What are your go-to settings?

myjay610 · Nov 18, 2009

Hey all,
So I have been experimenting with a lot of different settings and just wanted to see what are some of your "go-to" settings. I mean, you are going for a walk or just taking the camera with you on an outing or something; what mode(s) do you fall back on for just shooting whatever. I usually keep it in Aperture mode and adjust it from there for starters. I lock the shutter so it is not slower than 1/60 and will adjust ISO accordingly; mostly because if I'm just taking the camera with me for something I won't plan on having the tripod so I want to avoid blurry shots. My camera has a feature to auto adjust ISO to avoid going slower than 1/60 but I feel that it gets a little to cavalier with the ISO settings and will often set it higher than it needs to; I noticed this when playing around with the "built-in" settings for portraits, landscapes, etc and that it didn't jack up the ISO un-necessarily on those settings. Just wanted to see what everyone's personal "defaults" are.

PhotoXopher · Nov 18, 2009

Aperture priority mode 95% of the time... if need be I dial in a little exposure compensation.

RAW

manaheim · Nov 18, 2009

I try to keep my camera in "l337" mode at all times. When not appropriate, I slip it into "wagga". I find those two modes cover most of my needs.

(actual answer: I use 'em all... whatever makes sense for the situation)

DScience · Nov 18, 2009

It depends why I am shooting. If I am doing random shots of flowers or street photography i'll keep it in manual because that's where creative exposures come into play. If I was on vacation trying to get some nice snapshots I would use A a lot more.

dyyylan · Nov 18, 2009

I just hit like 1200 shots on my d90, and the one time I used auto on it the flash popped up and fired and i freaked out :lmao:

I pretty much only use manual or one of the priorities if I don't have time to put in the settings I want.

As far as go-to settings, it totally depends on what I'm shooting so I cant really say.

Derrel · Nov 18, 2009

RAW + JPEG Medium sized, Fine compression for image capture mode and size. AUTO Tone Curve, Sharpening +2. Adobe RGB color mode. ISO 320 and Aperture Priority mode, lens set to the appropriate aperture, often f/4.5 or so. Exposure compensation set to -.3, metering mode set to Matrix. Auto White Balance. That is shooting bank "A". A is my "Auto-bank"

Shooting bank B is RAW + JPEG Medium-Fine, Tone Curve Low, Sharpening +2, Adobe RGB color mode, Center Weighted Metering, no exposure compensation,pre-set WB around 5,500 Kelvin. Bank B is for Basic,with Post.

Shooting bank C is RAW + JPEG Large Fine,Tone Curve Custom 1, Exposure Compensation is set to Minus 1.7 stops,as required by this "speed-building curve" which underexposes in-camera, but lifts the curves up in the out of camera JPEG; Matrix metering, Sharpening +2, ISO is lower than otherwise, since it is effectively boosted by 1.7 stops. C is my Custom Configured bank.
With the custom curve load into the D2x, the images off the card in JPEG mode are almost perfect,with the maximum dynamic range possible for most scenes.

Shooting Bank D--daily use....gets set as needed.