Re: Lenses and Contrast

[P3D John O. Merritt <JOMERRITT@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

some time ago I toyed with the idea of including an "auto-flash"
feature inside sophisticated cameras that have spot metering:
using something like a zone system with several readings, you would
tell the camera the brightest object you wanted to be white, then the
darkest object you wanted to be black, and let it figure how much to
pre-flash the film with an interior light source that exposed the film
in the film gate before making the exposure, analogous to flashing
paper when enlarging.  This would then reduce the contrast in the scene,
allowing the film to capture detail within a given light-dark range.

With today's ever-more sophisticated cameras, I'm surprised we don't
see this on the market today.  We even have eye-tracking focus systems,
so why not a relatively simple "auto-flash" contrast control system?

John Merritt


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