Does anyone still remember what this round shaped object is? And I of course don’t mean the lovely mint condition Leica M6 TTL black 0.72, although if you recognised that you already doing very well indeed. It’s an ISO selector dial, also known as film speed selector you set every time you want to use a different film speed. Yes, those were the good old days, when you couldn”t simply flick an electronic switch or button to change the film speed at leisure. Back then, and for those of us who still photograph using real film it’s of course still the same as ever before, we either carried around two cameras loaded with different film speeds, or we wasted lots of unexposed film due to changing mid roll. However, usually we simply made do with the film inside our camera until it had finished and, therefore, cherished our fast lenses all the more, because they taught and forced us to use the joys and pleasures of available light.

Years ago, when I was trying to replace the loathsome Canon EOS 350D with something that had a lot less buttons on the back, I came across a review for the amazingly good (even by today’s standards come to think of it) Sony Alpha A100. The A100 shares the identical CCD sensor as the venerable Nikon D200 and telling the two apart when using either of the two cameras in RAW is next door to impossible. There really is no different, except for the price tag. Anyway, this reviewer bemoaned the fact that changing the ISO speed on the Sony A100 took him a turn of a knob and the press of a button. Apparently, so he told his readership, this was completely unsatisfactory for him, because he needs to change ISO speeds frequently at any given moment in time.

I felt sorry for the poor bloke. Either he’d never experienced the joy of taking pictures using proper film and having to wisely choose your film speed and even the type of film prior to taking the respective pictures, or he simply had no clue how to use available light that usually negates the need to frequently switch film speed. Unfortunately, this chap totally missed the real beauty of the Sony A100. For, unlike the annoying and frustrating Canon EOS 350D, the trusty and surprisingly sturdy A100 features virtually no buttons on the rear. Trust me, in the case of the Canon 350D the timed self exposure button, or something else entirely, always felt like interfering with a perfectly good shot. Not so with a Sony A100 that was and occasionally still is a pure delight to use. Instead of a minefield of buttons it employs a second dial on the top left hand side of the viewfinder with which to speedily change all those common settings (incl. ISO) that made digital photography so revolutionary and popular in the first place.

The moral of the story is simple, don’t let technology get in the way of a good picture. Instead use your imagination and learn how to use your camera’s technical limitations to your own advantage in low and available light situations.

Happy snapping!