This is the kind of discussion that provokes some people to say that everyone should learn to take photographs using a fully manual camera body. Lets not complain if reality does not always live up to advertising hype. Nikon may say that the RGB meter in the F5 cannot be fooled by difficult lighting situations -- I bet they don't actually claim that, but that is the expectation offered here -- but from the release of the F5 people who use the meter have said that when shooting scenes with lots of white the meter underexposes white by about one stop. This is the situation described by the original correspondent. On the other hand, if the F5 had a conventional metering system, as someone noted, the white birds would come out medium grey because the conventional meter would regard them (and everything else in the world) as having 18% reflectancy. Thus to get a correct exposure of the white in this situation, one would have to open up 1 1/2 to 2 stops to get a true white. So the F5 represents progress in that it can automatically get within one stop of a correct exposure in this situation before the photographer has to start thinking about exposure. That is progress in that all other cameras on the market have metering systems that treat everything as though it were medium tone, and can only get the user within 1 1/2 to 2 stops of correct exposure. But regardless of the camera, the photographer still has to know how the camera in hand behaves in various lighting situations and still has to apply that knowledge in relationship to the lighting situation in which the picture will be made. -- John N. Wall email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/j/jnweg/html We are not revitalized or transformed as often by a change of circumstances as we are by a change of perspective.
