Some basic questions. - DPChallenge Forums

01/01/2008 01:18:35 AM · #1

I've bee reading up my manual. It's amazing what you learn when you go through it every now and then.

Question 1: What photo settings (ie AV, TV, M, P, etc...;) do photographers leave their camera on and why. (AV? If so what aperature setting) I still tend to leave my camera on one of the auto modes such as portrait or landscape but want to venture out to the other settings. I have used the other settings but find that I tend to make errors in guessing what AV is best for a situation and my shots dont really turn out how I want. I do a lot of shots when I do shoot in the different modes but it usually takes quite a few to get the shot I want and it tends to be more trial and error.

Question 2: Regarding white balance. What do photographers do to set their white balance. Do you take a photo, check it and then decide if it needs to go up or down a stop? Do you only check your white balance in certain situations or each and every time. I also find that the image that I see on my camera screen is not a good guide to go by as it often looks brighter than it does once I load it onto the computer. I dont have a light meter. Also what is the best metering mode to leave the camera in for everyday situations. Especially if I dont have time to change it or to think about what I have to change it to.

All help will be greatly appreciated.

Melethia

Canon EOS-80D

01/01/2008 01:27:36 AM · #2

I can speak only for myself. I shoot most of the time in Av mode, with the aperture at 5.6 or 6.3. I use auto-white balance all the time - white balance can be corrected in processing if needed. That said, I don't do studio work at all, which probably requires a whole different approach.

I'd suggest you go out when you have some time and find something/somewhere you like to shoot and try a lot of different settings just to see what's what. Have fun!

Beetle

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

01/01/2008 01:28:57 AM · #3

My camera is mostly set to AV, as I like to control and play with the DOF a lot.
Quite often I will choose a big aperture for the shallow DOF and/or the speed.

White balance: mine totally lives on automatic. I have tried using the custom white balance, but too often I found that the auto does a better job of it!
Auto works so well in most "normal" situations, and for the tricky ones there is always RAW and its wonderful capabilities.

Edited for typo

Message edited by author 2008-01-01 01:29:38.

Delta_6

Canon EOS-7D

01/01/2008 01:29:11 AM · #4

I stay in M mode at all times. I like to have the complete control over the settings and once I decide what sort of DOF I want - thus setting the aperture - I use the shutter speed to get the exposure in the correct range, then I shoot a few above and below that as well.

As for WB, I leave it in auto and shoot RAW so if AWB is no good I can adjust it in ACR. I have my camera set to spot meter.

scalvert

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

Canon EF 135mm f/2.0L USM

01/01/2008 01:45:57 AM · #5

Mostly AV and AWB here, too, unless I'm doing studio work... then it's all manual. If I'm shooting indoors with natural light, I'll usually set a custom white balance on something neutral or white. Outside, I'll adjust the aperture for either speed of DOF depending on my intent.

lovethelight

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

01/01/2008 01:46:47 AM · #6

I am ALWAYS in manual mode. I have found being able to change both aperture and shutter speed essential because I don't trust the auto metering on my camera....I am kind of a control freak though.

I keep my white balance on auto if I am not in a critical color situation, but otherwise I actually set the white balance number temperature thing.

JBHale

Canon EOS-20D

Canon EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 USM

01/01/2008 01:54:17 AM · #7

I shoot in TV, usually because I'm shooting in lower light situations without a tripod where sacrificing DOF is more important than sacrificing shutter speed.

I don't know a lot about in camera white balance yet, so I just wing it and fix it in PS if need be.

Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) for Nikon

01/01/2008 02:29:55 AM · #8

OK so it seems the AV mode might be the way to go and leave the white balance on auto. Most of my photography is either in good daylight or sunset. What would be a recommended AV to start with for each of these settings. With the sunset shots should I be dialing up the ISO. I usually leave it at 100.

SaraR

Sony Alpha a7R III

Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM

01/01/2008 02:34:20 AM · #9

A question for those who always shoot manual: Is that because (as with

lovethelight) you don't trust your camera's in-built metering system? If so, do you use an external light meter? I tend to shoot in Aperture Priority for 80% of the time, Shutter Speed Priority for around 15%, and manual for the remaining 5%, but with much use of the exposure compensation dial and the histogram.

Camabs

Canon EOS-20D

Canon EF 35mm f/2.0

01/01/2008 02:54:09 AM · #10

I learned photography when M-mode was the only choice. After that, I've been hanging on to M for very long, untill I noticed that it was pretty silly: the camera telling me what to do instead of otherwise. Now I am on Av, except when using flash or strobes (M).

I set white balance and minor adjustments when converting from RAW

levyj413

Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max

01/01/2008 03:15:20 AM · #11

Originally posted by Monique64:

Question 2: Regarding white balance. What do photographers do to set their white balance. Do you take a photo, check it and then decide if it needs to go up or down a stop?

I think you're confusing white balance with exposure. You don't "go up or down a stop" in white balance, and it's got nothing to do with whether the scene looks too bright.

Rather, white balance is a setting to tell the camera what's really white, so it makes those things look white instead of yellow or blue. Here's a humorous example of what it can look like when it's set wrong:

Exposure, though, does determine how bright or dark the overall scene is. And that's where settings like aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and exposure compensation come into play.

Here's a simple way to think about it.

Want to control depth of field but don't care how long the shutter is open? Use Av. Shorter depth of field: lower f-stop.

Want to keep things from blurring or force them to blur? Use Tv and ISO. Freeze faster action: shorter shutter speed.

Change ISO when shutter speeds get slow enough that things move when you don't want them to, and then increase ISO only to the point necessary. The higher the ISO, the more noise you get.

In either Av or Tv, if things are a little too light or dark, use exposure compensation. Set it to a positive number to brighten the image and a negative number to darken it.

I use my camera in Av mode most of the time, meaning I choose an aperture to suit the depth of field I want and let the camera choose the shutter speed.

But in some situations, like when I want a series of shots to use the same aperture/shutter speed combination, I use manual mode, where I set both myself.

Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) for Nikon

01/01/2008 03:23:06 AM · #12

Originally posted by levyj413:

Originally posted by Monique64:
Question 2: Regarding white balance. What do photographers do to set their white balance. Do you take a photo, check it and then decide if it needs to go up or down a stop?

I think you're confusing white balance with exposure. You don't "go up or down a stop" in white balance, and it's got nothing to do with whether the scene looks too bright.

Rather, white balance is a setting to tell the camera what's really white, so it makes those things look white instead of yellow or blue. Here's a humorous example of what it can look like when it's set wrong:

Exposure, though, does determine how bright or dark the overall scene is. And that's where settings like aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and exposure compensation come into play.

Here's a simple way to think about it.

Want to control depth of field but don't care how long the shutter is open? Use Av. Shorter depth of field: lower f-stop.

Want to keep things from blurring or force them to blur? Use Tv and ISO. Freeze faster action: shorter shutter speed.

Change ISO when shutter speeds get slow enough that things move when you don't want them to, and then increase ISO only to the point necessary. The higher the ISO, the more noise you get.

In either Av or Tv, if things are a little too light or dark, use exposure compensation. Set it to a positive number to brighten the image and a negative number to darken it.

I use my camera in Av mode most of the time, meaning I choose an aperture to suit the depth of field I want and let the camera choose the shutter speed.

But in some situations, like when I want a series of shots to use the same aperture/shutter speed combination, I use manual mode, where I set both myself.

You are right. I did mean exposure - it was one of the things I had a play with. I was also playing with white balance but found it a bit hard to guess and control so it will stay on auto.

Regarding the exposure do you find that the screen on the camera is not true to form when checking exposure physically with you own eyes straight from the camera?

levyj413

Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max

01/01/2008 03:27:09 AM · #13

Originally posted by Monique64:

Regarding the exposure do you find that the screen on the camera is not true to form when checking exposure physically with you own eyes straight from the camera?

It'll depend on your camera, the lighting when you're looking at it, your own eyes, the brightness setting, etc. In other words, no, it's not reliable. :)

That's where you use the histogram. It's a graph showing how many pixels are each amount of brightness, from pure black on the left edge to pure white on the right edge. Figure out how to turn that on in review and look at it. You want a graph that doesn't show a tall bar either on the far left edge or the right. As you get more comfortable with it, see whether your camera will show you a histogram for each color, and check those, too. Sometimes you can blow out or underexposure one color but leave the others alone, and that might be something you can fix in a new shot.

paddles

Pentax K10D

Pentax FA 50mm f/1.4 AF

01/02/2008 06:20:43 AM · #14

Originally posted by Monique64:

Question 1: What photo settings (ie AV, TV, M, P, etc...;) do photographers leave their camera on and why. (AV? If so what aperature setting)

Most of the time, I use AV so that I can control depth-of-field, and let the camera work out a suitable shutter speed (I do look at the shutter speed though to make sure it's something I can still hold the camera at!). I'll be changing the aperture frequently depending on what I'm shooting, rather than leaving it on a single setting. I do use TV and M at times, but AV most of the time.

Originally posted by Monique64:

I still tend to leave my camera on one of the auto modes such as portrait or landscape but want to venture out to the other settings. I have used the other settings but find that I tend to make errors in guessing ... it tends to be more trial and error.

I see the desire to learn as a good thing, and making mistakes while learning as inevitable but useful. All the auto modes do is make a pre-defined choice (e.g. portrait mode picks a wide aperture, landscape picks a narrow aperture) which is ok, but doesn't let you be more creative (and being genuinely creative means making plenty of mistakes and trying things that turn out not to work so well!).

A couple of exercises that you might find helpful:

1. Find something that is moving at a reasonably constant speed - a child on a swing (photographed from one side), a waterfall, even a line of traffic from the side or an overhead bridge. Put your camera onto TV, and then take photos at different shutter speed settings from, say, 1/500 second to 2 or 4 seconds. Compare the results (use the EXIF information recorded in each photo to see what its shutter speed was) - the first few images will be very static but the later ones will have varying amounts of motion blur.

2. Find a scene where there are lots of definable objects stretching out into the distance - looking along a paling or wrought iron fence or a line of trees or a long flower bed (position yourself near the line and point the camera along it so that you can see both near and far parts), a busy beach (set up your camera looking along the beach parallel to the coast) etc. Put your camera in AV mode and MANUAL focus, zoom your lens to a focal length of around 50mm, focus to a point around 1/4 to 1/2 into the scene (e.g. around 10 yards along a 30 yard fence, or 30 metres along a 100 metre stretch of beach), and then take a sequence of photos at different apertures across the entire range your lens is capable of (e.g. f/2.8 to f/32). Again, compare the results. At the wide apertures (e.g. f/2.8) you'll notice only a small section of the scene is in focus, at the narrow apertures (e.g. f/32) you'll notice that most of the scene is in focus, and the length of area that is in focus (the "depth of field") will vary between those two extremes depending on the aperture.

Originally posted by Monique64:

Question 2: Regarding ~~white balance~~ exposure compensation. ... Also what is the best metering mode to leave the camera in for everyday situations...

I tend to leave the camera on matrix metering most of the time. As for exposure compensation, it took me a long time to get the hang of it (plenty of experimentation and plenty of mistakes!) but it's a lot easier these days with digital cameras. As levyj said, this is where the histogram becomes VERY useful, because it's an objective measure of how the exposure is going to be - dark, light, low or high contrast, etc. It's hard to pick from the LCD screen because the results will depend on the screen, your eyes, the amount of ambient light and who knows what else.

As a rough guide - leave it on zero most of the time. For light scenes that you want to keep light (e.g. snow scenes with lots of white), change the exposure compensation to something positive (e.g. +1). For dark scenes that you want to keep dark, change it to something negative. Do the opposite for dark scenes that you want to brighten a lot, or (rarer) light scenes that you want to darken a lot. Again, experimenting (taking the same scene at different exposure compensation from -2 to +2 and comparing the results) will be useful.

Originally posted by Monique64:

All help will be greatly appreciated.

Asking is the way to learn - and, as they say, for every one person who asks there's probably ten or more people that wanted to ask but felt uncomfortable because they (wrongly) assumed they were the only people who didn't understand.

awpollard

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS

01/02/2008 10:31:15 AM · #15

I've gone from Av to Mostly Full Manual now....

Because and in regards to your exposure question:

In Manual Mode the Light Meter in the Viewfinder on the 20/30/40D is truly a exposure indicator. Keep it near the 0 and I am close to exposed.

In Av/Tv mode the indicator (Canon) is for adjusting Exposure Compensation and only shows what +/- EC you have applied.

Nullix

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

01/02/2008 10:43:57 AM · #16

STANDARD RESPONSE: Dude (actually dudette), you have a digital. Forget those auto settings, go Manual.

Well, maybe not manual, but something besides those presets. For me it's either Av with it wide open or manual.

I'm starting to got manual more and more. When your outside shooting the light doesn't change that much, but the sensor is fooled more times than normal. I just find a setting I like and leave it there.

You would think more pictures are screwed up by using this manual setting, but lighting doesn't change that much when you're outside. And I'm loosing less shots to the sensor being fooled, so my keepers percentage is going up.

Good luck.

Yo_Spiff

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III

Olympus 12-100mm f/4.0 M.Zuiko ED IS PRO

01/02/2008 10:51:27 AM · #17

I almost never use full auto. Most of the time I keep it in program mode, which sets the aperture and shutter speed, but allows control over most everything else. If I am shooting a more difficult scene I will go into aperture or shutter priority. As I gain experience with my camera, I expect I will use those latter modes more often.