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Show ' " Th rough ( O ) Lens Problem solving 1 By HOLT CONFER Copley News Service There's no doubt that cameras can often be the source of considerable frustration. And while every pro has had the experience ex-perience of something going wrong at a critical moment, the person who works with his cameras for a living usually knows the equipment so well that finding the source of the problem is relatively easy. I suspect the person that suffers the most when cameras don't work is the amateur. Here's the scenario you've invested $300, (400 or $500 in a new camera, bought an extra lens like the salesperson suggested, even laid out some additional dollars so you could have a dedicated flash unit and you're spending spend-ing $9 or $10 to have a roll of transparencies processed pro-cessed (when you include the cost of the film), and close to $20 if you're shooting shoot-ing prints. Now with all that money invested, the pictures you took at the family outing last week the ones that everyone is pestering you to see will surely be perfect per-fect right? Wrong! I get calls all the time, and they usually start out with "What the am I doing wrong with this camera? You should see these pictures, they're all too dark (sometimes they're too light). And on top of all that, my wife-husband wife-husband is complaining about all the money I've got tied up in this hunk of junk." Now before you all rush to look up my telephone number, let me tell you that I can't answer your question over the phone. It's not that I wouldn't like to help you, it's just that solving the problem is usually usu-ally a whole lot more complex com-plex than that. However, I am going to give you some pointers on how you can help yourself providing you're willing to make the effort. The thing that makes it difficult to diagnose your problems is that all cameras camer-as operate differently. When I was working in a camera store and got to use a variety of different models day after day, it was a whole lot easeir to provide good sound advice to the folks who trouped through our door with that "I just screwed up a whole bunch of pictures" look on their face. But if you ask me now about any cameras other than my own, I pretty much have to do what you should do read the manual. man-ual. You see, the problem most people have who use their camera infrequently is that they forget what all those little buttons and levers le-vers do. They also forget a lot of the worthwhile photographic pho-tographic procedures their manual recommends. And it isn't at all unusual for the casual picture taker to try to use a highly complex, com-plex, battery-operated, electronic camera with the same casualness that you could use one of those simple sim-ple old cameras from days gone by. Now I know what you read in the ads that manufacturers are making photography almost foolproof, fool-proof, that anyone, including includ-ing mentally retarded monkeys and illiterate baboons, ba-boons, can take "professional "profes-sional quality" pictures. However, if that's true, how come you're having problems? First of all, we need to go back to something I've suggested on 20 or 30 occasions occa-sions when you buy a " camera, buy the simplest camera that will meet your needs. Believe me when I tell you that no one cares what kind of equipment equip-ment you use, as long as the pictures turn out right. Even though the camera manuals are written well and are very informative, it's still quite a feat to take someone whose photographic photo-graphic knowledge is at ground zero into the realm of the professional photographer photo-grapher with a casual read-through of even the most comprehensive manual. man-ual. But let's get back to the original situation you've got a bunch of bad pictures and you're disappointed in yourself and in your camera. cam-era. In most every manual there is a section that discusses the most common com-mon problems and makes recommendations on where to look for the solution. solu-tion. First of all, see if your results parallel anything described in this section. If they do, fine, make the corrections cor-rections and see what happens. hap-pens. If your situation isn't described in the "problems" "prob-lems" section, then about all you can do short of going back to the camera store and yelling "HELP" is to read the manual carefully while you're holding the camera. Trying to get a good understanding understand-ing of how your equipment really works will eliminate a lot of your basic frustrations. frustra-tions. And if you think cameras are difficult, wait until you begin to program your home computer! |
