The Weekly Collegial Show Your Photos Starting 9 September 2024 Any Brand

Steve,

Before Photobygms answers I would guess he was thinking he needed a higher ISO level because of all the clouds. But with white snow the camera senses that it is brighter. So, the higher shutter speed was probably picked by the camera because of that. Anyway, that's my guess. Then he's taking lots of pictures, observing all the sights and scenes and probably wasn't thinking about what shutter speed was taken at the time. That's another guess. 😀 I've done that often when I'm out hiking. I take the pictures and then later see on the computer that I didn't need that fast of a shutter speed, or ISO level etc. Sometimes I'll take a picture using autoISO and I'll see the photo is at something like ISO3200 in the camera and then I'll often reduce the shutter speed so I can lower that ISO level. But then sometimes I'll be taking so many photos that I don't see it right away. These full frame cameras tolerate a lot. Your ISO levels can be quite high and with his camera he probably can take them as high as 1/8000th of a second. I rarely go over 1/2000th of a second, unless I'm at an air show or taking pictures of birds in flight etc. All my cameras that I routinely use are limited to 1/4000th of a second.

Dig,

I will let Photobygms answer, but if the Exif data can be believed, he's not using that high an ISO - 400 at best, but with f stops at high as f/10, like I said, his shutter speeds are off the charts - 1/4000 and 1/6400ths of a second. I just wondered how he managed that, especially in low-light situations.

Steve Thomas.

Well Dig is right for most of the time 😋
I tend to keep the ISO fixed just like in the old days with film. normally you would shoot a the ISO/ASA/DIN specified by the manufacturer.
I still use the ISO setting in the digital cameras the same way
ISO 100 of lower when it's sunny and bright light/weather
400 to 1600 at cloudy darker days and the higher ISOs at night or in dark environments.
The photos in question,we started at 400 it turned out to be brighter but kept it at 400 (but both the camera's will lower the ISO (safety shifts when in AV or TV mode)

And we are only human we sometimes forget the ISO setting and start shooting in white-out conditions we had today with ISO 800😕
I'll post some more snow photos later today, They got about 25cm fresh snow at 1500m and up last night.😎

Steve,

You have a valid point to question the high shutter speeds. I hope we were able to explain it well to you.

I don't take a lot of pictures of snow, but when I do, I get surprising results. It's my understanding his camera picked those shutter speeds. I normally like my camera to pick the ISO levels so I can control the depth of field and shutter speed. That's why I get crazy high ISO levels sometimes. What our eye/brain sees and what the camera "sees" can be so far apart that it is astonishing (and it can be much more when there's snow). So sometimes when I get crazy high ISO photos and I see what the camera reports, then I may make changes to the aperture, focal length and/or shutter speed to bring the ISO level down (and still get the nice photo I want). But at the time when I took the picture (that is, the first time), I had no idea that it required a ISO level that high. That's just the way that I do it and Photobygms apparently does it differently, at least in this case. Again (unless I'm wrong) I believe that his camera picked those high shutter speeds. But his photos are excellent and I suppose in the end, that's all that really matters.

Thank you for questioning those shutter speeds. It may be helpful for yourself and others to understand, that sometimes we do things that are extreme, but it's often because we are so busy and forget that and the camera is so "forgiving". It can "forgive" a lot because now our ISO levels and shutter speeds can be so high with the modern cameras that we have today.

If you can, you might want to purchase a full frame digital camera (that is somewhat modern and better than the camera you are using, in terms of ISO levels and shutter speeds etc.) and play around with it. I got an inexpensive Canon RP, but there are a lot of other used ones available that could be affordable. I could purchase another one, but I already have six that I'm using (excluding my new phone camera). I'd love to get a Canon R8 camera...next a Canon 90D or Canon R7. I'm going to watch the Black Friday sales this autumn. Then there's tons of lenses we could purchase too. I'd like to get that Canon RF 24-240mm lens for example. It's not top-of-the-line, but it's versatile and it didn't look too large to me when I saw it at a store.

Now, if we get all of this "stuff" we have to remind ourselves to use them and share the photos with everyone. Otherwise they are "closet trophies" and collect dust. 😀 Make mistakes, accidentally have the wrong settings...it's all good if you like what you are doing and you enjoy the images. 😀

@Digirame the RF24-240 is not a bad lens, it is a very good lens actually (albeit not a L but how cares).
It does surprise us every-time again when we use them (we do have two so we don't have to fight)😂
But seriously I like the 10x zoom range and it does deliver very good pictures and has that very quick NANO USM focusing.
And as you mention it not that big and heavy.Ideal for the moments you do want reach and don't want to carry lot of gear.
The 24-240 is a nice match with the RF16mm.

Offtopic add on:
I'm also interested in the new RF F2.8 28-70 IS STM, according to Canon and early reviews it does have many L characteristics (like weather sealing) without the red band and price 😊 and it also is a small one

And as promised a few snow photos.
with up to 25cm fresh snow at Grindelwald-First www.jungfrau.ch/en-gb/grindelwaldfirst/ we did enjoy the time and snow during a short stroll

Photobygms,

That's funny...that you got two of them so you don't fight. 😀 But it's so true...spend the extra money for two of them...keep peace in the family...that's more important to keep everyone happy. 😀 Thank you again for your recommendation to get the Canon RF 24-240mm lens. 😀

Photobygms,

That's amazing that you were able to see that much snow this early in the season. After all, it's technically still summer. I really like that you are showing us these interesting pictures. I enjoyed especially seeing all of that fresh snow on the trees.

I guess the snow threw me off. It must have been brighter than I thought.

I went outside on a slightly cloudy day and set my camera to the same settings: ISO 400, ss speed of 1/4000 and an aperture of f/10.
All I got was a black picture.

Steve

Steve,

That's because it was all manual and you did not have exactly what Photobygms had in Switzerland. Set the aperture (F-stop) and the ISO level and let the camera pick the shutter speed. Now, try to create a situation where the camera selects a high shutter speed. Play around with it long enough so it does that. 😀 The camera is going to give you a good picture, or at least try to do so under normal circumstances. So it makes the shutter speed to be what it has to be for a nice well-exposed image.

Dig,

That's how I usually take pictures these days. I use Manual with a set aperture and an ISO of 100, and adjust my shutter speed until the meter 0's out. If the shutter speed gets too too low, I'll up the ISO.

I tried Manual with Auto ISO for a little while, but on my camera at least, I thought the camera was picking ISO's that were too high, and my pictures were looking washed out. I could use Exposure compensation, but felt I'd be spending too much time fiddling with the adjustments.

Lately, I've been experimenting with 1-point focusing in Live View with Center weighted average metering.
1-point is slightly larger than Spot AF, and is roughly the same size as the area of Center weighted averaging.
That makes your focus area roughly the same size as your metering, and is easier to envision what your picture is going too look like.

That will work as long as my subject is in the center of my frame, but if it's off center, or if it's strongly backlit, like for a silhouette, I'll have to use a different approach.

Steve Thomas

I always spot focus and meter with what I want in the centre, and then recompose. There's probably a word for this, but I dont know what it is!

David

Here in Europe, the weather has really turned wintery, with snow in Austria above 1000 metres. We have about a week of rain forecast, and the wind gusts nearly blew me over yesterday. I decided that there would not be anything to photograph in such weather, but at the last minute slipped the little Sony into my bag.

I found these in the restroom of my usual Friday lunchtime restaurant of choice -- Burger King near the Opera!

The first is a Dyson hand dryer of a type that I first recall seeing in Houston about 15 years ago. They work well, but make a heck of a racket.

The other side of the basins was this model, which does the job well and is at least 10dB quieter. If I had removed the maker's name and entered it as a mystery object, it would pass for a piece of modern sculpture. This is good industrial design.

The moral of the story is always to be prepared: you never know what might catch your eye in an unexpected place.

David

I used to do that as well when I first started using manual mode but one day I had a light bulb moment after finding myself wasting time fiddling with the shutter speed dial or ISO setting to center the meter.

I switched to aperture priority and ISO 100 as default settings. The camera would then immediately set the required shutter speed to center the meter without me having to fiddle with the shutter speed.

But then I went one step further and for pointing and shooting I now routinely set aperture priority, Auto ISO and a minimum shutter speed. The minimum shutter speed I set is typically the slowest shutter speed I need to meet my blur requirements - freeze motion, eliminate camera shake etc.

When metering, the camera first sets base ISO. If the shutter speed it determines to center the meter is at or faster than the minimum set then it uses that shutter speed.

If the shutter speed it determines to center the meter is slower than the set minimum shutter speed then the minimum shutter speed is set and the camera increases ISO to center the meter.

Aperture priority with Auto ISO and a minimum shutter speed works very well for me.

That is exactly what I used to do as well when I started out - set ISO first according to the ambient lighting.

But then on occasions I found myself fiddling with the ISO dial until the camera gave me the fast shutter speed I needed to freeze fast motion.

Then one day I thought to myself, if I know the shutter speed I want why not just lock it in and save time by not having to fiddle with the ISO dial. That is when I first started using Auto ISO. The only time I manually set ISO now is when using a tripod to photograph a scene with no movement in it and so lock in base ISO.

When pointing and shooting, ISO is the last thing that gets set. I set the aperture I want and either lock in a shutter speed or set a minimum shutter speed and finally set ISO to auto.

I shoot raw and so where the camera sets ISO is totally irrelevant to me as long as important highlights are not clipped. The final image lightness is set in post.

If nice looking sooc jpegs are required then maybe closer attention to ISO is required depending on the metering mode used and the ambient lighting.

David,

Thanks for sharing your photo of the Dyson hand dryers. I familiar only with Dyson vacuum cleaners; they work great! Yes, you are right. It's handy to have that camera ready for we never know what we might find interesting. I like taking pictures in the rain with an umbrella, but obviously with a strong wind that's not going to work. Then sometimes with strong winds I hide under the eaves of a roof and do the best I can. In our area, we just started getting a little rain. But our heavy rains normally don't start until later next month and in November.

Most of the time, I probably make my cameras settings the same as Dan, or at least similar. I lock in both the shutter speed and the aperture with M mode, then I let the ISO "float" to wherever it needs to go with autoISO. The reason is that I often know pretty much what shutter speed I need and I like to stop down my lens often to control that depth of field. I can never guess what ISO level is appropriate but I better know what I need for the shutter speed and aperture. If the ISO level is surprisingly high, then I'll make other adjustments to bring that down if I can, and still have a nice photo. This is important for me at people events, as you see that I take pictures at a lot of them. I just don't like blurry photos because of the motion. If the backgrounds are soft because of the wrong aperture or focal length, I don't like that either. With blurry or soft backgrounds, it's to me "distracting elements". Now some photographers don't mind it, and often you'll see pictures of people with those out-of-focus backgrounds. But I don't like it, so that's why I have adopted my method. I'll find that people move in and out of the shadows, or the sun will come and go a lot. So the camera will adjust the ISO for that. Meanwhile I'll have the shutter speed I want and the depth of field. Most of the time, the only time I'll have out-of-focus backgrounds, is if it looks nice and not distracting (at least that's my goal even though it doesn't happen all of the time). That occurs a lot when I'm taking wildlife photos with my telephoto lens. Recently I took a picture of a woodpecker in a tree. There was one out-of-focus branch. Fortunately I was able to copy and paste that away for the background was the sky.

Now, if I'm taking a landscape photo where there's no motion, I could do it differently (like use aperture priority). But often now I do it the same in M mode and keep my eye on the ISO level each time. What's nice about these modern cameras is that they will take really nice photos at very high ISO levels (that is, they are quite "forgiving" for these high levels), especially if you use a full frame camera. I don't mind a little noise if I don't have a blurry or soft photo.

Sometimes I'll use the silent feature on my camera and the camera automatically makes all the settings. I did that an indoor performance three times. I had to do it that way to not disturb the audience. I would prefer to have a camera with a silent feature that allows more more controls by the photographer. The Canon R8 may do that. I'll have to research that some more because the fastest silent shutter speed I was able to have was 1/250th of a second with the Canon RP. I would have liked to have been able to use 1/500th of a second even though I would have higher noise with a full frame camera.

In some rare occasions I might go completely manual in M mode with ISO, aperture and shutter speeds all being set. That works great if the lighting does not change, but here in Oregon we often have fluctuating light with the sun coming in and out of the clouds. R2D2 on Dpreview said that is what he uses (that is, all manual). It can make sense in some cases.

That being said, what you use or do could be fine for the type of photos you take...whatever is comfortable for you. And remember...we can change our minds...for what we do today may be different tomorrow. 😀

To add, we both like to shoot in AV priority with the (ISO) safety shift enabled metering done with evaluative metering.
We both do old fashioned in a way with focus/metering and recompose😁 still love to use the single AF point