This is where the Green Button comes in. With the K10D in manual, it works as awkwardly as any other dual-control-wheel DSLR manual
exposure system, until you invoke the magic green button. If you point at a possible picture and hit the Green Button, the camera momentarily reverts to Program mode and sets the
shutter and
f-stop as it would in program. Then it lets go and you have full control with the rear wheel running the
f/stop and the front wheel running the
shutter speed. (For some reason this is still counter-intuitive to me, though the
Olympus E-1 I’ve used for several years also sets the wheels this way in manual. If I had my way I’d have the front wheel do the
aperture and the rear wheel do the
shutter.) Now, instead of overriding auto
exposure for a particular framing, you dial in some up and down marks on the in-finder
exposure scale to set an absolute
exposure for this particular scene. If there’s time, use the Digital Previw to get RGB histograms to review, tweak as needed, then go ahead and shoot any framing changes you want without constantly fiddling to compensate for whatever error the automation would introduce with each new framing.
This is seriously cool. I don’t think it’s as good a manual system as classic
shutter speed and
f-stop controls, but it’s a really imaginative workaround that I’m finding quite useful.