jerrypoller Loc: Huntington, NY

I shoot with a D610 and f/2.8 zoom lenses. I shoot in Manual mode with Auto ISO. My photography is at family functions or vacation, both indoors and outdoors, with the subjects usually moving (not posed). I usually try and find a spot where I can swing my camera in a 360 degree arc to get candid pics of what's going on around me without drawing too much attention to myself. So the light is often coming from in front or behind me from shot to shot. I struggle with getting my settings right so I can freeze the movement and still get the correct exposure. If I'm shooting people, I try to use as open an aperture as possible and a shutter speed of at least 90 to 125. For landscape and architecture, I try for f/8 or higher and whatever shutter speed will give me a good exposure. The trouble I find myself in often is not having enough time to adjust my settings for the light/movement changes while my subjects are moving or I'm just trying to keep up with the group I'm with on vacation. Today I had a thought of bracketing all my shots to try and solve the exposure issue. I'd like to hear from those who do a lot of street or candid photography and how you get the right camera settings in a hurry to avoid missing a great shot. Thanks as always.

Meives Loc: FORT LAUDERDALE

It is alway better to experiment before an event. If you can post some shots here and click on "store original" then ask for help you will get specific advise on camera settings. David

DaveMM Loc: Port Elizabeth, South Africa

I am sure others will correct me, but surely if the ISO is on Auto then you are, in fact, asking the camera to automatically expose by adjusting the ISO. So it is not really manual.

Do you save in RAW format, as this gives you a lot of latitude to adjust exposure, white balance and other things to compensate for not being able to get exactly the right settings. Right in camera is best, but where this is not possible RAW is a good second.

RJNaylor Loc: Delmar, New York

I also like to shoot manual but sometimes use shutter or aperture mode in order to cut down on the time needed to adjust. That way I can just adjust iso or exposure compensation to handle back light -- but I also shoot spot metering to minimize the effects of the changing backgrounds.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

You'll need to standardize of a configuration for "walk around" conditions.

Note that with "landscape and architecture" you almost always do have time to adjust. So that isn't a consideration. The problems arise from dynamic situations: wildlife and people are commonly where the problem is. Since you didn't mention wildlife, perhaps your target for a default configuration should be based on people pictures.

Hence, the 1/90 to 1/125 shutter speed and maybe f/3.5 or f/4 depending on your lens. And AutoISO with a limit as high as you can tolerate, while the ISO is set to 100. That might depend at least slightly on your style and your lenses. For example, I typically shoot at the longer end of a 24-120mm f/4. A 24-70 f/2.8 just won't do what I need, so a higher zoom range and the compromises that brings with it have to be accepted to avoid carrying two cameras with two lenses all the time. I tend to set it at f/5 or f/5.6, and limit ISO at 10000.

The next point to be ready to deal with is quick adjustment of exposure. With AutoISO enabled you can use Exposure Compensation, along with either center weighted or spot metering. But the main trick is have the RGB histograms and the blinking highlight display enabled and active by default. Every click of the shutter is immediately followed by a glance at the histogram to see if an adjustment and re-shoot is necessary or not.

And always shoot RAW with AutoWB enabled too.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

That's almost a trick question!

Everybody thinks of ISO as something that changes exposure. It doesn't!

Exposure is technically the number of photons that hit the sensor. The shutter time and the lens aperture are the only things that adjust exposure! So "Manual Exposure" mode literally means manually setting both shutter speed and aperture. Auto ISO is totally separate from controlling the exposure!

What ISO actually does is control the brightness of the signal captured by the sensor, and makes whatever "exposure" that has been set into a "correct" exposure.

But, technically correct or not, it is easiest to think of ISO as part of exposure and to think of Auto ISO as another exposure mode. It is that in effect!

DaveMM Loc: Port Elizabeth, South Africa

As an engineer I agree that you are technically correct. The ISO sets the amplification needed to boost the analog signal before it is digitised. As a photographer, however, I think of the exposure triangle, being aperture, shutter speed and ISO, change to any one of which requires change to at least one other to obtain an identically exposed result.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

You need a reality check on that idea though! It's the easy way to look at it, but if you ever go beyond the absolute bare basics, it doesn't hold up.

Here's the reality check: Nikon does not ever, anywhere, at any time, suggest or hint that AutoISO changes exposure or is an "exposure mode". That is only the domain of modes that change either aperture or shutter speed.

Wellll, in one round about way they do! Exposure Compensation is very poorly named because it re-calibrates the exposure meter (which isn't an exposure meter, but a light meter). But EC controls the light meter than controls AutoISO. Terms of Art... should not be taken seriously as defining things by dictionary definitions. :-)

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

[quote=Apaflo]
"Every click of the shutter is immediately followed by a glance at the histogram to see if an adjustment and re-shoot is necessary or not."

Oh....I'm sorry;
I thought you were talking about street photography.

Rely on re-shooting for improved exposure? That's the difference between shooting a "street scene and a " street moment"

Sounds like a tactic of a street-photographer-wannabe!
I suggest reviewing the concept of "The Decisive Moment"

As one with far more experience in failures at street photography than successes I can attest that exposure has not been my problem; it has invariably been failure to capture the moment. A need to "...glance at the histogram" would be a priori evidence of failure to capture the moment. When the protagonist is, himself, distracted from "the moment" and glances at the lens with a "whattayou lookin' at?" expression you've left the realm of "street" and made an amateur's snapshot.

A well-exposed image made a moment too late is but a well-exposed failure.

Just the perspective of an admirer of excellence in street photography.

Dave in SD

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Sort of misses the whole point though.

The OP asked about exposure, not about decisive moments. He asked how he can shoot family functions or vacations, not Street. But he did rightly assume that a well practiced Street Photographer would know the answers to his needs.

However, lets discuss Street, not family and vacations shots.

Lets recall that "the decisive moment" is a phrase coined by Henri Cartier-Bresson... who was well known for setting up a shot, including taking all the time in the world to find the correct exposure, and then waiting for that moment to happen.

That is not different today, except HCB used film and had to rely on a relatively simple exposure meter, while today the best exposure meter a Street Photographer has is the high tech histogram/highlight display on the camera. If one should, for example, spot a spiral staircase that frames the perfect place for a passing courier on a bicycle today the procedure would be to shoot a couple of test shots to get the exposure right, then wait just as patiently as HCB did in his day.

When just strolling in an area where a grab shot is likely, nothing there has changed either. HCB, Winogrand, and everyone except maybe Bruce Gilden with his flash/ambush style, necessarily took the time to determine the most likely valid exposure. They then had to watch where they pointed the camera in case lighting changed. Same today, except they had to check different lighting with an external exposure meter that took much more time than is required today. Plus today the quick check after each exposure is, in an instant, a setup for what might be expected for the next exposure.

If you are missing decisive moments you probably should watch a few of the fabulous videos of Winogrand or Meyerowitz working. Nobody ever looks for the decisive moment in reality. They look for the next shot. Something they haven't shot already, something that might be interesting when seen in a photograph. If they've already seen it photographed it isn't interesting, and if they haven't, they don't yet know what it will look like. That's the reason to photograph it!

And they shoot again and again and again as life rolls on. Winogrand even pointed out he purposely waited until the emotion of the shoot, and memory of each exposure, was long since forgotten before he would edit a contract sheet. (Heck, he usually didn't know what was on the roll by the time he developed it.)

There is a pretty fair divide between being an admirer of Street Photography and being a practitioner of Street. I am both. I admire virtually any kind of Street, even the styles that I never intend to emulate. It's like all other forms of photography in that my likes and dislike (yours too) are not what defines "good photography".

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

[quote=Apaflo]
The OP asked about exposure, not about decisive moments.

You're right.
Sorry to have had my attention diverted inappropriately to street photography.

Dave

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Even so, it is an interesting topic, and is at least closely related. :-)

jerrypoller Loc: Huntington, NY

Thanks for the shutter speed, aperture, and metering suggestions - since all my lenses are either f/1.8 or f/2.8, I'll give your "standard" settings a try next time I'm behind the camera.

Also, is there any merit to shooting with bracketing, at either 1/2 stop or 1 full stop on either side of the camera's "0" meter setting?

It means 3 pics of each shot, and the potential for facial expressions to change slightly between shots, but static landscape/architecture won't suffer that problem.

davidrb Loc: Half way there on the 45th Parallel

Please produce an image you have recorded without using ISO.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

That doesn't make sense. The point is that changing ISO does not change the number of photons captured by the sensor. It changes the brightness level associated with a given number of photons.

Exposure is the number photons, not the brightness level of the digital data recorded. Technically it is defined by a formula:

H = E * t

Where H is exposure, E is illuminance and t is time. (A formula that can be found in virtually any good physics text.)

Here are several references that clear say exactly that.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/E/exposure.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_(photography)
http://www.idigitalphoto.com/dictionary/exposure
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/exposure

However! If you feel confused, don't feel bad about it because there are many tutorials and sources of information that describe it incorrectly by not making the distinction between ISO and exposure. Here is an example of exactly that by a source that definitely should know better:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-exposure.htm