Quote:

"... I'm curious, you are a carpenter by trade: do you still use hand drills instead of electric ones; do you still use hand saws instead of table saws, ..."



Excelent point! But the carpentry is my job not my art! So what about painters? They still use brush to paint as Leonardo da Vinchi and all the great artist used before! Off corse today's brushes and paint is much better but the painters still grab them by hand and paibt the picture. So the basic conception isn't changed!

There are woodworkers who are an artist and yes they still use lot of hand tools not powertools. But as I said, painters use modern brus too, so carpenter can use power tools too, but who do it as an art not use computer controlled machines, as used in a factory!
I never said we can't use modern cameras or even digital cameras for artwork! Even if you use the most advenced modern top of the line digital camera, still you need photography skill to get the right exposure for example. But if you don't have the skill and you just trust yourself to the camera matrix metering and then fix the mistakes in PS, you not need the photography skill! So its not about the tool waht you use to capture the inage, it is the computer which replace the skill of photography!
It is not about hand tools or power tools in carpentry, it is about there is anything what replace the skill what need for it?
If a wood carving artist use Dremel rotari tool instead of chisel and hammer, still not replace the skill and clever hands what need for the job. But if he use CNC Router machine which is a computer controlled "carving device", actually all the handwork is made by computer not by hand! From this moment the artist job is nothing else just push the start button! He make the design in a clever, and easy to use computer softwear, and that is it! Anyone can do it! Anyone can push the start button, but not anyone can lead the tool even if it is a power tool to the rigth way!
So in a photography the manipulation softwears take the neccesary skill away from the process, that is why I say that is cheating.
A modern photo equipment not replace the photography skill, the modern power tools not replace the carpentry or wood carving skill, the moder paint and brushes not replace the skill, but the computer does!
That is the whole idea of a computer!

Ansel Adams used only spot metering, because that is the only one what a skillful photographer can use to controll the darkness of the photo.
Matrix metering use computer calculations, and instead of the photographer the metering try to figure out what is front of the camera, what can be the best exposure value! Not the photographer control the darkness/brigthness of the picture, the matrix metering does! That is why many photographer who use matrix metering still need some PS adjusting. The Centerwighted metering is a same unrealible metering.
So if some one use matrix metering, that shows, me the guy have no idea how to meausr the lights, how to determine the exposure value. That is why trust him/herself to the camera computer, but because that is can't be correct all the time, need a computer manipulations!
Matrix metering was designed amateures, who don't want to learn about photography but still want to take realible pictures of family or of vacations.
Ansel Adams didn't use matrix metering! He used spot metering. What about those photographers, who bring up Ansel Adams as an excuse for their cheating? Ansel Adams needed a high skill for what he did. A computer didn't help him! A computer not replace his photography skill!
Todays an already popular "photographer" have no idea what is a different between light metering and WB set up! And I'm not kidding!
I "teach2 photography over the Internet for beginners! I deal with lot of people who yhink they are a photographer, and actually they are making good pictures, but many of them don't have even the very basic skill about photography! I'm not just talking here, I have lot of experience about this thing! I experienced in the past 10 years how less and less photography skill have the newer generations of photographers. Many of them have no idea what the aperture and the shutterspeed does, but they are call themself as photographers, and others believe in them. believe they are have all the skill waht need to take those kind of pictures what they are shows us. But the truth is, they have no skill just a computer help them, the computer replace the skill, replace the brain.

I shoot on Fuji Velvia and Astia, with Nikon F6 and Pentax Z1p with Sigma zoom lenses.