From The Keppler Files: February 1969

It should be evident to anyone dabbling in single-lens reflexes that total automation is just around the corner. We have gone from the hand-held meter to the built-in but not coupled, to the built-in and coupled to the shutter speed only and thence to the almost universally used through-lens metering system coupled to the shutter speed and aperture controls. We simply center the needle and shoot, often much too oblivious to what exposure we use. If the needle's centered and the exposure's right, who cares if it is f/4 or f/5.6, if it's 1/60 or 1/125 sec? We should care but often don't or we're too careless in operating the camera or just too lazy to look. As a result we're ignorant of whether we've stopped all the action or how much depth of field we've really got. We're letting the machine do our thinking, and since it can't think, our thinking is as often as not, not being done at all.

Comments

[Roger DuBois]

I'm not even much of a fan of evaluative or matrix metering- sure it works, but you have no idea what type of compensation the "Camera" thinks this scene needs! ophs, did I say camera and thinks in the same line!?

[Amanda]

My father gave me my first SLR when I was nine years old, back in 1990. It had no autofocus and a busted light meter. The second SLR he gave me (an Olympus OM1) had a poorly working light meter, and if it had autofocus, it was broken. My third SLR (a Canon AE-1) worked a bit better. Then, for a long time, I due to life circumstances, I used a full automated, I couldn't control a thing, cheap dig P&S.

I recently bought a Nikon D80. I was unhappy with it for about two months. Sometimes spot or weighted metering was better than matrix but overall...I wasn't happy. Once I finally turned almost everything else OFF and started manually metering--ta da--much happier. I tend to shoot a lot of taekwondo events--the white, white, white of the uniform and the green, green, green of the mats just throws the camera's metering system out of whack. So much easier to do it myself!