memory bank. If the picture was not "right" - then what could I have done differently to get the result.
Another photo session, more notes, and eventually I can truthfully say - before I couldn't spell fotografer - now I are one.