Do we still need photographic knowledge?

I was just thinking, a dangerous thing I know, that the need for many photographers to actually know about photography is reducung day by day as we watch.

Let's take a portrait. We could set a low ISO, a wide aperture, soften the contrast, all the things that help a portrait, or we could push the "Portrait" button and the camera will do all these things for us.

Do we need to know what it's doing (unless we design cameras) and do we lose anything by not knowing? Does it matter or is the final stunning portrait the only thing that does?

my view is that only the practiced eye of a good photographer can judge just how MUCH to tweak each of the settings you mentioned. In this particular moment, how low can you put the ISO without risking shake? how shallow do you want the DOF? individual choices which must be made on a shot-by-shot basis. The camera (for now at least) can only pick settings which are generally good for portraits, it can't pick ideal ones for THIS portrait.

A lot has been said in other posts about f8 sweet spots, so why do we have apertures as low as f1.4? Why is there a choice of shutter speeds?

It's easier to select 'idiot' mode sometimes( I know, I do!) than set up the camera. But the joy is setting things 'just right', trial and error help here, so do we still need photographic knowledge?

I say Yes.

Good point…….

For me they could remove the viewing screen in back of a DSLR. I never use it. I liked my MX for the fact it was all manual. You put a roll of 36 in the camera and you tried to make each shot count. Now I have a K20D and can take 300 shots. You click away knowing you will look at them and keep the best after you import them to your computer.
Do some editing with Photoshop and print your photos. (If you do at all)
The old analog way to develop the roll of film, looked at what photos you want to enlarge. Setup all your equipment and went to work.
Now I am not saying that digital is bad. I do not have much to say about point and shot cameras. I think one needs to be part of the camera and look through the view finder to compose your photo. Not hold the camera 2 feet in front of you and click away.
Like you said we have buttons on the new DSLR camera’s that do it all for you.
What is the rush? Do we need all the function a DSLR gives us now a day?

What if there were no view screen?
What if you didn’t have live view?
What if you did not have autofocus?
What if there was no anti shake?

Would it take anything away from photography not having these functions?
Could I still take a good photo?

Since you have used a SLR without these functions I would hope so but even hint at taking out autofocus and the younger generation (especially Canon and Nikon users who dont even know what a MF lens is) would throw a fit .. and sports photography would just disappear overnight (apparently you cant take photos of football without 700 AF points and mach 1 speed).

For me - yes I need the knowledge.
For others - maybe not.

When using auto-scene modes there will always be situations where the camera gets it "wrong". In other words, the photographer and the camera don't see the artist side "eye-to-eye" For someone who just uses auto modes they'll experience frustration, blaming the camera for making the wrong choice (and not knowing how to change the situation).

For those who are comfortable taking complete control there is no problem - the camera isn't making the decision at all. Or, with Pentax gear, you can let the camera make the decisions most of the time and instantaneously override the camera (with hyper-program etc) and take control - which is one thing I really appreciate about the UI of the K20D etc.

Perhaps that's why Pentax has been slammed in the past. Maybe other makes handle auto modes better Take the flash system for example. Other systems may produce better "out the box" flash exposures. But it doesn't take much knowledge to get complete control with Pentax - and then you can wipe the floor with all those using auto modes

I'd much rather be in control of things and know what I should do to get the result
(Control freak that I am )

Matt

I very rarely use any of the auto exposure modes, like any of us brought up on film there was a certain amount you had to learn. Now, it has never been easier to capture technically good images but, in truth, it wasn't terribly difficult before either.

I was trained using 16mm motion picture cameras - oh the joy of only an aperture ring and an on/off button! Part of that training was learning to expose correctly without a meter, admittedly slightly easier when the shutter speed is a constant 1/50th second but not too difficult either.

Matt mentions flash and this is an area where I think advancing technology has over-complicated a simple process; I must admit that the volume of posts regarding the apparent complexity of the current generation of Pentax flush units amazes me. I can only conclude that they are overly complex and it seems to me that it is much easier to control manual flashguns. Thinking of a recent shoot it was so simple to set up a diffuser with a manual 'gun behind it set to the level of fill I wanted and fire away. Studio heads are all manual and no one would want it any other way I think.

Other posts sometimes show a lack of even the most basic knowledge of photography's technical principles but that clearly indicates a desire to learn more on the part of the poster. Knowledge is power and the more we know and understand the more able we will be to respond to our subject matter, thinking creatively and not worrying about the technical side.

Coming back to John's original post, do we need this technical knowledge? Well I, for one, do. Most of the time it is second nature to me and if digital had never been invented I wonder if this forum would be filled with the many technical queries, interesting as they are, that it is. I bet it wouldn't!

Someone in another post about the new K7 mentioned that he would like a digital MX or LX... me too!

Ken

I think the results of this poll so far answer your question John

I we thought we didn't kneed knowledge we'd all be replacing our K10/20 with K100/200 or even a compact.
My MZ7 Has all the "modes" and they never get (got:cry used, the camera was permanantly set on Av unless someone else was using it then it simply got switched to Auto.

I think a more interesting poll would be "How many newbies to photography now use the selective modes on their entry level cameras now they know how to use them in Av, Tv & manual:

I am no expert but I do think we need Photographic knowledge. I started years ago with a Zorki 4K and a light meter which taught me all the basics I needed, and still use today.
Do I need all the functions on the K10D? Well not really.

For me, even though I'm new at this, it's all about the challenge of getting the photograph and looking at the result and thinking I did that. I won't always get the result I want and I don't care if anyone else likes them, but at least I know I had to work at getting that shot.

As a bit of a novice when it comes to the whole dSLR world I really like the convenience of auto modes. But like many things in my life I need to know how and why gadgets do the things they do, isn't that half the fun of a hobby like photography?

On the other hand if you take that argument to its most extreme do you run the risk of being caught up in technicalities and lose sight (no pun intended!) of why we take photos?

John, do you mean photographic knowledge as in aperture/iso/shutter speeds etc, vs preset buttons as mentioned in your first post?

We don't NEED photographic knowledge in the purest sense, in the same way that we don't NEED to know the ins and outs of chassis dynamics to drive a car.

We do need to know how to drive though!

Photography isn't just about the technical bits, in fact quite the opposite.

I think it's all about composition, and subject matter. A lot of my photographs, whilst technically 'perfect', are just rubbish, because they have no interesting subject or the composition is poor.

The other thing about Photography, as in most things in life, is that you can take it to so many levels, and become almost obsessive about it.

By picking up a camera and using it over time, the user will acquire 'knowledge' anyway, whether you set out to or not.

People I know with almost no knowledge or interest in the technical side of photography often take better photographs than me. With dSLRs as well as compacts and bridge cameras, everything, or everything but the scene mode, on their cameras is always set to auto.

The advantage of the technical knowledge for me is that I am more able to make a camera do what I want, but ultimately that is secondary to framing and timing.

However, I'm voting "yes" because we still need the knowledge to get the best shots possible for as many of the occasions as possible - with whatever natural ablility we have. The intelegence of cameras is not high enough to rely on, and a camera will never entirely know what you want anyway - unless you tell it quite specifically.

I agree with Matt completely.
I for one have the K20D in 'P' 90% of the time where I if needed flick the front or rear dials to put it into Tv or Av.
For the other 10% it's mostly 'M' when shooting indoors with flash (with the help from Matt's flash guide )

Isn't interpretation a funny thing?
I don't interpret "Photographic knowledge" as how the shutter works, how aperture works etc. I interpret that phrase as, how to take a good photograph.

It doesn't matter whether or not I have my camera on fully auto or fully manual, I know I struggle to "see" the photo.
Increasing my knowledge by reading this site and a few books books has, I think, helped me to improve my photos, but my prior knowledge of DoF and how that is altered by aperture, along with the mechanics of a lens etc. didn't help at all.

Was it Prieni who posted an amazing shot, taken with the camera on his mobile phone? That, to me, is Photographic Knowledge.