John Gerlach Loc: Island Park, Idaho

I just returned from leading about my 40th Kenya photo safari, and used an entirely different shooting mode that is much better than all other methods I have used previously. I have always urged clients not to use aperture priority to avoid the pitfall of letting the shutter speed drop too slow to produce sharp images. That happened a lot in previous trips when the animal must be photographed in seconds, or forget it. Shutter priority was my favorite method for several years, but I would have used ISO Auto if my older Canon cameras has let me compensate the exposure with this setup, but none did. I had devised a more complicated way to use aperture priority this year, and limit the shutter speed to no slower than 1/500 second, but that quickly fell away when I had to use slower shutter speeds due to really dim light. So I went to ISO Auto and manual aperture and shutter speed. By manually setting the aperture and shutter speed, I could lock those in to my desired values, and let the ISO adjust to produce the standard exposure. With the two cameras I had - Canon 1DX Mark II and 5D Mark IV - I could compensate the exposure by pressing the Q button and then adjusting the exposure with the EC control that appears on the LCD. But this was a bit too slow too. Fortunately, I soon discovered I could assign EC to the SET button using the Custom functions menu. That really worked well. Just press and hold the SET button in while rotating the main control dial on top of the camera to set the EC. Since aperture and shutter speed are manual, the EC adjusts the ISO Auto selection to accomplish lighter or darker images. Both the Set button and the main control dial are easy to reach, so it was fast to do it.

I used this system for most of the safari and it always worked fabulously well. Plus, I got most of my clients to use manual aperture and shutter speed, and ISO Auto for the first time in most cases and they loved it. Essentially, when this combination, you have both shutter priority and aperture priority built in to one shooting mode. Most Canon cameras cannot do EC with the combo, but the three being use on my trip certainly could. That includes the 1DX Mark II, 5D Mark IV, and 7D Mark II. Plus, I just checked a friend's Canon 80D camera today in northern Michigan and found that the EC scale would not work when using the Q button to get to it, but if the EC was assigned to the SET button, it did work. Don't know why that is the case, but good to know. I could not make it work with the 70D, however.

With the power Canon is now providing in their cameras for being able to use EC with manual aperture and shutter speed, but AUTO ISO, I now wonder if I will ever bother using Shutter priority or aperture priority again? By the way, to be clear, this exposure mode is an autoexposure mode as the ISO is auto to produce a standard exposure, unless compensated for. So it still has the problem of many situations where the brightness of the background or subject sizes throws the exposure off, so then I would just use manual exposure with no auto ISO. I have heard some find no use for Auto ISO, but I think they should reconsider. To me, at times ISO Auto is just as important as having a lens on my camera. Food for thought......

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John Gerlach

Sunrise near Mara Intrepids Lodge

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Helmeted Guineafowl

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Brown Parrot - Masai Mara

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Crowned Plover

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Woolly-necked Stork

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Roads can be hazardous in the Mara!

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Cheetah with some flash

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CO

That sounds like a good method. I've been using aperture priority almost all of the time except in the studio where I use manual mode. I'll have to try your method of setting in the aperture and shutter speed and letting auto ISO adjust by itself. Nikon DSLR cameras have a data bank of approximately 30,000 images. To arrive at the correct exposure it analyzes images in the data bank to assist in calculating the exposure. I wonder if that is going on in manual mode.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

I have been using manual with Auto ISO for years, I got the method off the net, at least two places I saw it and because my 6D was so good at high ISO I stuck with it and then with my 7DII.

blackest Loc: Ireland

Sounds like you are wanting to use something like The Pentax Hyper-Program mode.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

If you use Auto ISO, you still need to keep an eye on the ISO to make sure it doesn't go too high, and you should have done ISO tests for your camera so you know how much noise you will get as the ISO goes up. It's the same as keeping an eye on the shutter speed when using aperture priority to make sure it doesn't get too low, or keeping an eye on the aperture when you are shooting shutter priority to make sure you have enough DOF.

Cdouthitt Loc: Traverse City, MI

Are they obsolete...in a word...

No.

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

Three words: No, No, No.

tdekany Loc: Oregon

I'm not sure what camera you use, but you can or should be able to limit to upper end when setting up Auto ISO

rjaywallace Loc: Wisconsin

John - I sure hope you are either wrong or just trolling us. I attended a local event this afternoon and took a truck load of photos in Aperture Priority and Auto ISO mode with my Fuji X100F camera. They came out quite well; I'll be posting some samples in the gallery soon. /Ralph

John Gerlach Loc: Island Park, Idaho

I tried using Auto ISO when it first became available on Canon cameras, but there was no way to compensate the exposure until the latest models came out. At the beginning, I did ask Canon to make this possible, and I am sure many other photographers did as well, and they listened and now we have it on the models I mentioned in the post. I think future models will have this as well.

John Gerlach Loc: Island Park, Idaho

I have never seen any point in limiting the upper ISO range. I agree I really don't want to be using ISO 8000, 12,800, etc, but the alternative is underexposed images as the camera only goes that high when it must to reach the standard exposure or the one with EC invoked. Yes, you must monitor the ISO as you shoot, especially in low light. I did that on a hippo that I found grazing in a field at dusk, and had to show the shutter to only 1/200th second, shoot wide open at f/4, and still had ISO 12,000. I have no other choices except don't shoot at all or accept unsharp images from too slow a shutter speed. And most were unsharp at 1/200th second, but if you shoot enough, some are still sharp.

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

If you are serious about your experience, and I don't doubt that you are; the title of your post is overstated. Still, a good topic for discussion.

John Gerlach Loc: Island Park, Idaho

Your camera must work differently than mine. If I used aperture priority and auto ISO, the shutter speed would slow too much before the ISO went up, unless of course you limit the shutter speed to a specific minimum speed ahead of time, exactly what I was planning to do in Kenya. But, soon I found manual aperture and shutter speed with ISO Auto and EC was a faster method so moved on to that. All exposure methods can get you there, but I need both precision and speed. Most methods are a little short on the speed aspect.

John Gerlach Loc: Island Park, Idaho

I wrote the title to get folks to think about things. When a better method comes along, why hang on to old ways that don't work as well. By far, the manual aperture and shutter speed combined with ISO Auto and EC was the best way to do Kenya wildlife. I got all of my clients doing it and they did tremendously well by avoiding the troubles that other modes have as I have already stated. But automatic is in no way the best for all wildlife. If you have changing background or the size of the subject varies considerably from shot to shot, it drives auto wacky unless you had a way to lock the exposure. That is when full manual exposure reigns supreme. I plan to photograph lots of sandhill cranes and snow geese at Bosque this year, and no doubt I will use manual most of the time because the percentage of white in the image from the snow geese and changing tones in the background toss the exposure around too much, when it should not.

John Gerlach Loc: Island Park, Idaho

Good for you! I bet you are happy you can now use EC on the 7D Mark II. Assign the EC control to the SET button and it is all so easy.