On Fri, 25 Nov 2011 10:51:41 -0700, "RG" wrote:


"John H" wrote in message
.. .
...besides the exercise and learning to cope with frustration.

These are from my local course, about a mile away.


Very nice photos, John. When looking at the EXIF data, I noticed that all
these photos were shot at ISO 1250. It's possible that Opanda is not
interpreting those values correctly, but if it is, that is an unnecessarily
high ISO value for shooting on a bright sunny day. It just invites unwanted
noise and other issues for no good reason. You were shooting in shutter
priority mode, so the high ISO setting caused the lens to stop down to as
small as f18. A lower ISO setting would have forced the aperture to open a
bit wider. I would suggest reviewing the ISO setting on your D200. It's
possible you set it to 1250 for a good reason some time ago but forgot to
reset it. My recommendation would be to set the ISO to the base level of
100 and then turn auto ISO on with an appropriate minimum shutter speed and
let the ISO float to whatever value is required for proper exposure. I
would have shot these in aperture priority mode, f8, auto ISO with a minimum
shutter speed of 1/30 second using VR. Nice composition, nuts-on exposure
and great color on these.

Russ


What I was looking for in most of these was depth of field, thus the high ISO and small aperture.
And, I was wanting to see what effect the higher ISO had on the pictures, but I didn't want to take
it all the way to the max of 1600.

I'd just finished the weekend Nikon School, which got me interested in experimenting. I'd played the
course that morning, and thought the colors pretty nice. Went back out that afternoon and conned the
marshall into taking me around the course in his cart.

Now I'm wanting to go back to Utah, or someplace out there, and take some more pictures!

Thanks for the input, Russ.

What I was looking for in most of these was depth of field, thus the high
ISO and small aperture.
And, I was wanting to see what effect the higher ISO had on the pictures,
but I didn't want to take
it all the way to the max of 1600.


Your thinking is correct in that the higher ISO will afford a smaller
aperture and therefore a greater depth of field. A deep depth of field is
important in landscapes such as these only when you have a subject in the
very near foreground that you want to be in focus along with the
intermediate and background subjects. In most of these photos, there isn't a
close foreground subject, so a deep depth of field isn't really required.
In the photos where the grasses are in the foreground, perhaps a bit more
depth of field is required, but not all that much. The penalty of an
unnecessarily small aperture is lens diffraction, which can reduce
sharpness.

Since I shoot primarily landscapes, I'm very much attuned to the issue of
depth of field. In fact, it is because of this that I almost always shoot
in aperture priority mode. I let the depth of field requirements of the
scene dictate the aperture setting I use and will let the shutter speed and
ISO remain variable. My default aperture is f8, because it usually offers
enough depth of field and is typically the sweet spot of sharpness in most
lenses. If I require more depth of field I will either stop the lens down
further or use a wider focal length. If I am trying to narrow the depth of
field, I'll do the opposite. In any case, I'll typically set the focus at a
hyperfocal distance (somewhere between the foreground and background of the
scene. Also, I always shoot a scene with several bracketed exposures, often
using different aperture settings and then sort it all out at home using a
large monitor.

Perhaps on your next trip out west we can hook up for a photo shoot.

Russ

On Nov 25, 1:07*pm, "RG" wrote:


Perhaps on your next trip out west we can hook up for a photo shoot.

Russ


take him up on it, John!

On Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:07:05 -0700, "RG" wrote:

What I was looking for in most of these was depth of field, thus the high
ISO and small aperture.
And, I was wanting to see what effect the higher ISO had on the pictures,
but I didn't want to take
it all the way to the max of 1600.


Your thinking is correct in that the higher ISO will afford a smaller
aperture and therefore a greater depth of field. A deep depth of field is
important in landscapes such as these only when you have a subject in the
very near foreground that you want to be in focus along with the
intermediate and background subjects. In most of these photos, there isn't a
close foreground subject, so a deep depth of field isn't really required.
In the photos where the grasses are in the foreground, perhaps a bit more
depth of field is required, but not all that much. The penalty of an
unnecessarily small aperture is lens diffraction, which can reduce
sharpness.

Since I shoot primarily landscapes, I'm very much attuned to the issue of
depth of field. In fact, it is because of this that I almost always shoot
in aperture priority mode. I let the depth of field requirements of the
scene dictate the aperture setting I use and will let the shutter speed and
ISO remain variable. My default aperture is f8, because it usually offers
enough depth of field and is typically the sweet spot of sharpness in most
lenses. If I require more depth of field I will either stop the lens down
further or use a wider focal length. If I am trying to narrow the depth of
field, I'll do the opposite. In any case, I'll typically set the focus at a
hyperfocal distance (somewhere between the foreground and background of the
scene. Also, I always shoot a scene with several bracketed exposures, often
using different aperture settings and then sort it all out at home using a
large monitor.

Perhaps on your next trip out west we can hook up for a photo shoot.

Russ


Good tips. I like the bracketed exposure idea. Never done it. A photo shoot out there would be a
blast. I'm thinking of going on one, even if I have to fly there and back. Shoot, it might make a
nice motorcycle trip.

Good tips. I like the bracketed exposure idea. Never done it. A photo
shoot out there would be a
blast. I'm thinking of going on one, even if I have to fly there and back.
Shoot, it might make a
nice motorcycle trip.

Your D200 has an auto-bracketing feature that makes bracketing unbelievably
easy. You tell it how many exposures you would like to take (3,5,7 or 9),
how far apart the exposures should be (.3, .7 or a full stop), then hold
down the shutter. The camera will fire the shutter the requested number of
times and then stop. You don't even have to count. I always bracket at
least three exposures, one stop apart, more exposures if the dynamic range
of the scene is high. I do this for two reasons. First, as good as the
meters are in modern cameras, they don't always get it right. Having three
or more exposures a stop apart lets me choose which exposure is the best to
use in post production. Second, if a single exposure won't yield good
results due to high dynamic range, having a bracketed set of exposures
allows me to merge then in an HDR program, often time producing a result
that is superior to what could be accomplished using s single exposure.
This approach would have been prohibitively expensive using film, but pixels
as free. The only cost is the extra time required to sort through all the
exposures in post production. I'd rather sort these out at the comfort of
my desk at home using a large monitor than to try and determine optimal
exposure using a LCD screen on the camera in bright sunlight.

Russ

On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 11:12:03 -0700, "RG" wrote:


Good tips. I like the bracketed exposure idea. Never done it. A photo
shoot out there would be a
blast. I'm thinking of going on one, even if I have to fly there and back.
Shoot, it might make a
nice motorcycle trip.

Your D200 has an auto-bracketing feature that makes bracketing unbelievably
easy. You tell it how many exposures you would like to take (3,5,7 or 9),
how far apart the exposures should be (.3, .7 or a full stop), then hold
down the shutter. The camera will fire the shutter the requested number of
times and then stop. You don't even have to count. I always bracket at
least three exposures, one stop apart, more exposures if the dynamic range
of the scene is high. I do this for two reasons. First, as good as the
meters are in modern cameras, they don't always get it right. Having three
or more exposures a stop apart lets me choose which exposure is the best to
use in post production. Second, if a single exposure won't yield good
results due to high dynamic range, having a bracketed set of exposures
allows me to merge then in an HDR program, often time producing a result
that is superior to what could be accomplished using s single exposure.
This approach would have been prohibitively expensive using film, but pixels
as free. The only cost is the extra time required to sort through all the
exposures in post production. I'd rather sort these out at the comfort of
my desk at home using a large monitor than to try and determine optimal
exposure using a LCD screen on the camera in bright sunlight.

Russ


I've never used the bracketing, but I'm going to give it a shot with three exposures. Next question,
do I set it for AE and Flash, AE only, Flash only, or White Balance bracketing. From what you've
said, I'm going to guess AE and Flash. I've set the EV step to 1.

Question, in what mode are you shooting, A.S,M,P? I've taken a couple shots, the camera is taking
three exposures, but I can see no difference in the shots - using the camera's monitor.

I've never used the bracketing, but I'm going to give it a shot with three
exposures. Next question,
do I set it for AE and Flash, AE only, Flash only, or White Balance
bracketing. From what you've
said, I'm going to guess AE and Flash. I've set the EV step to 1.

Question, in what mode are you shooting, A.S,M,P? I've taken a couple
shots, the camera is taking
three exposures, but I can see no difference in the shots - using the
camera's monitor.

1. Set menu item e5 to AE only. Page 166 of the manual.

2. Set menu item e7 to UnderMTROver. This will shoot the sequence
as -EV, 0EV, +EV, assuming no exposure compensation has been dialed in. I
prefer this sequence over the default of MTRUnderOver. Page 167

3. Set menu item e8 to Manual Value Select. Page 167

4. Set menu item b3 to 1/3 step, which will allow you to set exposure
adjustments at 1/3 stop intervals. Menu item b4 should be set the same.
Page 154

5. Set the shooting mode dial on the top left of the camera to either CL or
CH. I use CH. This will allow the camera to shoot the entire bracketed
sequence with a single press and hold of the shutter release. Page 26.

6. While holding down the BKT button, rotate the main command dial (on the
back of the camera) to set the number of shots for the sequence, in your
example, 3. While holding down the BKT button, rotate the sub-command dial
(on the front of the camera) to set the exposure increment, in your example,
1. Page 73

You should now be set up to auto-bracket a 3-shot sequence at a 1EV
interval. Compose a shot and hold the shutter release down. The shutter
should trip 3 times and then stop. When you review the photos on the LCD
screen, you will notice that one is probably too dark and underexposed, the
next one should be just about right, an the third one will likely be too
bright and over exposed. You can confirm the bracketing by selecting the
shooting data page 1 review screen. There you will see in the exposure
compensation field as -1.0, 0.0 and 1.0 respectively for the -1EV, 0EV and
+1EV shots. Page 99.

I almost always shoot in (A) aperture priority mode. My default aperture is
f8, and I typically will only change it if I am trying to either limit or
expand the depth of field. When in this mode and auto-bracketing, the
aperture is constant among the bracketed set, what changes is the shutter
speed. I also might adjust the aperture if I'm trying for an effect using
shutter speed. Let's say I'm shooting a water fall or moving water in a
stream, and the question is whether I want to stop the action of the water
with a fast shutter speed or blur the water by dragging the shutter with a
slower speed. For the former I would open the lens wider which would result
in a bracketed set with a faster range of shutter speeds. For the latter, I
would stop the lens down (as well as adding a polarizer or neutral density
filter to reduce the amount of light hitting the sensor), resulting in a set
with longer shutter speeds.

To turn the auto Bracketing off, all you have to do is the hold the BKT
button and rotate the main command dial so the number of shots is set to 0.
You don't have to alter any other settings. To turn it back on, just set to
the number of shots you want again. I leave my camera set to CH (continuous
high shooting). You quickly learn to press and release the shutter button
quickly when you only want a single shot, but you always have the continuous
option available, which is great if you want to capture something in motion,
say a heron taking flight while you're sitting on the boat watching the
world go by.

The other thing to understand about auto-bracketing is that it works in
conjunction with any exposure compensation you might have dialed in with +/-
button. With exposure compensation set at 0, your example of a 3 shot, 1EV
set would meter out at -1EV, 0EV and +1 EV. But let's say that conditions
were such that you'd prefer to favor the scene to be underexposed versus
overexposed. You could dial in a -1EV exposure compensation with the +/-
button, and then your 3 shot bracket sequence would meter out at -2EV, -1EV
and 0EV. I do this quite a bit.

Happy shooting.

Russ

On Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:47:21 -0700, "RG" wrote:

Happy shooting.

Russ

========

It's incredible what these cameras can do if you take the time to
learn the features.

I assume that since you are shooting mostly landscapes, that you use a
tripod and don't worry all that much about shutter speed. My issues
are different since I'm usually shooting from a moving boat with a
telephoto lens. Can you tell me how to set up a Nikon D40X to always
shoot at the fastest possible shutter speed?

On Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:47:21 -0700, "RG" wrote:


I've never used the bracketing, but I'm going to give it a shot with three
exposures. Next question,
do I set it for AE and Flash, AE only, Flash only, or White Balance
bracketing. From what you've
said, I'm going to guess AE and Flash. I've set the EV step to 1.

Question, in what mode are you shooting, A.S,M,P? I've taken a couple
shots, the camera is taking
three exposures, but I can see no difference in the shots - using the
camera's monitor.

1. Set menu item e5 to AE only. Page 166 of the manual.

2. Set menu item e7 to UnderMTROver. This will shoot the sequence
as -EV, 0EV, +EV, assuming no exposure compensation has been dialed in. I
prefer this sequence over the default of MTRUnderOver. Page 167

3. Set menu item e8 to Manual Value Select. Page 167

4. Set menu item b3 to 1/3 step, which will allow you to set exposure
adjustments at 1/3 stop intervals. Menu item b4 should be set the same.
Page 154

5. Set the shooting mode dial on the top left of the camera to either CL or
CH. I use CH. This will allow the camera to shoot the entire bracketed
sequence with a single press and hold of the shutter release. Page 26.

6. While holding down the BKT button, rotate the main command dial (on the
back of the camera) to set the number of shots for the sequence, in your
example, 3. While holding down the BKT button, rotate the sub-command dial
(on the front of the camera) to set the exposure increment, in your example,
1. Page 73

You should now be set up to auto-bracket a 3-shot sequence at a 1EV
interval. Compose a shot and hold the shutter release down. The shutter
should trip 3 times and then stop. When you review the photos on the LCD
screen, you will notice that one is probably too dark and underexposed, the
next one should be just about right, an the third one will likely be too
bright and over exposed. You can confirm the bracketing by selecting the
shooting data page 1 review screen. There you will see in the exposure
compensation field as -1.0, 0.0 and 1.0 respectively for the -1EV, 0EV and
+1EV shots. Page 99.

I almost always shoot in (A) aperture priority mode. My default aperture is
f8, and I typically will only change it if I am trying to either limit or
expand the depth of field. When in this mode and auto-bracketing, the
aperture is constant among the bracketed set, what changes is the shutter
speed. I also might adjust the aperture if I'm trying for an effect using
shutter speed. Let's say I'm shooting a water fall or moving water in a
stream, and the question is whether I want to stop the action of the water
with a fast shutter speed or blur the water by dragging the shutter with a
slower speed. For the former I would open the lens wider which would result
in a bracketed set with a faster range of shutter speeds. For the latter, I
would stop the lens down (as well as adding a polarizer or neutral density
filter to reduce the amount of light hitting the sensor), resulting in a set
with longer shutter speeds.

To turn the auto Bracketing off, all you have to do is the hold the BKT
button and rotate the main command dial so the number of shots is set to 0.
You don't have to alter any other settings. To turn it back on, just set to
the number of shots you want again. I leave my camera set to CH (continuous
high shooting). You quickly learn to press and release the shutter button
quickly when you only want a single shot, but you always have the continuous
option available, which is great if you want to capture something in motion,
say a heron taking flight while you're sitting on the boat watching the
world go by.

The other thing to understand about auto-bracketing is that it works in
conjunction with any exposure compensation you might have dialed in with +/-
button. With exposure compensation set at 0, your example of a 3 shot, 1EV
set would meter out at -1EV, 0EV and +1 EV. But let's say that conditions
were such that you'd prefer to favor the scene to be underexposed versus
overexposed. You could dial in a -1EV exposure compensation with the +/-
button, and then your 3 shot bracket sequence would meter out at -2EV, -1EV
and 0EV. I do this quite a bit.

Happy shooting.

Russ


Sorry not to get back sooner, but I found out that all this playing around consumes battery power. I
may have to put an extra battery on my Christmas list.

I *really* appreciate your help on this. I've got everything set, and now can see some differences
in the shots. I'm wondering though - yesterday I was getting three shots, but could hear the camera
'take' only one. I had left the shooting mode dial on 'S', but was still getting three shots. I must
have changed something though, because now if I put it back on 'S' I get only a single shot. I'll
have to look into.

I've got to take this thing outside tomorrow and do some more playing.

Thanks again, Russ. Your help is great!

John