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May 22 2008

Nikon D3 Tip

Posted by jeff in Camera Gear, Nikon, tags: ,

I picked up a great little tip for the Nikon D3 this week.  The camera is full of so many great features that it’s easy to overlook some of them.  One that I haven’t used is the Auto ISO feature.  Auto ISO will regulate the ISO of your camera to allow you to maintain certain settings without having to constantly adjust your camera.  Say you are shooting a soccer game where you want to maintain a fast shutter speed like 1/250 of a second at f/8 but the lighting on the field is varying due to shadows or clouds.  By setting the Auto ISO feature you can set the minimum shutter speed and the ISO will regulate to compensate for the changing lighting conditions.  You can also set the ceiling for the ISO so it won’t rise above a certain ISO, like 1600, to keep you noise levels low.  Now when you shoot, just set your shutter and aperature and start cranking off the exposures.  It’s just way too slick!  If you have a D3, give it a test run and see just how handy this feature is.  Don’t you just love those crafty camera engineers?  Thanks Lindsey for this great tip.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 12:05 am and is filed under Camera Gear, Nikon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “Nikon D3 Tip”
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  1. Michael Tapes says:
    May 22, 2008 at 5:35 am

    Hi Jeff,

    I enjoy the Blog.

    Although I have been a Canon shooter for the last 20 years or so, I have recently begun to experiment with Nikon, partially based on their Auto ISO feature, which is also great for low light street photography where one is always trying to use the lowest ISO yet maintain a high enough shutter speed. Always a juggling act that gets in the way of composition and capturing at that decisive moment. Why not have the camera (a computer) do the juggling for you so that you can focus (no pun!) on making the picture instead of constantly checking the shuuter speed and ISO!

    I would also like to point out that several other Nikon Models including the D200 and D300 have this feature. I think some of the other Nikons as well. And the Pentax K10/K20 have additional way cool Auto ISO features. It seems like Canon is the only one asleep at this wheel in this regard. They dabble around the edge of Auto ISO but have not nailed it yet. Maybe soon.

    Keep walking and shooting!

    Michael Tapes
    http://www.WhiBal.com

    Reply
  2. Darrin says:
    May 22, 2008 at 8:04 am

    I really liked and used Auto ISO with my D40… in the beginning… I guess it works very well with primes or if one needs to set the shutter speed limit based on subject (like in your example). But if one uses a zoom and needs to prevent shake blur (as much as possible), the current implementation is not as good… They should add a way to specify the shutter speed limit based on the focal lenght (e.g. 1/f, or 1/8f if VR is used).

    Reply
  3. Michael Tapes says:
    May 22, 2008 at 8:33 am

    Darrin,

    I believe the following will work for you.

    Use Tv mode (shutter priority). Set to Auto ISO with your preferred Aperture limit. Then simply adjust the shutter speed manually based on your zoom needs. Camera will set Aperture up to the limit you have set, and then raise the ISO. Works for me.

    Enjoy..

    Michael Tapes

    Reply
  4. Darrin says:
    May 22, 2008 at 10:46 am

    Thanks for the tip Michael!
    Unfortunatelly, on the D40 I can only set a shutter speed limit for the Auto ISO – there is no setting for an aperture limit…

    How is it going with that RAW converter you mentioned a while ago on dpreview? ;-)

    Reply
  5. Allen Clark says:
    May 22, 2008 at 10:49 am

    This is a great feature that can be powerful.

    I shoot a lot of sports with action moving closer then farther away or in and out of shadows, coupled with a telephoto lens with a variable minimum aperture auto ISO feature helps remove some headaches. I set the camera on manual with the auto ISO on, then I can set the shutter speed to what I need to capture the action and open the lens wide open (even with a variable aperture).

    Cheers….

    Allen
    OffWing Photo

    Reply
  6. Michael Tapes says:
    May 22, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    It is called Rawƒidelity, and it is coming along great, albeit a little slower than we would have liked. But look for it in the coming months. Thanks for asking…

    Reply
  7. xavier says:
    June 3, 2008 at 9:41 am

    I shot a concert last night using the auto iso setting successfully for the first time.
    It kept the iso range from 200 to 3200 with a shutter speed not lower than 1/100, leaving me the control over aperture to select the depth of field.
    You can check the shots there :
    http://flickr.com/photos/xavtek/sets/72157605403443279/detail/

    Reply
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