Thank You (Was MZ-M)

2002-01-07 Thread Girish Ganesan 

Hi all!

Thanks for your prompt response about my queries on MZ-M and the Zone 
System. Especially thanks to Shel who gave some nice pointers. Shel, the 
exercise you suggested seems quite interesting. I wil try it out.

Anyway I dont think that I am going start any new experiments immediately.  
Why ? Because I read the excerpt from "On being a photographer". After
reading that I realized why my progress stopped. Initially I was new to
SLR (and photography) and the first few months were spent in getting to
know the basics. After that though many of my photographs were ok (in
terms of exposure etc) I was never satisfied with any of them. I could not
figure out the reason. Now I know: I never found a "good" subject. I was
shooting at random and waiting for that "good photograph". Guess I have to
rethink my whole approach to photography. First let me pick a subject. 
Then I will think about the techniques. 

Thanks for many other pointers I received. And thanks Bob, for the link 
about the book which deals with zone system for 35mm.

Happy shooting.

Girish.

-- 

   The nice thing about standards is that there are 
   so many of them to choose from.
Andrew S. Tanenbaum  
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Mz-M, basic Photography and some questions ..

2002-01-05 Thread Girish Ganesan 

Hi!

I was going through the previous posts and two of them, one by Mr. Robb 
and one by Mr. Regan, reminded me of my own photographic adventures.

Reagarding the post by Mr. Regan and some of the follow-ups:

I too own a MZ-M. Though I have not seen much of a discussion about it 
here, from my limited experience I think it is a good start. It is my 
first and only SLR. It was the cheapest of all the newer models, so I 
bought it and used my money to buy lenses. 

MZ-M does offer DOF with all lenses. (I checked it just now). But the 
Camera has to be switched on. 

The only problem I found with MZ-M is the type of metering. It does 
matrix metering with the FA (and may be A ?) lenses and with the 
M-lenses does center weighted metering. I wish that Pentax had just used 
center weighted metering for all the lenses. 

Regarding the post of Mr. Robb regarding photographic equipment:

I agree with you. I am a grad student and hence on a limited budget. Over 
a year I managed to put together the following kit:

Body: MZ-M

Lenses: 28/2.8 SMC-A 
50/1.7 SMC-FA
   100/2.8 SMC-M
   150/3.5 SMC-M

Flash: 160Sa

Except the 50/1.7 all other lenses were bought secondhand. I also managed 
to get a tripod and a cable release. I feel that I am yet to fully utilize 
all my equipment. ( Tight schedules sometimes prevent my from going out on 
a beautiful day!). My kit is certainly not a fancy one. But it has helped 
me in making a lot of mistakes and correcting them!

Now for my questions:

1. I was reading up on the zone system. I would like to know whether it is 
   possible to apply the zone system principles on a 35mm format. From 
   what I understood one has to control the exposure and the development 
   time of the film to get the desired results. In a 35mm format this 
   could mean that I have to shoot a whole roll with scenes which require 
   the same development time. Seems to be a tall order! What is your 
   personal experience ? 

2. One of the limitations I faced with MZ-M is the metering system. To 
   experiment with zone system I need spot-metering. I know that MZ-5n 
   MZ-3 etc offer spot metering. How good are they ? From what I 
   understood they wont offer spot-metering with M lenses. So I was 
   considering getting a spot meter instead of a newer body. Any comments 
   or suggestions ?

3. So far I have not doen any serious flash photography. I have been 
   mainly shooting outdoors in available light. For indoors I stuck the 
   Af160sa and 50/1.7-FA and set the camera in the P mode. I just 
   focussed, the camera did the rest. I was thinking of doing some more 
   flash photography. An suggestions on how I should start ? I would like 
   to start with an all-manual set-up, so that I can learn the first 
   principles.

Thanks in advance for your time and help.

Girish.

-- 

   The nice thing about standards is that there are 
   so many of them to choose from.
Andrew S. Tanenbaum  
-
This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List.  To unsubscribe,
go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to
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