Hey Y'all ! Hope you're having a great day! We as camera buffs are always looking at the latest and greatest in cameras and camera related gadgets. We as consumers try to dissect what is different or what is newer on each of our cameras and new ones that come out each year. And to admit there is a lot that is different between camera brands and models but there are some things that are the same of all cameras. Even ones from decades long ago and we forget that these little machines still have  the same goal to capture a moment in time , an image. Remembering what is the same makes the photography much more simple. I think that cameras are getting more and more complicated when they should be staying simple. I shoot with all kinds of cameras from older film cameras to newer mirrorless cameras. Sometimes I think that the newer ones can be more complicated than the early film were. Why do you think that is. I certainly don't know. Maybe the newer generations didn't know how simple it was in the past to take a photo. But people that were raised holding a computer in their hand that was advanced than the computer that sent men to the moon seem to think that things need to be more complicated. Now I'm not generation bashing I just want to explain what is the same in photography. Lets start.

The medium used to capture the image. Although it has changed from film to digital sensors a lot of the same principals still apply. In the film days you could choose your film based on either black and white or color and you could choose the sensitivity of the film by the ASA (American Standards Association ) now known as ISO (international Standards Organization ) . Modern Digital you can dial in your ISO and you can change the look of the image from color to black and white. Just the same as film. Are the newer Digital sensors more flexible than the roll of film? Well of course they are but doesn't that make it more complicated . With more choices comes paralysis by analysis . Not being able to make a decision quickly. Like buying glasses at the eye doctor. There are a wall of choices hundreds of choices  and to you they all look alike. Hard to make a choice. But besides that they are really the same.

Lenses used in film and digital are basically the same. Although more modern the newer lenses are basically the same with aperture blades that can open and close to make the hole bigger or smaller. There are focusing rings that you can manually focus with. Many older lenses are manual focusing while newer ones are auto focusing using little motors and gears inside of the lenses to do the work that your hand and eye did. Now does the newer lenses focus quicker and maybe even more sharper focus? Well of course they do. But they are very similar except most modern lenses are much larger to house the newer components. 

Shutters are the same. Shutters with the ability to change shutter speeds. Either Focal plane shutters or leaf shutters in the film era worked very much the same as the modern shutters . Now shutter speeds go up to 1/8000 of a second where 1/1000 was the norm for many years in the film era and consumer cameras were at 1/500. Now we have mechanical and electronic shutters and I'm sure in the future mechanical will be a thing of the past but they do the same thing. They let light in for a certain amount of time so they do the same thing.

View finders are kind of the same. Optical view finders showed you what was going to be in your photo. Modern view finders do that and a whole lot more. It can be like flying a jet with heads up display with all of the gismos in the frame when you are viewing your subject. Stuff like the meter, battery life, camera settings like shutter speed, ISO and aperture . All which is very nice but can become kind of cluttered. Of course you can pick and choose what you want to see in your view finder.

Meter to measure light. Just about all cameras from the 1960's and on had some sort of meter in them to measure the light. Film camera's used center weighted metering where modern cameras can use an array of different metering modes to include center weighted. Matrix or Averaging metering mode takes in the whole scene and averages out meter reading. Most photographers use this type of metering 100% of the time. Why so many choices? Just to confuse you LOL! I think that modern metering is better than old but I didn't have a problem with the old ones either  and still use them in my film cameras.

Things like shutter buttons, self timers, and the such are all still there. So what I'm trying to get at is yes they have changed but the principals like the Exposure Triangle are still the same. Basically you have a box that captures light and puts the image onto some sort of medium. So when you look at that new camera that has all of the gismos on it before you spend your hard earned money make sure you need the gismos that it is offering. Many times the answer is no you have all that you need in the camera you have that will still take great photo's.

Until next week , Get out and Shoot!

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link