What setting would you use?

[claybreaker]

Suppose you're in Rome on vacation with the family. As you tour the city, your photography may range from street photography to landscape to stills to portraits because there's so much to see. You're taking pics of everything: your kids eating gelato while walking in the street, sculptures, the colluseum, architecture, the leggy brunette in the miniskirt getting out of a Ferrari in front of the Jumeira Grand Hotel. It's crowded and the there's not much time to goof with camera settings so you set the camera on an auto or semi-auto setting. What is your preferred autofocus area? Center spot focus? Wide focus? Both have their advantages, but what would you choose?

 

[Martin.au]

Neither. I'd use mysets.

 

[JoePhoto]

Suppose you're in Rome on vacation with the family. As you tour the city, your photography may range from street photography to landscape to stills to portraits because there's so much to see. You're taking pics of everything: your kids eating gelato while walking in the street, sculptures, the colluseum, architecture, the leggy brunette in the miniskirt getting out of a Ferrari in front of the Jumeira Grand Hotel. It's crowded and the there's not much time to goof with camera settings so you set the camera on an auto or semi-auto setting. What is your preferred autofocus area? Center spot focus? Wide focus? Both have their advantages, but what would you choose?

The FZ-1000 has a "pin-point"-focus mode. (and do I need to describe further where the "pin-point" would be ??? --- oh and I would crank in +3 EC because it can be "dark" in there)

 

[Mike CH]

Actually, I am most likely to be in A mode, as usual. I have enough controls on my camera to able to adjust to different light situations (aperture, ISO) relatively fast, and I use back-button focusing.

But then I am not a millisecond-to-millisecond photographer anyway, a couple of seconds to adjust the settings doesn't matter to me.

Regards, Mike

 

[brianj]

Suppose you're in Rome on vacation with the family. As you tour the city, your photography may range from street photography to landscape to stills to portraits because there's so much to see. You're taking pics of everything: your kids eating gelato while walking in the street, sculptures, the colluseum, architecture, the leggy brunette in the miniskirt getting out of a Ferrari in front of the Jumeira Grand Hotel. It's crowded and the there's not much time to goof with camera settings so you set the camera on an auto or semi-auto setting. What is your preferred autofocus area? Center spot focus? Wide focus? Both have their advantages, but what would you choose?

I travel like this all the time, and use one set of carefully tested settings on a P&S camera.

I won't tell you my actual settings as they only apply to similair cameras, but I would shoot 1000s of shots at home getting the internal camera settings just right so it delivers a perfect jpg straight from the camera all the time, take a 1000 shots and get 1000 decent photos. Of course the content may be no use, but the technical aspects will be spot on.

The basic idea is this, starting with P mode, I basically create my own AUTO mode:

For all parameters the camera needs to be automated, so AUTO - WB, ISO, exposure, DR, and so on. But for each thing like say DR then I have set DR expansion (Icontrast) to AUTO, so every image is automatically set to the correct DR for the scene. As this lowers the apparent contrast, I increase this in camera to compensate.

I use Centre Weighted Average metering on my camera because with my brand that setting winds back the exposure most for scenes that contain small bright objects like clouds in the sun, so no blown highlights, and the DR expansion lifts the shadows as well so a well balanced tone curve.

This is an example of what you bring home in the situations you describe:

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/5128303546/albums/cruising

Brian

 

[Mond]

By default I set my cameras (Nikon D7100 & D610) to centre-weighted. Overriding these settings is quick and easy, learn where the button is so you do not have to take your eye off the subject.

Make use of the Exposure lock, too. Again with these cameras it is simple to preset up to two setting modes using U1 and U2.

Can't speak for other cameras but high-end manufacturers will have something similar. If in doubt use aperture priority with matrix as it is more important to get the shot than to faff around. It enjoy.

 

[steephill]

I use RAW for maximum flexibility in processing when I get home. I use Lightroom for processing with specific defaults for each camera so I can churn out jpgs for quick web uploads in seconds.

I shoot aperture priority, watch shutter speed if it gets low, use centre focus with AE and AF linked. I mainly use base ISO but have ISO available on the front control dial so changes are quick and easy. My cameras have a green button which gives a quick reset to program line recommendations that is a convenient way to minimise setting errors.

If I need other settings then I take the time to set these.

 

[olybrit]

Suppose you're in Rome on vacation with the family. As you tour the city, your photography may range from street photography to landscape to stills to portraits because there's so much to see. You're taking pics of everything: your kids eating gelato while walking in the street, sculptures, the colluseum, architecture, the leggy brunette in the miniskirt getting out of a Ferrari in front of the Jumeira Grand Hotel. It's crowded and the there's not much time to goof with camera settings so you set the camera on an auto or semi-auto setting. What is your preferred autofocus area? Center spot focus? Wide focus? Both have their advantages, but what would you choose?

Like Martin.au, I have Mysets as the basis.

E-p5 with Lumix 12-32 gives pocketable, flexible combo, with 17 & 45 1.8 in another pocket when needed.

Myset 1 ("Walkabout" iauto on Mode dial) = P mode; ISO/WB auto; IS/face rec off; iesp metering; Fn button = AEL, metering = spot; focus target small central single; magnify button = DTC; pic mode 1 ienhance.

I also have My set 2 - "Portrait" and 3 - "Action" on the Mode Dial.

Cheers, Paul

 

[Tom Axford]

Suppose you're in Rome on vacation with the family. As you tour the city, your photography may range from street photography to landscape to stills to portraits because there's so much to see. You're taking pics of everything: your kids eating gelato while walking in the street, sculptures, the colluseum, architecture, the leggy brunette in the miniskirt getting out of a Ferrari in front of the Jumeira Grand Hotel. It's crowded and the there's not much time to goof with camera settings so you set the camera on an auto or semi-auto setting. What is your preferred autofocus area? Center spot focus? Wide focus? Both have their advantages, but what would you choose?

I would normally set face-detect focus mode if I was expecting to take many images with people fairly close to the camera, otherwise matrix (multi-point) mode, both of which seem to work well most of the time.

 

[Mark Smith145430]

Take one hand held lightmeter reading, manual everything and just snap away.

 

[miles green]

And RAW mode, AF-C, rear button AF only, Single AF pont in the center but ready to change, Auto WB. Av mode during the day, auto-ISO when the light gets dimmer and shutter speed becomes an issue at f/8. Actually that might become f/wide-open at night.

 

[claybreaker]

My question was directed toward what autofocus area people would use and so far it seems that center point autofocus would be used more than whole-scene autofocus (or zone autofocus or custom-point autofocus).

 

[claybreaker]

Take one hand held lightmeter reading, manual everything and just snap away.

So you would use manual focus. Interesting.

 

[yardcoyote]

Aperture priority, center point focus, with the goal of keeping my aperture small enough to allow plenty of depth of field for focus and recompose.

 

[JoePhoto]

Suppose you're in Rome on vacation with the family. As you tour the city, your photography may range from street photography to landscape to stills to portraits because there's so much to see. You're taking pics of everything: your kids eating gelato while walking in the street, sculptures, the colluseum, architecture, the leggy brunette in the miniskirt getting out of a Ferrari in front of the Jumeira Grand Hotel. It's crowded and the there's not much time to goof with camera settings so you set the camera on an auto or semi-auto setting. What is your preferred autofocus area? Center spot focus? Wide focus? Both have their advantages, but what would you choose?

The FZ-1000 has a "pin-point"-focus mode. (and do I need to describe further where the "pin-point" would be ??? --- oh and I would crank in +3 EC because it can be "dark" in there)

No one else noticed the "leggy brunette in the miniskirt getting out ..." ???

Oh well, I guess it was just me.

So maybe I should just cancel that "pin"-point AF (and +3 EC).

Because I WOULD HAVE had my camera set on "S/Tv" priority (shutter-priority) prior to my FZ-1000 because a "un-shaky" image is the most important factor. (More photos are ruined due to being unsharp than poor "sensor"-IQ.)

I would also have fixed-WB set, ("Sunlight" if appropriate), because a very strong-color subject can be defeated w/ auto-WB.

I usually use center-weighted metering (but often with +/- 2/3 stop auto-bracketing), and center-box AF, (because I want to know exactly what I am focusing on -- I usually half-press and reframe before exposure if necessary but usually "center" is what I want in-focus anyway).

But note that since I got the FZ-1000, I am now more often simply in "P" mode because w/ its 5-axis IS, I don't have to worry so much about shutter-speed. (never had an un-sharp image yet)

But of course I also still use manual mode quite often.

 

[BAK]

I would set the camera on P for Professional, automatic white balance, center-point autofocus with the ability to move to other settings, clickety-click instead of single shot, Servo version of autofocus, ISO 400 probably on a nice day, RAW + JPEG, no "regular" exposure compensation, minus 2/3 flash exposure compensation on the built-in flash when I need to fill in some shadows.

Camera is a T1i, which unfortunately is broken, but if I win a trip to Rome, I'd probably buy a Canon 70D, and set it the same way.

BAK

 

[Tom Axford]

I would set the camera on P for Professional, automatic white balance, center-point autofocus with the ability to move to other settings, clickety-click instead of single shot, Servo version of autofocus, ISO 400 probably on a nice day, RAW + JPEG, no "regular" exposure compensation, minus 2/3 flash exposure compensation on the built-in flash when I need to fill in some shadows.

Camera is a T1i, which unfortunately is broken, but if I win a trip to Rome, I'd probably buy a Canon 70D, and set it the same way.

BAK

What mode is P for Professional?

All my cameras have a P mode on the dial on top of the camera, but P stands for Programme (according to the manuals). Are you referring to this or something else?

 

[carlvalle com]

everybody is using auto WB?

Not me - I dont PP and i set color balance like daylight or Kelvin

I do this so that my sunrise and sunset shot don't go blue, and so that colors come out as they really are.

I also shoot in Pro Mode and often a bit darker like -1ev

 

[yardcoyote]

I start with Auto WB, check a few shots every once in a while (or whenever I change the situation). If Auto is working, I leave it, if it isn't, I change it.

 

[claybreaker]

I would set the camera on P for Professional, automatic white balance, center-point autofocus with the ability to move to other settings, clickety-click instead of single shot, Servo version of autofocus, ISO 400 probably on a nice day, RAW + JPEG, no "regular" exposure compensation, minus 2/3 flash exposure compensation on the built-in flash when I need to fill in some shadows.

Camera is a T1i, which unfortunately is broken, but if I win a trip to Rome, I'd probably buy a Canon 70D, and set it the same way.

BAK

What mode is P for Professional?

All my cameras have a P mode on the dial on top of the camera, but P stands for Programme (according to the manuals). Are you referring to this or something else?

Say it aint so!! The only 'professional' photographer that I know of that refers to Program Mode as 'professional mode" is none other than everybody's favorite... Ken Rockwell.

I'm no pro, but I rarely shoot in Program mode. To me, it relinquished too much control to the camera. Even when I'm not too concerned about DoF, I want to control the aperture so I'm working in the "sweet spot" of the lens. I want to avoid corner unsharpness at the wide-open end and diffraction at the stopped-down end. It seems to me that pros would be even more sensitive to this, making Program mode anything but 'professional mode' for most photographic endeavors. Maybe I'm missing something.