Using Nikon's Auto-ISO function on Manual Exposure

jonH · Using Nikon's Auto-ISO function on Manual Exposure

I'm still evaluating stuff like auto iso now that I have a camera that I'm willing to let loose with such an option, and came across this blog entry this morning which may be of interest to some of you

http://sportsphotoguy.com/secret-d300-high-speed-auto-iso-trick

the neepster

Cool - I've just changed my D100 to auto ISO and I'll see what the results are like!

hil26

The reading I ahve done and reports seen suggest to forget Auto iso - but will read the contents on the link and look forward to seeing Jons evaluation

jonH

Both Ruth and I tried it at the weekend and it's not bad, it's just different to my usual way of working (set it to aperture priority, f/2.8 or 3.2 and keep an eye on the shutter speeds, upping the iso as needed)
Towards the end of race meetings at this time of year, I sometimes fail to notice shutter speeds dropping (I'm pretty knackered by 3pm) and so am not running high enough iso so I was definitely interested in trying the option out (for the record, Nikon bodies have had auto iso for a long time, but only now is high iso performance good enough to warrant using it imho)

I'd set a min speed of 1/800th and ruth 1/640th (1/640th in hindsight isnt enough) but in my last race where the light really dropped i hit iso3200, 1/500th, f/2.8 so I still dropped the ball and as a result had a few blurred shots on the last couple of laps.

I'm out of practice as Sunday was my first meeting of the year, so hopefully my brain will be improving over the next couple of meetings but I'm still going to carry on evaluating this technology, as well as the 3D 51-point autofocus malarkey - I used the middle group focus setting on sunday with a high degree of success, Ruth less so.

hil26

Forgot to add that so far I have not had much luck with the 3d tracking - it may be me but cannot figure how to sort out the issue.

Tried using it on seagulls against a blue sky, the focus points were lighting up all over the place but none lit up over the actual gull.

All images were gull out of focus.

Think I must be doing something wrong, so will go back to the drawing board and try again.

jonH

Ruth went back to single point half-way through this weekend's race meeting and was a lot happier. I don't know what she's doing differently to me but she gets far too many shots that are way out of focus

I also went back to single point but i'm more unsure - when using the crosshair option I get shots that are far sharper than with the single point but also get the odd time when everything is way out for no good reason whatsoever.. the single point is generally far more reliable but the results are also generally less impressive.. (they're still good, but not 'omg its f/2.8 and razor sharp!' )

I also tried out the manual mode/auto iso option this week, and it seemed to work well, within the confines of the general shortfalls of reflective metering. Because the lighting was generally consistent all day on sunday, I went back to just shooting manual (1/1000th f/2.8-f/3.2, iso400) and referring to my sekonic incident meter, which (now i've learn to trust the readings) always gives good results Smile

jonH

Just an update on this - I ended up using auto iso all the time, it's fantastic on the D300, but never used it on the D2Xs as the options were far far too limited on that body.

I dropped the 'idiot mode' auto focus and went back to the single point (but with the autofocus using 51-point 3d tracking) but used the idiot mode when shooting subjects coming directly towards me.