Exposure compensation

[RichardsTPF]

I mean some reference setting under different condition that I can start with. I am testing it by shooting a coke can in my living room. I read a lot of treads about aperture and shutter speed, none of them really talk about iso.

 

[Kerbouchard]

Generally, you use the lowest ISO that you can and still be able to get a usable shutter speed. If your shutter speed is too slow resulting in blurry pictures or motion blur, you would raise the ISO. Using flash would also change when you would increase ISO. It also depends on what camera you are using, how much noise you can tolerate, and what you will be doing with the image. An image that is only going to be displayed on the web in a pretty small size can be shot at a much higher ISO than a photo that you want to have printed as a 16x20.

Basically, it's trial and error and basically what you feel comfortable with. The general addage is that a noisy photo is better than a blurry photo.

I mean some reference setting under different condition that I can start with. I am testing it by shooting a coke can in my living room. I read a lot of treads about aperture and shutter speed, none of them really talk about iso.

 

[KmH]

I see someone else covered what I was going to say, so carry on.

 

[Overread]

Just to add to Kerbouchard's points; experience will help a lot when it comes to settings selection; you'll come to learn what shutter speeds and apertures you need for select situations and what you can and can't get away with - and thus when you do need to raise your ISO higher.

Furthermore noise shows up more not just with higher ISOs but also with underexposure - thus just like a noisy photo is better than a blurry photo; a higher ISO, correctly exposed is better than a lower ISO, but underexposed.

 

[KmH]

Here is way more EC info than I'm willing to type on a forum:

Exposure compensation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and more resources to help round out a nikon shooter's understanding of EC: nikon exposure compensation - Bing

 

[Destin]

EC does work in manual on Nikons. I just learned that.

EC does not change the exposure of a shot when in manual with any camera manufacturer...Nikons included.

However, for Nikon, it does bias the meter so that it will read plus or minus depending on the exposure compensation that is set, which could, indeed, lead somebody to improperly expose their shots.

On Nikons, EC also chages FLASH exposure, when used in manual mode, according to Joe Mcnally in the Booke "The Hot Show Diaries" and if anyone would know, it's J.M.

To quote the section, "The camera EV is an exposure-wide adjustment. A Global input, if you will. If you program underexposure into the scene, then you're programming underexposure into the flash as well. (interesting twist: if you have the camera programmed to -2 EV and you are in manual exposure mode, the camera overrides the EV message and will go about it's business. But-that -2 will still affect you're flash input! File that one away, in case you think putting the camera in manual makes the EV adjustment immaterial.)"