Roving Thoughts archives

Using automatic exposure locking

Back in 2008 when I set up my D90 and wrote down my settings, I said this about the AE-L button:

I don't know enough to use exposure holding, but if I do 'tap to hold' seems to be the least obnoxious way of doing it.

Boy, I was kind of innocent back then. Nowadays I have learned what autoexposure locking is for the hard way and I use it reasonably frequently. The simple way to put it is that locking the exposure is the quick way to deal with the importance of watching your exposure from shot to shot.

If you're not in full manual mode, the camera can change the metering during a sequence of photographs; it can do this even if all you're doing is changing the exposure compensation. Locking the exposure with AE-L counteracts this, giving you a stable exposure that you can make consistent adjustments to. Otherwise your attempts to adjust the exposure to get the picture right can be happening on top of quicksand, so that you dial in some negative exposure compensation to correct things but then the camera decides to expose more so in the end your exposure winds up just the same. This is both pointless and frustrating when it happens (and very puzzling if you don't notice the exposure shifting on you; here you are adding exposure compensation yet nothing is happening, or the wrong thing is happening).

I've repeatedly stubbed my toe on this so these days I've learned that if I'm taking a sequence of pictures of the same thing the first thing I should do is hit the AE-L button, especially if I'm just working to get the exposure right. Otherwise, even if I'm just lowering the camera to look at the histogram after I've taken a picture the composition can be just different enough when I bring it back up to my eye that the Nikon matrix metering changes the base exposure.

I maintain that my choice of 'tap to hold' is absolutely the right option for this on Nikon cameras, at least for what I want to use AE-L for. It would be very hard to have to keep one finger on the AE-L button all the time, even when I'm doing things like checking the histogram for specific areas of the picture.

Meditations on realism via the GTO anime and live action shows

Once upon a time, back in the days of anime clubs in Toronto, there was a particular anime club that made a lot of interesting and odd programming choices. One of them was that they started showing the Great Teacher Onizuka anime series, but then partway through decided that it was too close to the manga so they switched to showing the live action version instead. This gave us an interesting compare and contrast between the two, since both series covered essentially the same story but somewhat differently.

What I found especially interesting (and what has stuck with me ever since) is some of the changes made in the live action version, which I have always assumed were done to make it feel more realistic (in general I remember the live action version as less crazy than the anime, although still periodically crazy). Two changes have especially stuck in my memory.

The first change is that the live action reduces Onizuka's living quarters significantly. In the anime (and the manga) he winds up basically living on the roof of the school in a relatively cool pad full of cool stuff. In the live action series he has your basic tiny cramped mini-apartment that is essentially devoid of coolness, which I assume is what someone in his circumstances could rent and have in real life.

(The next bit involves a spoiler and some dark stuff, and I'm operating from a decade-old and imperfect memory.)

The second change requires some background explanation. Onizuka is sweet on Fuyutsuki, one of the other teachers at his high school, but she is also pursued and creepily stalked by another teacher, Teshigawara, who eventually descends to attempted date rape. In the anime this attempted date rape doesn't get very far; Fuyutsuki is never in any real danger and the situation is rapidly defused. In the live action series things are significantly darker. Teshigawara successfully drugs Fuyutsuki and comes much closer to success before she is able to break free.

Now, bearing in mind the problem of interpretation, it has always struck me as interesting that the producers of the live action show appear to have felt the need to make Fuyutsuki's situation significantly worse in order to make it feel more realistic. I can easily believe that the live action version is more true to life, but it seems an odd thing for a drama to actually admit (especially one that was otherwise relatively cheerful, goofy, and upbeat).