Pro photographers bemoan the fact unskilled photographers shoot on automatic in natural mid-day daylight. He says they haven’t learnt composition, low light (or much else) but they are shooting weddings for people who don’t know photography either and just want shots of themselves looking pretty etc. Unskilled photographers advertise their services by far undercutting the Pro and they get his/her work. And although the results they get are not as good as s/he would have got the happy couple will never know as the Pro didn’t get the gig. The unskilled photographer’s shots will be OK for a wedding and the client will be satisfied – particularly with the money saved. Unskilled yes, but not completely crap.

 

Pro’s wants these people to learn photography properly so they can all charge more but the inexperienced shooter isn’t too bothered and would rather earn his current fee than put money into learning curtain sync, manual setting, low light etc because he shoots in day light and if the evening comes he uses flash. If the client never sees a flashed shot against one taken on manual that retains the scenes ambience the client will never know what s/he missed out on.

 

But it’s deeper than that. Pro’s had to learn all that manual stuff – just like car drivers did with the gear stick and astronomers did learning the sky/star positions and where to point the telescope. Then along came the automatic camera, automatic car and automatic telescope. All three are sold on the basis they allow you to concentrate on the reason you bought each one – to compose great shots without worrying about settings, to drive without worrying about what gear you’re in and to observe the stars and planets without taking half the night to actually find one! Those who learnt the hard way have NO TIME for the new ways of technology.

 

I accept Auto on a camera can’t cover all shooting situations yet, especially when there is little light or great contrast but that day is not far off. There will be a “low light – few lighting effects” rock show setting on Scene Selection and a “low light – many lighting effects” rock show setting too. And a load of others until eventually Automatic mode itself will understand all the shooting options under any light. As we get there the camera will offer you different shots depending on what you’re trying to achieve but eventually the software will know what everyone wants to achieve and you’ll be given menu options if you want to stray from that. It’s the future.

 

Depending on your age you could think back to your mum regularly washing clothes by hand when you were a child. The boiling of water in a saucepan, the tub, the rubbing soap, the backache, the mangle, the washing line (which, of course, many still have). Today one can buy a washing machine washer/dryer – all in one. The whole job right up to ironing done indoors whatever the weather. Cloth will become more crease resistant than now and you’ll take the clothes out of the machine and hang them in the wardrobe. Automatic.

 

I can see for the learned it seems so hard after all the time/blood/sweat/tears they spent learning it from the ground up for a new kid on the block to switch on Auto and advertise in competition with them a similar service half the price.

The new kids can see if they learn all this manual stuff it won’t be long before a camera comes along that makes most of it redundant.