There have been some great improvements in camera capabilities over the past few years, especially in terms of the camera’s lenses and focusing system. Technological advances have almost taken our photography skills away. But is this good or bad for photography?
Looking back at photography’s past
Going back in time, camera obscura uses a small aperture but no lens to create an image projected onto a wall or screen. It is theorized that early cave dwellers noticed this effect from the small holes in the animal skin veil hanging across the mouth of the cave. The scene projected on the wall inspired their murals.
You can replicate this effect with your camera. Drill a hole in the body cover, stick some aluminum foil on the hole inside the cover, and poke a small hole in the center of the aluminum foil. Fit it into your camera lens mount and DIY pinhole camera. Everything is focused. Yes, almost focused.
The first film camera to have a single element, a piece of convex glass. The light rays will hit that lens causing the light to converge to create a sharp image on the film. There’s a great interactive demonstration of how it works on Physics Classroom Website.
Likewise, the earliest film processing required precise chemical techniques, especially since the chemicals could poison you.
Everything evolves and the lens has many elements that evolve with ever-increasing sharpness and definition. Modern camera lenses are complex devices with a wide range of elements. The highest quality lenses need precision to make and that takes time, which is why they are so expensive.
Advances in Autofocus
With improvements in lens quality, autofocus accuracy and flexibility have also skyrocketed.
Back in 1978, Polaroid released the SX-70 SONAR OneStep camera. It uses ultrasound to detect the distance of the subject and focus using that. Three years later, Pentax released its first autofocus SLR with the ME F. Other manufacturers quickly followed suit.
When you look through the viewfinders of many film SLRs, you’ll see a horizontal dividing line in the center of the screen. At first, what you see above and below the share will be skewed. To focus on the subject, you would rotate the lens’ focus ring until what you see either side of the dividing line is in phase. As digital photography became mainstream, DSLR cameras had two focus systems, one of which used an analog method. The sensor’s focus points will detect if the subject is out of phase, thus detecting phase.
However, when you use the live view monitor on the back of the camera, the focusing system is different. It uses contrast detection. Pick up your camera and put it out of focus. You will find that the scene loses its contrast; Shadows and highlights become a muddy midtone. When you focus the lens, the scene will have more contrast and different tones become clearer. The downside of contrast detection is that it struggles in low-contrast situations. Focusing is also slower than phase detection because it doesn’t know if you’re focusing too close or too far away. Therefore, it must hunt to find the correct focus. However, like everything in photography, there are also advantages. The advantage of contrast detection is that it is more accurate.
The problem that autofocus gives us
At the time, the DSLR manufacturers decided on our behalf that the viewfinder became less important because the autofocus was so good. Those eyepieces become small, making it difficult to discern details; only flagship models have large, bright viewfinders. I’m sure you can see the flaw in their decision here. It’s a real disappointment as it’s harder to compose precise images, plus the viewfinder rarely covers 100% of the image you want to capture.
Canon introduced their dual pixel focusing system for live view phase detection autofocus in 2013 on EOS 70D, where phase detection is possible over about 70% of the capture area. They claim it makes their focusing system faster than any other full frame camera.
Meanwhile, other brands such as Sony, Nikon, Fujifilm and OM use a hybrid system that takes full advantage of both phase and contrast detection. Lumix’s newest camera, the DC-S5M2, uses a similar system, although most of their previous mirrorless cameras only used contrast detection. Mirrorless cameras focus faster and more accurately than DSLRs, now achieving within a few hundredths of a second.
These days, good cameras can focus on the entire scene. Furthermore, that split-screen analogy no longer holds true as there are now horizontal and vertical line sensors at the same AF point, or crosshairs in other words. This means that the focus point can detect lines in both directions. Previously, a horizontal sensor would struggle to tell if a horizontal line was out of phase. This is of course an extremely simple explanation of how focus and focus work This video gives a great explanation.
As autofocus evolves and lens technology locks onto subjects faster, so does the camera’s ability to detect eyes and faces. Tracking objects across the frame is also becoming more accurate, especially with the advent of AI technology. Now, even the previously lousy hybrid mode (AI/AF-A AF), which switches between single and continuous autofocus, is starting to work quite well on some cameras. Canon has a system on EOS R3 where the photographer’s eye movement will focus the camera according to where the photographer’s eye is looking.
The return of manual focus
At first, I was a bit like Luddite back then. I’m used to taking pictures with a manual focus camera where the autofocus seems to be cheating; I want to have full control over my photography. Also, with early digital cameras, autofocus was very slow.
Likewise, even though my SLRs and newer DSLRs have aperture-priority exposure, I still use manual exposure. That is until I learned the advantages of letting the camera do the heavy lifting. Running indoors and outdoors when shooting events, requires less manipulation of the settings, so I’m less likely to miss the action. Also, those silly little SLR viewfinders motivated me to use autofocus, except when using the live view screen when my camera was on a tripod.
Things are coming back in a different way to make manual focus easier than before. DSLR users who attend my seminars are often amazed at the size, quality, and brightness of the electronic viewfinder on my mirrorless camera. Furthermore, manufactured lenses feature focus clutch rings, which make it easier to switch between autofocus and manual than fumbling around in menus or fumbling around with switches on the side of the lens. with a gloved hand.
For example, the following pictures show OM SYSTEM M.Zuiko Digital ED 90mm f/3.5 Macro IS PRO Lens with a focus clutch in its two positions.
Additionally, the in-camera focus assist function outlines the edges in focus with colored lines. As a result, I no longer need to calculate superfocal distance or depth of field for certain lens settings. I just rotated the focus ring until the yellow outline covered the areas that I wanted to sharpen. Manual focus is again recommended.
Use other technologies that make photography easier
I showed it to a veteran friend My Camera’s AI-Based Features and how it can focus on birds and track them. He calls it military precision. The camera can also pre-select the action and record the frame before I fully press the shutter button. A photographer no longer needs to predict when a bird will take off before fully pressing the shutter button. The camera is caching the image and will save multiple frames immediately after the shutter is released. Therefore, the hit-and-miss technique due to the photographer’s reaction time is redundant.
At night or when using the ND filter, I can sit and watch the long exposure develop on the live view screen in real time and I can see the histogram move to the right; I don’t have to calculate the exposure.
Similarly, there is the ability to lighten paint and see new light appear on the Live View screen while unlit areas remain bright.
Most of the time I don’t even have to carry an ND filter because there are up to ND64 available in the camera.
These types of features are great. I’m totally in favor of things that make it easier for me to take pictures. Advanced yet easy-to-use camera equipment enables photographers to capture images that previously required considerable learning and practice.
Precise exposure is achieved by a range of means that help overcome the shortcomings of TTL metering. Front-to-back sharpness no longer requires math. In fact, with the software now available, it doesn’t matter if your images aren’t quite as sharp.
What is more important, Photo or Photography?
I have heard people question whether the photograph is more or less important than the act of taking it. This is often demonstrated by middle-aged men acting as gatekeepers who want to keep the photo for those who take the time to learn its techniques. Their predecessors probably decried the invention of the pocket calculator and insisted on carrying a ruler instead.
Although I am a middle-aged man myself, I have no problem with this new technology. In fact, I celebrate it. Why is creating beautiful photos limited to those with the math skills and technical savvy to do all the things the camera can do automatically? Isn’t that some kind of snob? This democratization of photography is amazing. Anyone can achieve interesting and attractive results more easily than ever before using these means. Furthermore, these advanced features can be viewed as a gateway to learning other techniques, like in-camera scene modes.
Many photographers start their photography journey with fully automatic settings: auto exposure, auto ISO, autofocus and tracking, scene modes and, more recently, AI assistance. These features helped them discover the joy of achieving an image that they could hang on the wall. They are used as a stepping stone to learn how to take those pictures. They will lead them to want to learn more and discover the joy of creating their own photos without relying on tools that make photography easy.
Automation doesn’t stop you from doing it manually
Despite these advancements, those of us who like to do things manually can still do so and find satisfaction in applying our knowledge and expertise. In addition, if we wish, we can also choose to leave the heavy lifting to these automatic functions and get the photos we want, freeing our minds to focus on the story and composition of the photo instead. not a technical process.
What unique features does your camera have? Do you use them? Or do you want to move away from automation to do everything manually? It would be great to hear your thoughts in the comments.
