Auto ISO seems to be doing something funny on my D80

JulesJ · Nov 12, 2006

Qyuit the bickering and schoolboy comments and i will explain. You can argue about facts but not an opinion and in my opinion auto cameras are for (most of the time, not all) for people either too lazy, or without the knowlege to use their camera manually. Users of old style cameras, even without a meter could take picturese instincively getting not only their exposure correct, but also crafting exactly the image they wanted with the amount of depth and action stopping that they chose.

A lot of the new breed of digital camera owners have not come that route and they stick their cameras on auto and shoot and sometimes produce nice pictures. That to me (in my opinion) is pretty dull. And that is why I prefer to shoot manually even though my cameras have auto features. I feel that I am in control, not my camera.
Jules

torags said:
JulesJ said:

That's why I never use auto ISO.
My motto is why shoot anything auto at all if you have time to set
the camera (and by that I mean aperture, shutter speed and focus).
I hate P and A on cameras, they are mostly for dullards.
Jules

--
Black holes do not destroy information.

Click to expand...

Hmmm... I've recognized myself as a dullard for years. What's your
point?

Judgements like these are not constructive on a forum
that"dullards" frequent - to learn about their equipment.

--
Black holes do not destroy information.

kevm14 · Nov 12, 2006

Brad Morris said:
Thanks for doing the test Bob on The Auto ISO performance. I will
enjoy posting a "I told you so" message in the Nikon Metering Tips
thread to a couple of the guys who told me I I had no idea on what
I was talking about.

Too bad this "evidence" doesn't prove a thing in your defense.

Stephen Best · Nov 12, 2006

JulesJ said:
A lot of the new breed of digital camera owners have not come that
route and they stick their cameras on auto and shoot and sometimes
produce nice pictures. That to me (in my opinion) is pretty dull.
And that is why I prefer to shoot manually even though my cameras
have auto features. I feel that I am in control, not my camera.

You're free to use your camera how you want. However it would be wrong to assume that others don't have perfectly good reasons for using some of the assists that a camera provides. I'm happy to use A mode and Auto ISO because they're labour saving tools that (importantly for me) don't compromise the control I have over the camera and the results I get. It doesn't mean that I don't dial in exposure compensation or check the corresponding shutter speed (and ISO) before taking the shot. Just matching the index in the middle of the exposure readout doesn't make you a better photographer, just slower. Most of my photographic work is with a view camera and handheld spot metering with transparency film and there's no allowance for sloppiness with this, otherwise you waste big money on film/processing. I apply the same rigor to my handheld photography. Maybe you just need to move with the times. Also stop assuming everybody else is a jerk.

Stephen Best · Nov 12, 2006

Bob G-man said:
Here's a sequence of 3, over a space of about 7 minutes. The
settings change as follows:

ISO 200 1/500
ISO 800 1/2500
ISO 500 1/4000

Well, it doesn't work that way for me. The only thing I found disconcerting with Auto ISO is that changing exposure compensation occasionally left the aperture/shutter speed the same but checking the file the compensation was made by adjusting the ISO instead ... as designed. Yours however sounds like abnormal behaviour and it may be worthwhile taking it back to the shop to get them to check it out, or explain what's happening. After being initially conservative, I just now let the ISO range up to 1600. It's a great feature and I would expect most digicams to adopt this, unless Nikon has a patent on it. It won't work miracles in low light though. People (not just dullards) need to give it a try.

raymondox · Nov 12, 2006

I ahve lsitened to the arguments about using auto everyhting vs manual everything. I have used an SLR for 30 years and have used everything frmo full maunual to full auto point and shoot.

I prefer to use programme mode and set ISO to the lowest setting, or use A mode so I have control over depth of field and the sweet spot on each lens.

What poeple seem to forget is that with modern cameras each camera has a large library of shots which it compares against in full ISO so it learns which are the best settings to use. People may argue this is not the best way to use the camera but the fact remains this is a feature of modern digital cameras, so the camera does not just use the metering system to set itself up it also uses a comparison of other pictures to set the best settings. This may well explain why there are differnences.

--
Bluenose

Brad Morris · Nov 12, 2006

the Auto ISO certainly appears to be a bit of a lottery and completely inconsistent doesn't it?

Bob G-man said:
I'd be happy to.

I took a bunch of shots, but only pp'd a few. They were really
only to test out the auto ISO, and not anything I was going to be
too proud of otherwise.

Here's a sequence of 3, over a space of about 7 minutes. The
settings change as follows:

ISO 200 1/500
ISO 800 1/2500
ISO 500 1/4000

(no pp at all)

What's it doing. I didn't even move my feet?

Maybe they haven't quite refined this feature yet. Maybe I got a
bum camera. I'll post what I hear (read) from Nikon. I've emailed
'em.

Thanks,

Bob

Brad Morris said:

Bob could you please post some Auto ISO samples to illustrate the
strange behavior

Click to expand...

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/k-blad/

Brad Morris · Nov 12, 2006

That the meter is working OK but has slightly different characteristics to D70, Auto ISO is flaky and seems to pick an ISO at random, default curves in camera boosts midtones exposure more than D70 and makes it easier to blow highlights?

I don't have to defend anything, the facts speak for themselves. you continue to believe what you like though

kevm14 said:
Brad Morris said:

Thanks for doing the test Bob on The Auto ISO performance. I will
enjoy posting a "I told you so" message in the Nikon Metering Tips
thread to a couple of the guys who told me I I had no idea on what
I was talking about.

Click to expand...

Too bad this "evidence" doesn't prove a thing in your defense.

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/k-blad/

kevm14 · Nov 12, 2006

Brad Morris said:
the Auto ISO certainly appears to be a bit of a lottery and
completely inconsistent doesn't it?

This is NOT the correct behavior of auto ISO and should NOT be used in your case against it.

Brad Morris · Nov 12, 2006

As it is so inconsistant, I think that the Auto ISO performance has to be a firmware bug.
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/k-blad/

Brad Morris · Nov 12, 2006

for once we agree with each other.

the Auto ISO performance here is similar to the man in the shop samples in the other thread. The camera is setting crazy Auto ISO numbers and effecting the exposure
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/k-blad/

kevm14 · Nov 12, 2006

Brad Morris said:
As it is so inconsistant, I think that the Auto ISO performance has
to be a firmware bug.

Yeah something is seriously wrong here. We can agree on the fact that, if he doesn't get the camera fixed or the issue straightened out, he shouldn't continue to use Auto ISO under those conditions.

But seriously - the Auto ISO on my D70s works fine, just as I'd expect. I set it to ISO200 and it boosts itself only when the shutter dips below the threshold that I have set, which happens to be 1/30th.

I can assure you that NONE of my 5600 shots have the ISO higher than 200 (when I didn't set it to be) if the shutter speed was at or above 1/30th (or wherever I set it).

kevm14 · Nov 12, 2006

Brad Morris said:
for once we agree with each other.

the Auto ISO performance here is similar to the man in the shop
samples in the other thread. The camera is setting crazy Auto ISO
numbers and effecting the exposure

You know what I think? I think auto ISO has such a bad reputation not because of this thread (because this behavior is not typical, and never has been), but because Auto ISO isn't terribly useful in Manual mode. You may ask, so what? Well, more advanced users pride themselves on their heavy use of M mode (I use it when appropriate - when I need to control shutter speed for blur and aperture for depth of field, at the same time - otherwise it's just more work for no gain). So if auto ISO doesn't work in M mode, and "real photographers" use M mode, then Auto ISO must suck. I honestly think that's where the stigma came from, and it's really not justified at all.

Brad Morris · Nov 12, 2006

D70, D50, D200 etc all seem to work fine with Auto ISO. The results are at least consistent and I have no problem at all if people want to use it. It can be handy in bad light to boost exposure and minimize the noise while hand holding as it will use the lowest ISO possible to get to a minimum shutter speed.

Based on this and the other thread, unlike the older models, The D80 does not behave consistency when using Auto ISO settings and is part of the reason why the D80 is being labeled as a camera that over exposes. There seems to be a definite disconnect between what the meter is reading and what ISO the camera pics when left to it's own devices

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/k-blad/

Brad Morris · Nov 12, 2006

This is not the only D80 camera showing this auto ISO "feature". I think that there will only be a resolution when there is a Firmware update
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/k-blad/

Bob G-man · Nov 12, 2006

I'll be real interested in hearing (reading?) what they have to say. I'll post the resolution.

I feel kind of good in that this is very documentable. In fact, I didn't go ut out of my way to pick a good sample. I could probably come up with a wackier sequence of pics. I shot about 80, in a short amount of time, and they were really all over the place. ISOs ranged from about 280-800, and shutter speeds from 1/500 to 1/4000.

For the sake of everyone else, I hope it's just my camera and they can fix it. That will happen faster than a firmware fix, I fear.

I think the worst case would be some inherent limitation in the way auto ISO works. I used flash a few times. Maybe that screws it up, even when the flash goes down.

But I drive a car with an automatic, even though real drivers use a stick, and this seems like a helpful feature too. I'd like to see it work well.

Bob

kevm14 · Nov 12, 2006

Bob G-man said:
I'll be real interested in hearing (reading?) what they have to
say. I'll post the resolution.

I feel kind of good in that this is very documentable. In fact, I
didn't go ut out of my way to pick a good sample. I could probably
come up with a wackier sequence of pics. I shot about 80, in a
short amount of time, and they were really all over the place.
ISOs ranged from about 280-800, and shutter speeds from 1/500 to
1/4000.

For the sake of everyone else, I hope it's just my camera and they
can fix it. That will happen faster than a firmware fix, I fear.

I think the worst case would be some inherent limitation in the way
auto ISO works. I used flash a few times. Maybe that screws it
up, even when the flash goes down.

For me, this is just one more thorn in the D80's metering.

morris · Nov 12, 2006

It is great that you have documented this and contacted Nikon. You may be on to the mistory of what is causing some people to have lots of problems. I'm shore they will work this out.

Morris
--

http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/~morris/POD

Bob G-man · Nov 12, 2006

Thanks Morris,

I don't know if this is parat of the mystery. I figure if it was happening a lot, someone would have noticed it earlier.

I have a feeling there won't be new firmware right away. It would be a little embarrassing for Nikon. But eventually.

I went back to spot metering today and it was just like old times. Pictures were a little dark with no EC. It was great.

I'll keep you ...er...posted.

Bob

JulesJ · Nov 13, 2006

Maybe you just need to move with the times. Also stop
assuming everybody else is a jerk.

Stephen, apart from those two qualities I also like to write and produce reaction in this staid world of tv watchers and computer games players.

I think I'm quite good at that, what do you think? There are those that stand on the dges and never contribute to discussion.
Jules

Stephen Best said:
JulesJ said:

A lot of the new breed of digital camera owners have not come that
route and they stick their cameras on auto and shoot and sometimes
produce nice pictures. That to me (in my opinion) is pretty dull.
And that is why I prefer to shoot manually even though my cameras
have auto features. I feel that I am in control, not my camera.

Click to expand...

You're free to use your camera how you want. However it would be
wrong to assume that others don't have perfectly good reasons for
using some of the assists that a camera provides. I'm happy to use
A mode and Auto ISO because they're labour saving tools that
(importantly for me) don't compromise the control I have over the
camera and the results I get. It doesn't mean that I don't dial in
exposure compensation or check the corresponding shutter speed (and
ISO) before taking the shot. Just matching the index in the middle
of the exposure readout doesn't make you a better photographer,
just slower. Most of my photographic work is with a view camera and
handheld spot metering with transparency film and there's no
allowance for sloppiness with this, otherwise you waste big money
on film/processing. I apply the same rigor to my handheld
photography. Maybe you just need to move with the times. Also stop
assuming everybody else is a jerk.

--
Black holes do not destroy information.

Leon Obers · Nov 13, 2006

If the camera / matrix metering can recognise this as a "sun set" I can imagine this typical behaviour. From previous Nikon DSLR's is known that a relative long exposure time under typicall sun set high amount light condition's do give "blooming" errors around pixels (leaking data to surrounding pixels). It is recommended to use as much short exposure time to avoid that problem.

Try a search at Thom Hogans website for more information about this fenomene or at "Google".

--
Leon Obers

In cases of e-mail sending messages, exchange 'invalid.cc' domain name within the profile e-mail adress by 'fotograaf.cc' (detour to avoid SPAM).

Auto ISO seems to be doing something funny on my D80

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