Half-stops or Third-stops

[MarkBarbieri]

My cameras can be set to adjust exposure by 1/2 stop increments or 1/3 stop increments. I've always just left it at the default (1/3), but I've been wondering why lately. It's not like I'm that precise with my exposures that a 1/6 stop difference is going to matter.

What do you do?

 

[ukcatfan]

1/3 Just b/c it is what I am used to doing.

Kevin

 

[Master Mason]

what ever the default was.... don't even know to be honest

 

[DueyDooDah]

The default, 1/3. I have enough to learn without adding 'how to change the setting' to the list.

 

[bostran1]

1/3 for me. But I am like you. I have no idea why. Other than occasionally setting my camera down 1/3 or 2/3 stops I usually keep it on dead center.

 

[Groucho]

Mine defaults to 1/2, I set it to 1/3rd a while ago for finer control but realistically it isn't that big of a deal. The difference between 1/3rd and 1/2th a stop can generally be corrected in post-processing with little to no quality loss. I wouldn't lose any sleep if I was forced to use one or the other.

 

[woodlandsparty]

I have it set at 1/3 stops....mainly because my D200 seems to underexpose by 1/3 stop so I'm always using that adjustment when shooting.

 

[KrazyPete]

My D80 came set 1/3 by default and I left it that way because I thought I wanted finer control. But this thread made curious as to what the display would look like set to 1/2. So I canged the setting and I can see three stops in either direction on the meter instead of two.

at 1/3 it looks like:
l i i l i i I i i l i i l

at 1/2 it looks like:
l i l i l i I i l i l i l

I don't think I would intentionally shoot 3 stops off. But it might be handy to know when an exposure in that 2-3 stops off range. Maybe you could dial it in faster because you would know how far off you were (as opposed to seeing the arrow that doesn't tell you how far off you are). I think I'm going back to thirds. One stop is three clicks on either command dial and that's pretty automatic for me at this point. I think it would be difficult to retrain myself to think halves.

 

[NostalgicDad]

I keep mine at 1/3. Gotta keep it simple as there are too many other things occupying my brain.