I was never one to bracket when shooting film, and most of my wasted images were due to dull subject matter and poor choice of subject/angle/telephone pole projecting from the subject's head, not exposure. My biggest hurdle with digital is what seems to be a lack of exposure latitude that I can only attribute to the automation of the camera making some bad choices. That said, spray and pray is becoming more of a norm for me. After all, when my high capacity memory card keeps telling me that I have 999 exposures left, then what the hell. But I wish that this were not the case. If the digital camera would give me a sweet spot ISO from which I had some confidence that exposure over the entire frame could be salvaged no matter what the camera chose for me, I could spend a lot more time composing and moving around, thinking more about the subject.
For now, I have decided never to use spot metering on a dSLR. The area being spot measured looks great, but that doesn't mean I can salvage the blown highlights. Jeffery On Nov 21, 2010, at 7:33 PM, Walter Gilbert wrote: > Hi all, > > For the past couple of days, I seem to keep encountering references to > "stochastic" photography -- or "spray and pray" if you will, and it's piqued > my interest. It's not that I'm considering actively pursuing the practice so > much as I wonder how much my current style (method?) could actually be > considered stochastic. Having never worked in the vicinity of another > photographer before, my days out shooting with Ted Beilby were, as I said, > educational. We took nearly diametrically opposed approaches. > > Clearly, Ted came out with better quality shots than I did. He was much more > methodical and exacting and produce much more highly textured images than I > did. At the same time, I came out with some images that, while not as > polished as Ted's, did have some redeeming value -- at least I thought they > did. I was so arrested by the sheer amount of potential subject matter that > I felt I had to get as many different shots as I could in order to get a > reasonable account of my experience, so I shot hand-held, almost exclusively. > Knowing that I'd have at least several hundred shots to go through at the > end of my trip (also, due to a relative lack of PC processing power and > memory), I stuck to shooting single exposures in jpeg. > > Some subjects, I chose to take three or four different shots from different > perspectives and focal depths, while others I shot once or twice and moved > on. And, that's typically the way I do things. A large part of the reason > for that is that I simply don't trust what the camera shows me on its display > to be an accurate depiction of what I'm going to see when I load it onto the > computer. The same goes for my perception of any given scene at the time. I > come away with rough approximation in my mind, and when I get home, I'm > usually "fairly"close, but never seemingly dead-on in my expectations. > > And, of course, a good bit of what I do shoot simply defies staging in any > practical sense. I'm not going to be able to tell a butterfly how to hold > its wings, or a bird where to position itself within my frame. So, I have to > make snap judgments and several attempts. To the extent that I'm able to > dictate composition, I do make a fairly diligent attempt at it. But, at the > same time, I don't try to control every minute detail -- essentially because > the vast majority of the subjects I shoot are in an environment that simply > defies control. > > So, I was just curious as to the thoughts of the folks on the list as to how > much my approach would be considered "spray and pray" by more seasoned > photographers, and how much it would benefit if it were less so. > > Thanks for any input anyone has to offer. > > -- Walt > > http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/waltergilbert > http://waltgilbert.posterous.com/ <http://polipix.posterous.com/> > Contact Me Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/walt.gilbert>Flickr > <http://www.flickr.com/photos/walt_gilbert/>Twitter > <http://twitter.com/walt_gilbert> > > --- @ WiseStamp Signature > <http://my.wisestamp.com/link?u=ypgdb385pypw7fhb&site=www.wisestamp.com/email-install>. > Get it now > <http://my.wisestamp.com/link?u=ypgdb385pypw7fhb&site=www.wisestamp.com/email-install> > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
