A Few Questions About Settings

[gbeans44]

Hello,

I am somewhat new to photography and don't know a whole lot about what settings to use. Over the weekend I went to EAA Airventure for the second time with my D3200 DSLR. Last year I left the camera on aperture priority mode which resulted in the in air photos being blurry when zoomed in. It also led to my wide-angle photos being overexposed and blurry. This year I decided to put the camera in shutter priority mode to hope that I would be able to stop the photos from being blurry by being able to change the shutter speed. Now that I am going through and editing them, I have noticed that regardless of the shutter speed, they are consistently slightly darker than I would expect. I am having to put the Exposure Comp. in NX Studio at +1 EV, just to get it to a point that I like. Attached below are the same photos with the picture on the left being the exported RAW photo WITHOUT edits, while the one on the right is the exported RAW photo WITH exposure comp (+1 EV).

Is there a way I can stop this from happening in the future? I do have ISO sensitivity set to ISO 100 and not auto because I was taking photos of fireworks during the 4th and forgot to change it back. Should I use NX Studio or Adobe Lightroom to edit my photos better? All photos were taken in RAW + Fine JPG. Shot by Nikon D3200 with VR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G lens. Let me know if there is any other information I need to share.

 

[Joe (Hoss)43]

Lightroom can certainly boost your exposure; it looks like you are also getting some distortion from the heat waves. You will have to work with the Raw files to get the best chance of recovering the photos.

 

[petrochemist106]

One trouble with shutter priority is the camera only has a small number of apertures it can use. When photographing Jets I typically use aperture priority with the aperture near wide open (when they're in the air DOF is effective irrelevant) I will usual shot with EC set to +1 as well because the sky around the subject is much brighter than 18% grey. (spot metering is another option).

When I'm shooting propellor aircraft I want to see movement in the prop so I'll use shutter priority at 1/150 to 1/500 depending on the type of aircraft.

 

[gbeans44]

One trouble with shutter priority is the camera only has a small number of apertures it can use. When photographing Jets I typically use aperture priority with the aperture near wide open (when they're in the air DOF is effective irrelevant) I will usual shot with EC set to +1 as well because the sky around the subject is much brighter than 18% grey. (spot metering is another option).

When I'm shooting propellor aircraft I want to see movement in the prop so I'll use shutter priority at 1/150 to 1/500 depending on the type of aircraft.

When using aperture priority (I didn't realize that was what A was), will a narrow aperture cause the shutter speed to be slower? Would that be why a lot of my previous years photos are blurry? For example, the photo on the left was shot with an aperture of f/10 at a shutter speed of 1/400s while the one on the right was shot at f/7.1 and shutter speed of 1/800s.

 

[weepete]

That's a bit of motion blur from your shutter speed being a bit too low. The faster something moves, the faster you shutter needs to be to avoid blur.

There's multiple ways of doing it, but shooting wide open in aperture priority will make your shutter speed as fast as it can be for any given ISO value.

 

[gbeans44]

That's a bit of motion blur from your shutter speed being a bit too low. The faster something moves, the faster you shutter needs to be to avoid blur.

There's multiple ways of doing it, but shooting wide open in aperture priority will make your shutter speed as fast as it can be for any given ISO value.

Thanks for the tip

 

[weepete]

Thanks for the tip

You are welcome. Here's another: most lenses are a little sharper when stopped down (ie not using their maximum aperture, which is the smallest f number) so try some test shots at 1/3 to 1 stop down (i.e. if your smallest aperture is f5.6, try f6.3, f7.1 and f8).

You can get the same exposure value by increasing your ISO. Therefore if your shot was well exposed at ISO 100, and an aperture of f5.6, the same shutter speed can also be had with f6.3 and ISO 125, f7.1 at ISO 160, or f8 at ISO 200.

I like to think of it by trading clicks, so one click down on aperture, means one click up in ISO.

There are conditions that will make shooting challenging, so shooting into the sun will give you funky results. So this works well if the sun is behind you.

Advanced concept probably to ignore just now: in digital photography, preserving detail in the highlights is often most important. Therefore, when photographing in difficult conditions, switching to live view, and using the histogram to preserve the data often means you can correct underexposure is post processing program, like Lightroom, C1, affinity, etc

 

[KJ_North]

You need to understand the relationship between ISO, Aperature and Shutter Speed. The "Triangle" as they call it.

Below is a link that might help you out. We all struggled with this as we learned and still do at times LOL.

Exposure Triangle: A Photography Beginner’s Guide | Visual Education

Understanding the exposure triangle is crucial to your improvement as a photographer. Mastering it will help you to achieve the correct exposure for all your images.

visualeducation.com

 

[tinytmp]

Hello,

I am somewhat new to photography and don't know a whole lot about what settings to use. Over the weekend I went to EAA Airventure for the second time with my D3200 DSLR. Last year I left the camera on aperture priority mode which resulted in the in air photos being blurry when zoomed in. It also led to my wide-angle photos being overexposed and blurry. This year I decided to put the camera in shutter priority mode to hope that I would be able to stop the photos from being blurry by being able to change the shutter speed. Now that I am going through and editing them, I have noticed that regardless of the shutter speed, they are consistently slightly darker than I would expect. I am having to put the Exposure Comp. in NX Studio at +1 EV, just to get it to a point that I like. Attached below are the same photos with the picture on the left being the exported RAW photo WITHOUT edits, while the one on the right is the exported RAW photo WITH exposure comp (+1 EV).

View attachment 298972View attachment 298973

Is there a way I can stop this from happening in the future? I do have ISO sensitivity set to ISO 100 and not auto because I was taking photos of fireworks during the 4th and forgot to change it back. Should I use NX Studio or Adobe Lightroom to edit my photos better? You can find out more about improving RAW photo editing workflows and camera settings here. All photos were taken in RAW + Fine JPG. Shot by Nikon D3200 with VR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G lens. Let me know if there is any other information I need to share.

The underexposure is likely happening because the camera’s meter is being fooled by the bright sky. At an airshow, the aircraft usually takes up a small part of the frame, so the camera exposes for the large bright background and makes the plane look darker. Try using manual mode or keep shutter priority and add some positive exposure compensation (around +0.7 to +1 EV). For flying aircraft, a shutter speed around 1/1000 to 1/2000 sec is a good starting point. You may also want to raise ISO above 100 rather than letting the camera struggle with exposure. For propeller aircraft, a slower shutter speed can help keep prop blur, but jets will usually need faster speeds. Also check your histogram while shooting and adjust from there. NX Studio works well with Nikon RAW files, but Lightroom is also a great option and has more advanced editing tools. Since you are shooting RAW, you have plenty of room to recover exposure during editing. Your D3200 and 55-200mm lens are capable of good results; it mostly comes down to getting the exposure settings right for the conditions.

 

[ACS64]

Hello,

I am somewhat new to photography and don't know a whole lot about what settings to use. Over the weekend I went to EAA Airventure for the second time with my D3200 DSLR. Last year I left the camera on aperture priority mode which resulted in the in air photos being blurry when zoomed in. It also led to my wide-angle photos being overexposed and blurry. This year I decided to put the camera in shutter priority mode to hope that I would be able to stop the photos from being blurry by being able to change the shutter speed. Now that I am going through and editing them, I have noticed that regardless of the shutter speed, they are consistently slightly darker than I would expect. I am having to put the Exposure Comp. in NX Studio at +1 EV, just to get it to a point that I like. Attached below are the same photos with the picture on the left being the exported RAW photo WITHOUT edits, while the one on the right is the exported RAW photo WITH exposure comp (+1 EV).

View attachment 298972View attachment 298973

Is there a way I can stop this from happening in the future? I do have ISO sensitivity set to ISO 100 and not auto because I was taking photos of fireworks during the 4th and forgot to change it back. Should I use NX Studio or Adobe Lightroom to edit my photos better? All photos were taken in RAW + Fine JPG. Shot by Nikon D3200 with VR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G lens. Let me know if there is any other information I need to share.

Even this slow-motion ground shot is blurry. I think your problems begin with focusing errors because if you can't get a sharp photo of a plane taxing on the ground you have no hope of getting an airborne shot. In general, I'd advise a shutter speed of 1/400-1/500 sec. for propeller driven aircraft and 1/800-1/1000 for jet aircraft. Let the ISO go up to 1600 if it needs to be to get a valid aperture on you lens with those shutter speeds and the suggestion of +1 compensation is likely a worthwhile baseline. I'll let the Nikon specialists advise you on what you need to get your focus issues addressed as you won't begin to be happy until you can address that issue. That lens may need to be stopped down to f/11 when you go out to 200mm as it's known to soften at that focal length. Non-the-less, if the blur has no direction and the whole aircraft is evenly soft, that’s a focus miss — not motion blur — and no shutter speed or aperture will fix it.