Be aware of your settings

[AndrewWG]

Ok, I jut thought I would put a shout out to the newbies and veterans of the board to just be aware of your settings at all times. The obvious issues that many a photographer encounters are things like:

Shooting at ISO 400 to 1600 or so one night and then leaving it set so the next time you shoot, the pics are TERRIBLE looking.

Leaving the camera set on Manual exposure and wondering why the pics aren't coming out well (if you usually use aperture or shutter variable settings).

Leaving the drive settings to things like super fast or worse yet on timer.

And I will also throw in there one thing that I JUST noticed after 2+ years of having a camera that "underexposes" images. I tend to have to underexpose to make the pics look "right" in the LCD as much as possible. This always leads me to ignore the cameras suggestion for exposure. Well... I just found out that I had the LCD cranked up to as bright as it can be and am wondering if that is the reason for my actions. I will be out taking photos today and I will use the cameras suggested exposures and see what I come back with.

Just a few things to be aware of before starting a shoot somewhere. All your settings are probably still set for the previous shooting sessions requirements. I don't know if there is a camera that will set them back to a specific setting if the camera is turned off, but there should be.

 

[DisneyHumbug]

It would be nice if the camera would revert to the "regular" settings every time you turn it off. This is going to be a long term learning experience for me. Thanks for the reminder!

 

[AndrewWG]

It would be nice if the camera would revert to the "regular" settings every time you turn it off. This is going to be a long term learning experience for me. Thanks for the reminder!

Really what I would like to see is the camera going to settings pre-determined by the user when the power is turned off. That way, we would always start at the same point each and every time. That way, we would get used to the way it works and what the settings would be at all times.

 

[KramBerries]

Never rely on your LCD as a good gauge of accurate brightness or color. Only use it to judge sharpness when heavily magnified. It's great as a quick reference, but lousy for precision.

I've taken JPG shots when I meant to shoot RAW, had exposure compensation way off, shot in just about every mode (manual, AV, TV, and P) thinking that I was in another mode, had my ISO way off from what I expected, used spot metering when I thought I was using evaluative, and made just about every other mistake imaginable. It is way to easy to pick up the camera and start shooting without thinking about how you (or the last shooter) had it set. I wish that they had a "set everything back to normal button" where I could define normal however I wanted (probably AV mode, f/4, ISO 400, evaluative metering, no exposure comp, low speed continuous shooting, AI servo focusing, focus moved from the shutter button to the * button, autofocus, IS on and in panning mode.

It's possible to save your settings and restore them, but they make it too much of a hassle (at least on my cameras), so I usually don't bother. Instead, I either check when I pick up the camera or quickly sense what is wrong and fix it. My wife shoots less and fiddles with the settings less, so if I leave it in some weird mode, she's liable to go through an entire shoot not realizing why it is behaving oddly.

 

[Gdad]

I'll add one more- when you decide to bracket a shot- be sure to turn off the bracketing after! I forgot that one time- and talk about confusion as the next time I used the camera the exposures were all over the road from +3 to -3 EV for the first few dozen shots until I figured it out.

 

[Evad]

I'll add one more- when you decide to bracket a shot- be sure to turn off the bracketing after! I forgot that one time- and talk about confusion as the next time I used the camera the exposures were all over the road from +3 to -3 EV for the first few dozen shots until I figured it out.

Same thing happened to as well Jeff. Took awhile to figure it out. Thought I was going crazy!!

On the D80 if you press the exposure +/- button and the AF button at the same time it will reset all your settings.

 

[seashoreCM]

I don't like cameras that revert after a short time interval.,

For example I often take too long to get set up and the camera does not self timer itself when I expected it to. Or the infinity lock goes away unexpectedly.

 

[Mr.MouseFan]

This happened to me at Disneyland. What could have been some beautiful daytime shots were overtaken by much noise from the 1600 ISO setting from the night before. Oh well...live and learn. LOL

 

[DisFam95]

I am so guilty of neglecting my ISO settings. I'm just figuring things out and getting comfortable adjusting my aperture. Finally getting out of manual .

 

[mom2rtk]

I took pictures of a book full of scrapbook layouts this morning.... It's kind of a pain taking them out of the book and laying them out to photograph. I even put them back in nicely..... THEN I realized I had left the white balance on "Flourescent" after my daughter's basketball game yesterday.....

I blame everyone here on the boards for encouraging me to change my settings in the first place!!

 

[AndrewWG]

I took pictures of a book full of scrapbook layouts this morning.... It's kind of a pain taking them out of the book and laying them out to photograph. I even put them back in nicely..... THEN I realized I had left the white balance on "Flourescent" after my daughter's basketball game yesterday.....

I blame everyone here on the boards for encouraging me to change my settings in the first place!!

Thankfully WB can be fixed rather easily in post processing!

 

[mom2rtk]

Thankfully WB can be fixed rather easily in post processing!

Well, I tried hard to salvage them in post processing, but I also forgot to dial my exposure compensation back down. The lighting in that gym was a real challenge! But those settings did a number on my scrapbook layouts.... I caved and started over... MUCH better on tungsten with the exposure compensation back at 0!

 

[matthew_hull]

I am also guilty of forgetting the ISO settings. Another one is white-balance, especially a custom white-balance. I never remember to check on that; although fortunately I usually shoot in the Raw.
-- Matthew

I am so guilty of neglecting my ISO settings. I'm just figuring things out and getting comfortable adjusting my aperture. Finally getting out of manual .

 

[wenrob]

I tend to leave my settings wide open on the Tamron (f/2.8) as I'm usually trying to capture one thing at a time and if I have two subjects I'm pretty good at manipulating DOP to my advantage. *But* I have a tenancy to forget I'm wide open when it comes to birthday parties, Christmas morning etc where there's a bunch going on and I'm moving fast. My first several pics are such a mess and of course have the cutest expressions. On a "normal" photo op I always check my settings before I do anything else. An event? Nope just start shooting away.

 

[manning]

There is a couple walking around MK with fuzzy pictures. They asked me to take a night shot of them with the castle behind them. The setting was night portrait. I took a couple of shots and everything was out of focus. I noticed the camera did not signal an auto lock. While looking at the camera it started to rain and I told them to cover the camera. They thank me and walk away. It was then I realized they set the lens to manual focus.

CHECK THOSE SETINGS!!!