For help please

OK - so having gone and thought and digested the info from yesterday I've just been out and used the same subject as yesterday NOTE - I didn't use AV even as a starting position - just went straight for it

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So the question is

Does the team think I have learned anything from this excercise ?

The light was not good - I have this feeling we are going to get some liquid descending upon us again

I have to study that manual more often and more in-depth! I've only had the K20D for a few months now and there's still soooooo much I don't know! That explanation was most informative. Thank you very much, Gwyn and Neil. And thank you too, Techno-terminator. If you hadn't asked, I would still be in the 'dark'.

BTW: well done, T-t!

Thanks

I've had my K-x since early December , took me a long time to go into AV and I'm now happy using that , I'll use Shutter Priority if necessary , but with the stuff I've been doing it's rarely necessary .

It's just taken me a looooooooong time to move over to manual , call it lack of confidence , or stupidity or whatever you like

My problem is I'm alone - and my helpers are not exactly on my doorstep

I do NOT learn well from manuals , I need the idiot's guide and yesterday's posts from Gwyn and BigJacko were JUST what I needed

For manual mode I use the green button a lot.
When you press the green button it automatically set the settings so you get a good exposure.
In the menu you can select if it needs to adjust both settings or only shutterspeed or the f-number.

Is there not a magic Lantern Guide or similar ?

I got one with the K100 and it is very user friendly - similar to the old Hove & Hamlyn books and the Keppler books.

Tony

TT,

Try http://pentaxdslrs.blogspot.com/

I have a hard copy of one of his books and a couple of the e-books which are excellent.

Mike

As far as I know , or can find out - nope


link

That raises some interesting questions, Stefan. I must confess I'd forgotten that the Green button (by default) basically puts the camera into momentary 'P' (Program) mode and arbitrarily chooses a correct, but random, set of shutter-speed and aperture for the correct metered exposure. I say random, in that you never know which it's going to end up with - except that they will be 'correct', exposure-wise.

Of course, as you suggest, you can alter the Green button behaviour so that it no longer does this 'P-LINE' method, and instead does 'Tv SHIFT' or 'Av SHIFT', and changes ONLY the shutter-speed or aperture, respectively.

However, to me, that's really just like putting the camera into normal, dialled-up Av mode or Tv mode (respectively). Being honest, I therefore don't see the point in using Manual mode, if all one is going to do is P-LINE it, Av it, or Tv it anyway!

For me, the thing with Manual mode is that I'm 'training' myself - so using a single button push to 'make a right shot' seems wrong (but that's a purely personal view). Alternatively, I'm in manual mode because I want to 'push' the shot outside the normal setup - in which case I can appreciate that P-LINE/Tv-SHIFT/Av-SHIFT can be useful for setting a starting point (if a lot slower to set up the last two, than to use the respective mode!).

Instead, I prefer to hook the Green button up to 'Optical Preview' - then I can hold it down and SEE the depth of field that the shot will give me. Then I can change the aperture to get what I want in focus, re-using the Optical Preview each time, and THEN get the metering set up correctly by changing the shutter speed (or ISO).

Of course, that Optical Preview will also work in Aperture mode, which saves me the job of tweaking the shutter speed manually - but then I'm not *learning* - or experiencing the shot's setup in a way that trains my 'eye' for the future.

I guess it's all about what one wants to achieve, and whether knowing and learning is part of the fun, or whether we just want to choose a particular aspect (DOF, freezing-action, etc) and let the box do the rest. That's what I love about this camera, compared to my old ME Super... it is SOOOO flexible, and it makes far better shots possible, quickly, and teaches me much faster than my old beloved rig!

As for the Magic Lantern guide, I read in several places that the publishers had decided in their infinite wisdom not to do one of the K-x. No idea why. My thanks to Mike for the recommendation of Yvon's ebook - I emailed him recently to ask about a 'sampler' before I bought it, and I was waiting for a reply... so I think I might just go ahead and get it anyway, if you think it's a good 'un.

Neil - Yvon indicates on his site that the samples should be on-line tomorrow (25th).

Mike

Neil you're right the green buttons does work like P, Tv or Av that way but the difference is it only change the values once and not constantly like with those modes.
In your first explanation you also explain how to bring the exposure value to zero, you take away the time to do that with the green button and then the rest goes as you explain further.
So the green button is just a tool to get the camera to the default zero exposure setting so to speak where you can start from.

I actually forgot the K-X didn't had an optical preview button, I myself have only used the DOF preview sometimes when the camera was on a tripod for studio shots and landscapes.

I really think I'm with Neil on the subject of the green button in Manual.

After all , as I always understood it , it was supposed to be me managing to understand well enough , to be able to get the camera to take the shot that I wanted , and at the same time doing it my way

I understand what you mean Techno but getting the exposure to zero is only to help you have a starting point to get the photo your way so setting the exposure to zero manually or by the press off a button doesn't change the end result.
You're just skipping the step of setting the camera to default so to speak.

Having the exposure at zero isn't the guarantee to have a correct exposure, which Neil already said.

The exposure meter is aiming to get 12% grey.
That means with a scene with a lot of white the camera actually underexpose to make the white grey, with black the camera overexpose to make the black grey.

Neil's solution is to bracket (take 3 photos, one under, one at zero, one over) but I find that cheating though.
I take a test shot at the zero value and look at the histogram to get the photo right.

The histogram is the best tool to give you information how the exposure of the photo is. The screen brightness is not to be trusted since indoors it's too bright and outdoors too dark so don't judge exposure on the preview photo you see.

Stefan

Let me take this one stage at a time . Us oldies don't learn things as quickly as you youngsters .

Sorry Techno, I seem to go too fast sometimes.
Still everything is connected with each other since this is all about exposure.

This a read that might help you with my previous comment. link
The part about high and low key images is what I mean that the exposure meter inside the camera aims to get grey (midtones) so confronted with a dark or a bright scene the meter in the camera doesn't know it needs to be that bright or dark so it keep on trying to get grey.
You need to see that for yourself and correct the limitation of the metering device by over or under expose the photo to get the right exposure.