I took a survey on exposure starting 3/2/2005 and have several times since promised the results. Recently I've been going through my AOL email inbox, trying to whittle down the 45,000+ PDML messages in it, and came across the survey. I printed out all the responses and did a rough tally. So here the results... finally!
I am dyslexic, and this means I have a lousy time sense. Not for hours in the day, but for days in the week, weeks in the month, and months in the year. Anyway, that's my story about why the results are so late, and I am sticking to it. :-) Before the survey I had recently attended a John Shaw weekend, then a George Lepp weekend and was surprised to find both use Av (Aperture Priority) most of the time. Coming from using the K-1000 and then the ZX-5n, I was still doing exposure all manually. After this survey I switched to Av on my DSLR and my pictures improved (quite a bit). I could glean interesting tid bits from the results, but I am going to go with the broad results. Since people answered differently it's a bit hard to tally, but here goes. And, actually, it was more fun to read at the time, than see any results. But they may be semi-interesting... ======== The questions were: 1. How do you do exposure most of the time? Av or Tv or manual (doing it yourself)? 2. Do you shoot digital or film? Optional -- 3. If you shoot digital, have you changed how you do exposure since switching from film? ======== Numbers may be off by 1 (or 2) either way. 41 responded to the survey itself (I am discounting the chatter. :-)). One or more have since left the list and several or more have since switched to shooting mainly digital. Of that 41... 17 were still shooting either all film, or mainly film. 24 were shooting either all digital, or mainly digital. Av was the clear winner. 25 were shooting using Av most of the time. Exceptions were given for using Tv for long glass, night photography, flash, and sports/action. Exceptions were given for using manual for tricky lighting and close ups. 7 were shooting manual all of the time or most of the time. They were all film camera users. Many had cameras that would only let them do manual. 8 were doing some combination, broken down into percentages. Closer to 60%/50% for Av and 50% Tv or manual. Others in the 25 I have mentioned above may have broken it down into percentages too, but they were shooting over 80% (usually over 90%) Av. Many in this group mentioned Hyperprogram. So they were both film and digital shooters or were shooting both. And sometimes they were mentioning using one mode or another based on which film or digital camera they were using at the time. 1 used mainly Tv. He was shooting mainly digital. Of the 24 mainly digital responders, 14 said no, they had not changed the way they did exposure since switching to digital. HOWEVER -- this is where I am going to throw in my own conclusions :-) -- many qualified their nos. How? Lots had used handheld meters of one kind or another when they shooting film. Many mentioned they no longer used them, the in camera meter was accurate. That they relied on it. Several mentioned matrix metering in particular. Another qualification was many mentioned being aware of being more cautious about overexposure. Paying attention to settings to not to have blown highlights and/or using exposure compensation (one or more mentioned referring to the histogram). So, despite the fact that those 14 thought there had been no change, in reading them over, I got the distinct impression they was more of a change than they may have realized. Not for everyone, of course, but for some. And maybe not that big a change, but a change. Anyway, that's the basic results. The thread went off to discuss Hyperprogram (and differences between it and Hypermanual) and how Pentax is/was great for coming up with that. (Don't ask me, I've haven't used either.) Results of another survey coming soon. Or maybe not. That time sense thing. ;-) Later, Marnie aka Doe
