Your General Shooting Technique?

[DSJohnson]

I was interested in everyones general shooting technique for taking good exposed shots. Just an order of operations you go through when you are setting up your shot.. Selecting ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture and in what order? Do you use a hand held light meter or grey card? Your personal rules of thumb. Stuff like that. Been doing some research to see ways and techniques other people use, so thought I'd ask here!

[zona5101]

Originally Posted by DSJohnson

I was interested in everyones general shooting technique for taking good exposed shots. Just an order of operations you go through when you are setting up your shot.. Selecting ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture and in what order? Do you use a hand held light meter or grey card? Your personal rules of thumb. Stuff like that. Been doing some research to see ways and techniques other people use, so thought I'd ask here!

For me it depends on what I am planning on shooting. Generally I give the lcd display the once over & note the iso, frame advance, battery condition, focus mode. I'll take a peak through the viewfinder, activate the meter and general check that everything seems like it should. From there it's all specific to the task at hand.

[teaking]

For a general shot I use the "P" mode and let the camera expose for me using matrix meetering on normal scenes it does a pretty good job then I use the LCD screen to check the shot kind of like an instant feedback to see if its exposed, if not use some EV compensation. Or I will use "AV" or "TV" if I have to nail a certain aperture or shutter speed.

For the tricky shots I use Spot meetering and a version of the zone system I shoot JPG so I expose for the neutrals/average and check my highlights are not blowing out. Alot of RAW shooters will Expose to the right and make sure the shoot doesnt clip to capture the most dynamic range.

Its what ever suits your style best hope you get some ideas and devlop a good method that works for you

[kencaleno]

For outdoor, between 10am and 4pm:

ISO 400
Exposure Compensation -0.3
Aperture F 8
Shooting mode A/Av
White balance 6200K (cloudy)
Regards, Ken

[DSJohnson]

Guess I should participate, haha...

I mostly shoot on Manual.

1. Select White Balance... set it manually using a white piece of paper usually (waiting on getting a grey card!) but if I don't have anything white on me, I'll try to use the presets.

2. Select ISO... varying factors of light, shadows, contrast and how noise will effect that.

3. Select Aperture... consider light availability and how strong I want my bokeh to be

4. Select Shutter Speed... at this point I use my in-camera light meter to get a balanced exposure value

5. Test Shot... depending on the outcome I'll do one of the following: try Active D-Lighting (if I need some slight highlights in my shadows), change my shutter speed


I'm would love to invest in a portable Light Meter... but then again I want many things for my camera besides that.

[OsmosisStudios]

I always set my ISO first. That determines where I go from there.
Then its the aperture, depending on what Im trying to do
Then shutter speed to get the exposure I want.

I may take up to a half dozen shots at different settings/exposures to get things just perfect.

[Nicole]

1. Pick up camera
2. Look through camera
3. Realise lens cap is still on
4. Take off lens cap
5. Repeat steps 1 and 2
6. Adjust the aperture
7. Adjust the shutter speed
8. If step 6 or 7 seems out of whack, go and check my ISO to see if I put it up the last time I took a picture since most of the time I leave it as low as it goes
9. Repeat steps 6 and 7 if necessary
10. Take the shot
11. Look at the shot again and see if I got what I wanted
12. If I didn't get the shot I wanted, start over again around step 6

Ok, slightly more seriously, I do actually usually do most of those things. I usually shoot in M, most of the time my ISO is as low as it goes. I don't use any additional meter aside from what's in my camera. I usually leave my WB set to auto unless I check it and see that the colours in the picture aren't coming out the way I want them to. I tend to play with WB at times to give shots different colours than they may have had at the time (especially with sunsets). Thankfully most things have become pretty second nature... aside from having the occasional times where I forget to take the lens cap off before putting the camera up to my face. The only other set of things I do (depending on the subject) is add some flash into the mix. Usually off camera. And last of all, sometimes I'll try different angles and orientations for my shots. And that seems to be my list of how I shoot in general... I think

[RichardTaylor]

When I am shooting with available light

(1) ISO as low as possible to allow me to shoot at the shutter speed/aperture I am wanting or willing to use.

(2) Almost always RAW.

(3) Shutter priority if I want to control subject motion blur (or panning)

(4) Aperture priority when I maximum control over DOF.

(5) Manual exposure for difficult lighting conditions.

(6) One shot focus for static subjects or when I want to focus/recompose.

(7) Focus set to tracking for moving subjects.

(8) Manual focus only when the camera/lens has trouble focussing.

(9) Usually centre focus point only is active.

(10) Metering node is usually Evaluative (Matrix?)

(11) I may dial in some exposure compensation depending on the scene or how the histogram looks (Or if I do a test shot)

I do not use a white balance card or an external light meter (not since my early film days). Like zona5101 says I will usually check the top LCD display and have the ISO.shutter speed or aperture roughly set to where I need it before I raise the camera to my eye.

The initial ISO/shutter speed or aperture setting will depend on the subject/lighting & lens I am using.

I tend to try to "capture the moment" a lot so I don't want any distractions, like removing the camera from my eye, stopping me from doing that.

[Littlebarn]

I usually leave the ISO at 200, or if the light is bad, 400. If I hold the camera, I try not to shoot at over 100th and let the AV go where it will. I compose the shot using zoom with one spot focussing . Press once, check the focus and press all the way. Grey card? What's that? I haven't used an exposure meter for years. What's the point when the camera will expose accurately. If not, Photoshop will give me the exposure I want. I always crop my images, so this gives me the last chance to get a good composition. I have a massive bazooka of a standard zoom lens so I have to support it with one hand. Frequently I use a cable shutter release with mirror lockup to minimize camera shake and keep things quiet so I don't frighten the horses. It focus is critical, I try to use sweet spot focussing (f.8) and use shutter speed accordingly - but always 100th or less. I hate heavy cloudy days, so I wait until the sun shines again, and can use a smaller aperture and/or a faster shutter speed.

[Huesos]

I always shoot raw, and never bother with a preset white balance. If people are involved, I try to sneak a shot of something white so I can correct WB later in Lightroom. If I'm outdoors, I'll usually set the ISO to 200 or 400, depending on the brightness of the light, because outdoors I'm trying to get animals and macro shots and I want a fast shutter speed. Aperture priority, probably at f8 unless it's overcast I may stop down.
In low light, I use shutter priority to ensure crisp images even if they're a little dark, I can try to brighten them later.
I'll use manual if the conditions necessitate it.

YOU pick YOUR settings based on what YOU are shooting when YOU shoot it. That's how you'll get the images YOU want. And if you're not sure of this, then shoot lots, and it'll come to you.

http://moorephotography.net