umphotography wrote in post #19431912
Teamspeed
If I am being really honest- I think the reliance on auto eye focus diminishes photography skill sets. People are over reliant on this feature and rely on it instead of working on skill sets and mastering AF systems for the cameras they use.
Skills? You mean technical skills such as getting the exposure right, and getting the focus to be just where you want it?
I actually don't care much about those skills. . They're just technical things that a computer can figure out.
I hold creativeness and artistic vision in extremely high regard. But skills are kinda just a necessary evil to me ... a necessary evil that doesn't have to be necessary if we can have more capable cameras. . If a camera can do those mundane technical things for me, then my brain and fingers are free to use on the more important parts of photography.
Below is a more detailed explanation of what I am trying to say, that I wrote up for another site. . It explains why skills are things that the camera should do for us, so that we can focus more entirely on the higher parts of the photographic process.
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Creativity comes from all of the things that are not technical, and have nothing (or very little) to do with camera settings.
Creativity comes from knowing exactly what you want to show about your subject. What attributes of your subject do you want to showcase and show to the viewer? How do you capture the essence and/or personality and/or mood of your subject? How do you want the viewer to feel about your subject, and how can you photograph that subject so that the viewer will feel that way?
How do you show your subject within the context of its environment? What things around the subject do you include in the frame, and which things do you exclude, to produce the mood and feel that you are going for?
For the things around the subject that you want to include, how do you show those things in relation to the subject? Do you show them relatively large in the frame, or small in the frame? Do you show them in a dreamy, way out of focus way, or do you show them in a more realistic kind of way?
What part of the distant background do you put directly behind your subject to get the subject to "pop" the way you want it to? Do you show the subject more subtly placed within the scene, or do you have the subject stand out of the scene, visually?
How is the ambient light interacting with your subject when it turns slightly to the left? When it turns to the right? What if you hold the camera a little higher, or get down on your belly to get the camera lower? How does the light on your subject change as you change camera positions?
These are all things that have nothing to do at all with camera functions. They are aesthetic / creative choices. And when the camera can get perfect exposure and perfect focus all by itself, then I can put all of my physical and mental energies into these aesthetic concerns.
I want a camera that dan do all of the "camera things" automatically and flawlessly, without fail, regardless of the situation or conditions. 1000 times out of 1000 times. Then my brain and eyes and hands are free to do the things I just wrote about.
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"Your" and "you're" are different words with completely different meanings - please use the correct one.
"They're", "their", and "there" are different words with completely different meanings - please use the correct one.
"Fare" and "fair" are different words with completely different meanings - please use the correct one. The proper expression is "moot point", NOT "mute point".