Newbie questions

[kindred_fp]

Greetings everyone so excited to join this forum.

I bought the Nikon D5200 with a 35mm f1.8 prime lens. Really happy with it and started reading and watching videos with regards to the exposure triangle.

I purchased the cam to start taking indoor pics of my new born. So far my setup is just using shutter priority, and after reading threads here I'm going to start setting my shutter speed to 1/100 as before I was just using the 1/60.

I also bough an external flash since currently most of my shots are indoor.

Here are my questions.

I have been playing with just using the spot focus, do you think I should stick with this or use the 9point or more focus points?
My camera has a feature to do an automatic single servo or continious. I left is as automatic but once I like to take pictures of moving objects (cars, birds) I think setting it to continious servo is the way to go and to switch the focus to 9 or higher.
Also is the goal eventually to shoot everything in manual? I notice I'm happy with my aperture priority setup or shutter priority setup, I could just copy it and switch it to manual and then tweak accordingly if needed.

Also I read a thread how focus recompose is not good, but as long as my DOF is wide I should be ok, I have been using the spot focus and made the mistake of using a small DOF but learned from my mistakes.

Any thoughts and advice is appreciated.

 

[The_Traveler]

there is no single right way.
try things and learn how it goes.

you may have a goal to shoot in manual but I don't.
It seems unnecessary to me, I know how to do it but it requires to many setting changes in each situation, for the way I shoot.

 

[robbins.photo]

Greetings Kindred - I use a D5100 myself, the autofocus system on it is not quite as advanced as the D5200, so I generally use AF-C with single point AF selected, I've found overall I get my best results if I select the focus point.

As to the goal, my goal has always been to get good pictures. If I need to use aperture priority, or shutter priority, or manual mode to do that then that's the mode I use - the only thing that matters to me is the final result. I haven't had any problems with focus and recompose myself, but usually I find it just as fast to simply move the focus point using the select dial.

Since you have a flash unit, I'd probably think about increasing your shutter speed to 1/200, and stop the lens down to 2.8 or even a little higher. I think you'll be pretty impressed with how sharp your pictures will be if you increase the shutter speed and stop down the lens a bit.

 

[kindred_fp]

Greetings Kindred - I use a D5100 myself, the autofocus system on it is not quite as advanced as the D5200, so I generally use AF-C with single point AF selected, I've found overall I get my best results if I select the focus point.

As to the goal, my goal has always been to get good pictures. If I need to use aperture priority, or shutter priority, or manual mode to do that then that's the mode I use - the only thing that matters to me is the final result. I haven't had any problems with focus and recompose myself, but usually I find it just as fast to simply move the focus point using the select dial.

Since you have a flash unit, I'd probably think about increasing your shutter speed to 1/200, and stop the lens down to 2.8 or even a little higher. I think you'll be pretty impressed with how sharp your pictures will be if you increase the shutter speed and stop down the lens a bit.

thanks for the feedback. I'll try the f2.8 setup and the 1/200 shutter speed.

 

[kindred_fp]

there is no single right way.
try things and learn how it goes.

you may have a goal to shoot in manual but I don't.
It seems unnecessary to me, I know how to do it but it requires to many setting changes in each situation, for the way I shoot.

Thru my readings a lot of people use aperture priority, I tried this when shooting my son but had a lot of blurry shots. I figured using shutter priority gave me more control as I can freeze the shot more. I guess like what you said it depends.

 

[robbins.photo]

there is no single right way.
try things and learn how it goes.

you may have a goal to shoot in manual but I don't.
It seems unnecessary to me, I know how to do it but it requires to many setting changes in each situation, for the way I shoot.

Thru my readings a lot of people use aperture priority, I tried this when shooting my son but had a lot of blurry shots. I figured using shutter priority gave me more control as I can freeze the shot more. I guess like what you said it depends.

I use all three really depending on the situation, I have been using manual more and more recently as it gives me a little bit finer control and if I absolutely need to I can over or under expose a bit to get the shutter speed / aperture / ISO combo I want knowing that I can fix the exposure in post. I've found aperture priority is fantastic when I'm outdoors and taking "shots of opportunity" like birds, etc - I can let the camera worry about the particulars and just concentrate on getting the shot. I've found shutter priority good for when I'm shooting sports and I don't really have the time sometimes to adjust everything manually and what concerns me most is making sure the shutter speed is high enough to stop the action.

So I'll use all three depending on the situation, though the more I use manual mode and practice with it the easier I find it is to setup quickly an as a result I do find myself using the other two less, but they are both good tools to have for various situations.

 

[The_Traveler]

there is no single right way.
try things and learn how it goes.

you may have a goal to shoot in manual but I don't.
It seems unnecessary to me, I know how to do it but it requires to many setting changes in each situation, for the way I shoot.

Thru my readings a lot of people use aperture priority, I tried this when shooting my son but had a lot of blurry shots. I figured using shutter priority gave me more control as I can freeze the shot more. I guess like what you said it depends.

It depends on what is important to you.
I shoot Aperture priority, set a low bound for the shutter speed for what I am shooting and use auto-iso.
Those are the three things that you have to control your environment - and you have to be cognizant of all of them and make the choices you want.

So if I am shooting street scenes I want to control the depth of field thus Aperture Priority, I know that people won't be moving too fast so my low speed is perhaps 1/125 and I let the iso go where it goes.
If I am shooting sports, I shoot Shutter Priority so I can make certain to keep the speed up where I want it and stop action.

It's not easy, although people like to think it is, generally up until the time they start.
You have to learn enough so that shooting every situation becomes second nature and you can forget about settings and focus on the shot (no pun intended.)

 

[kindred_fp]

there is no single right way.
try things and learn how it goes.

you may have a goal to shoot in manual but I don't.
It seems unnecessary to me, I know how to do it but it requires to many setting changes in each situation, for the way I shoot.

Thru my readings a lot of people use aperture priority, I tried this when shooting my son but had a lot of blurry shots. I figured using shutter priority gave me more control as I can freeze the shot more. I guess like what you said it depends.

I use all three really depending on the situation, I have been using manual more and more recently as it gives me a little bit finer control and if I absolutely need to I can over or under expose a bit to get the shutter speed / aperture / ISO combo I want knowing that I can fix the exposure in post. I've found aperture priority is fantastic when I'm outdoors and taking "shots of opportunity" like birds, etc - I can let the camera worry about the particulars and just concentrate on getting the shot. I've found shutter priority good for when I'm shooting sports and I don't really have the time sometimes to adjust everything manually and what concerns me most is making sure the shutter speed is high enough to stop the action.

So I'll use all three depending on the situation, though the more I use manual mode and practice with it the easier I find it is to setup quickly an as a result I do find myself using the other two less, but they are both good tools to have for various situations.

Yes I know what you mean when you use aperture priority, since camera is determining shutter speed. So if you do take a shot and you use aperture priority, and you get a blurred shot, do you then switch to manual to have more control now on the shutter speed and almost use the same setup but this time increase the speed of your shutter? Is it weird that given the situation because of experience you kinda start setting up your dial to M and use old values you used on S or A mode then tweak accordingly.

 

[kindred_fp]

there is no single right way.
try things and learn how it goes.

you may have a goal to shoot in manual but I don't.
It seems unnecessary to me, I know how to do it but it requires to many setting changes in each situation, for the way I shoot.

Thru my readings a lot of people use aperture priority, I tried this when shooting my son but had a lot of blurry shots. I figured using shutter priority gave me more control as I can freeze the shot more. I guess like what you said it depends.

It depends on what is important to you.
I shoot Aperture priority, set a low bound for the shutter speed for what I am shooting and use auto-iso.
Those are the three things that you have to control your environment - and you have to be cognizant of all of them and make the choices you want.

So if I am shooting street scenes I want to control the depth of field thus Aperture Priority, I know that people won't be moving too fast so my low speed is perhaps 1/125 and I let the iso go where it goes.
If I am shooting sports, I shoot Shutter Priority so I can make certain to keep the speed up where I want it and stop action.

It's not easy, although people like to think it is, generally up until the time they start.
You have to learn enough so that shooting every situation becomes second nature and you can forget about settings and focus on the shot (no pun intended.)

I think originally I started using auto ISO, but then reading from forums they said its better if you have control over it, so I switched back to manually setting iso. I usually do 400 indoors and increase accordingly if I dont put my ext flash. I'm still torn between switching the iso to auto or having full control over it.

 

[robbins.photo]

Thru my readings a lot of people use aperture priority, I tried this when shooting my son but had a lot of blurry shots. I figured using shutter priority gave me more control as I can freeze the shot more. I guess like what you said it depends.

I use all three really depending on the situation, I have been using manual more and more recently as it gives me a little bit finer control and if I absolutely need to I can over or under expose a bit to get the shutter speed / aperture / ISO combo I want knowing that I can fix the exposure in post. I've found aperture priority is fantastic when I'm outdoors and taking "shots of opportunity" like birds, etc - I can let the camera worry about the particulars and just concentrate on getting the shot. I've found shutter priority good for when I'm shooting sports and I don't really have the time sometimes to adjust everything manually and what concerns me most is making sure the shutter speed is high enough to stop the action.

So I'll use all three depending on the situation, though the more I use manual mode and practice with it the easier I find it is to setup quickly an as a result I do find myself using the other two less, but they are both good tools to have for various situations.

Yes I know what you mean when you use aperture priority, since camera is determining shutter speed. So if you do take a shot and you use aperture priority, and you get a blurred shot, do you then switch to manual to have more control now on the shutter speed and almost use the same setup but this time increase the speed of your shutter? Is it weird that given the situation because of experience you kinda start setting up your dial to M and use old values you used on S or A mode then tweak accordingly.

Generally blurry shots are the result of either camera shake or motion blur, both of which are caused by a shutter speed that is set too low. If you increase the ISO in Aperture mode your shutter speed will increase as well, the readout at the bottom of the view finder will show you what your current shutter speed is among other things. I went into the menu systems myself and assigned the function button on the left hand side of the camera to ISO, so whenever I need to change my ISO I just press and hold the function button down and use the scroll wheel to increase or decrease ISO as needed. I've found it to be the best use of the function button overall.

 

[robbins.photo]

Thru my readings a lot of people use aperture priority, I tried this when shooting my son but had a lot of blurry shots. I figured using shutter priority gave me more control as I can freeze the shot more. I guess like what you said it depends.

It depends on what is important to you.
I shoot Aperture priority, set a low bound for the shutter speed for what I am shooting and use auto-iso.
Those are the three things that you have to control your environment - and you have to be cognizant of all of them and make the choices you want.

So if I am shooting street scenes I want to control the depth of field thus Aperture Priority, I know that people won't be moving too fast so my low speed is perhaps 1/125 and I let the iso go where it goes.
If I am shooting sports, I shoot Shutter Priority so I can make certain to keep the speed up where I want it and stop action.

It's not easy, although people like to think it is, generally up until the time they start.
You have to learn enough so that shooting every situation becomes second nature and you can forget about settings and focus on the shot (no pun intended.)

I think originally I started using auto ISO, but then reading from forums they said its better if you have control over it, so I switched back to manually setting iso. I usually do 400 indoors and increase accordingly if I dont put my ext flash. I'm still torn between switching the iso to auto or having full control over it.

I will use auto-iso a lot of times in Aperture mode because for me it's not about having super fine control but rather just making sure I get the shot - I just have to remember to check the ISO in the viewfinder occasionally and make adjustments if it's needed, usually I find though it isn't and I can always set my maximum ISO to something lower than 6400 if desired so for the most part auto-ISO works just fine. I do generally set my own ISO in manual since the reason I'm usually shooting in manual is for the fine control, but like anything you just need to find what works best for you personally.

 

[kindred_fp]

I use all three really depending on the situation, I have been using manual more and more recently as it gives me a little bit finer control and if I absolutely need to I can over or under expose a bit to get the shutter speed / aperture / ISO combo I want knowing that I can fix the exposure in post. I've found aperture priority is fantastic when I'm outdoors and taking "shots of opportunity" like birds, etc - I can let the camera worry about the particulars and just concentrate on getting the shot. I've found shutter priority good for when I'm shooting sports and I don't really have the time sometimes to adjust everything manually and what concerns me most is making sure the shutter speed is high enough to stop the action.

So I'll use all three depending on the situation, though the more I use manual mode and practice with it the easier I find it is to setup quickly an as a result I do find myself using the other two less, but they are both good tools to have for various situations.

Yes I know what you mean when you use aperture priority, since camera is determining shutter speed. So if you do take a shot and you use aperture priority, and you get a blurred shot, do you then switch to manual to have more control now on the shutter speed and almost use the same setup but this time increase the speed of your shutter? Is it weird that given the situation because of experience you kinda start setting up your dial to M and use old values you used on S or A mode then tweak accordingly.

Generally blurry shots are the result of either camera shake or motion blur, both of which are caused by a shutter speed that is set too low. If you increase the ISO in Aperture mode your shutter speed will increase as well, the readout at the bottom of the view finder will show you what your current shutter speed is among other things. I went into the menu systems myself and assigned the function button on the left hand side of the camera to ISO, so whenever I need to change my ISO I just press and hold the function button down and use the scroll wheel to increase or decrease ISO as needed. I've found it to be the best use of the function button overall.

Ok I'll try to switch back to auto iso and see how that works in aperture mode. I guess you can also leave auto iso for shutter priority as I increase my shutter speed I'm guessing the auto iso will take care of itself. Again I was under impression to consider using shutter priority when you take pictures of your kids as they do move unpredictably. However, if I do use aperture priority and my iso is set to auto then shutter speed will be determined by camera so again potential blurry shots right?

 

[robbins.photo]

Yes I know what you mean when you use aperture priority, since camera is determining shutter speed. So if you do take a shot and you use aperture priority, and you get a blurred shot, do you then switch to manual to have more control now on the shutter speed and almost use the same setup but this time increase the speed of your shutter? Is it weird that given the situation because of experience you kinda start setting up your dial to M and use old values you used on S or A mode then tweak accordingly.

Generally blurry shots are the result of either camera shake or motion blur, both of which are caused by a shutter speed that is set too low. If you increase the ISO in Aperture mode your shutter speed will increase as well, the readout at the bottom of the view finder will show you what your current shutter speed is among other things. I went into the menu systems myself and assigned the function button on the left hand side of the camera to ISO, so whenever I need to change my ISO I just press and hold the function button down and use the scroll wheel to increase or decrease ISO as needed. I've found it to be the best use of the function button overall.

Ok I'll try to switch back to auto iso and see how that works in aperture mode. I guess you can also leave auto iso for shutter priority as I increase my shutter speed I'm guessing the auto iso will take care of itself. Again I was under impression to consider using shutter priority when you take pictures of your kids as they do move unpredictably. However, if I do use aperture priority and my iso is set to auto then shutter speed will be determined by camera so again potential blurry shots right?

Well methods vary, I generally use aperture priorty when my big concern is the aperture or DOF on the shot, shutter priority if my biggest concern is making sure I stoppping motion and capturing action. Truthfully either mode will work, you just want to take a second and look at the display in the viewfinder and just double check to make sure your shutter speed and aperture are set somewhere close to what you want - ISO is usually my last consideration, if I have time I'll try to tweak it down to prevent noise when I can, but if I have to go a bit high to get the shot then i'll get the shot.

Removing noise can be done in post processing - but motion blur or camera shake your stuck with and can't post process it out.

 

[JoeW28]

Welcome to both the Forum and Parenthood. Okay, a couple of thoughts....

1. The 35mm f1.8 is a nice lens for shooting your newborn. Not so great for fast moving objects--as I recall it's got a limited shutter speed that won't handle fast moving things (like a car) well. That said, this is a great lens for shooting lovely maternal and baby shots.

I suggest you use a narrow DoF (maybe f2.1?). But do try for some shots with f1.8 where you focus in on just the face. Or a tiny fist. and turn the rest in to a blur. Also, background items like a colorful mobile (even though newborns can only see B&W at this stage) will make a nice prop as it turns into a colorful blur. Finally, soft light is what you need to generate some absolutely lovely shots. Put a scrim (like a light or lace curtain) up over the window. Don't use that popup flash--put your camera on a tripod instead and go with a slower exposure.

Servo or multiple frames....your baby ain't moving that much. For a car or an athlete maybe. But for now, junior can make due with single exposures per click. For a speed light, either get it off camera OR...bounce it off the ceiling (to create gentle shadows and a softer light).

Spot focus is fine for what you're doing with your baby. If you're shooting with a narrow DoF, you don't want the camera to attempt to focus on the entire scene. And focus-recompose has limitations...but not for what you're doing. You have a very forgiving subject. Your baby isn't mobile just yet and at least isn't moving fast. So you've got time to focus and then recompose. And BTW, the focus-recompose approach assumes you can freeze the focus. So regardless of what type of focus you have the camera set to, you can wait until you've got the focal point you want, freeze it, and then recompose and shoot.

 

[Gavjenks]

I usually shoot aperture priority 90% of the time, but it's not because "it's best." it's because it's best for my equipment and my priorities together.

Things about ME that push me toward AP:
1) I don't care much about sports or action, and only occasionally play around with things like long-exposures. This means most of the time, the difference between 1/50th of a second and 1/2000th of a second is irrelevant to me, as long as the exposure is fine. So I'm more inclined to allow time to be a free variable since I don't care much about it beyond a simple low threshold.
2) I just in general artistically care more about depth of field than i do things like intentional blur or graininess.

Things about my camera that push me toward AP:
3) I have a camera that has really nice ergonomics with two wheels that let you change the main variable (aperture) and also a secondary variable (usually time) almost as easily. So exposure compensation is simple, and doesn't really hold me back or slow me down, making that not a consideration, and leaving me free to pursue my artistic preferences (aperture)
4) I have a camera with very good ISO performance, so I also don't usually care about the difference between ISO 100 and ISO 1600, because nothing in that range leads to worrisome amounts of noise. So I'm free to not worry about this as a primary variable of interest (and I can set the camera to not go higher than 1600 without authorization, etc. to especially not worry about it). If I were shooting something important, I would change it to manual ISO and force something as low as possible, but still only set it once at the beginning of the shoot and then not worry about it.

If I were a sports photographer, I'm sure I would probably shoot 90% of my stuff in time priority mode, or maybe Program mode (turn the wheel to change ratio of aperture and exposure time)

Other random stuff:

focus recompose is not good

Depends. It's not good if you just do it without thinking, no. But if you lean back the right amount after recomposing, you can usually compensate for the error and get a nice sharp intended photo (when you turn, you tilt the plane of focus a bit which puts it slightly behind the subject. Leaning back the right amount removes that bias)
It takes practice, but personally, I find once you get the hang of it, leaning back to be more practical and much faster than constantly changing my annoying focus points.
If you're a control freak type of person or don't have good spatial awareness, or have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, then just use the focus points to do off center shots.

Also is the goal eventually to shoot everything in manual?

As suggested above, most of the time I'd say no. However, there is a major exception: If you are shooting in a controlled studio environment where all the lighting is your own (or where it is not changing anytime soon), then it's pretty much just wrong to use anything other than M mode. Because since the light is static, there's no good reason for the camera to guess the lighting every shot. In M mode in a studio, you just take a few test shots, get it how you want it, and then can do the entire rest of the shoot without touching or worrying about exposure at all. Whereas in other modes, you'd have to constantly worry about whether the camera is fighting you, and you'd end up with inconsistent colors etc. in your final images without a ton of work.

The auto modes are for lighting that is at least a little bit variable. Like anything outdoors, or indoors where things are changing (moving around or turning lights on/off, or large windows). OR if you just don't have time to take test shots.

I have been playing with just using the spot focus, do you think I should stick with this or use the 9point or more focus points?

All-9-at-once focus is mainly designed for tracking quickly moving objects, where you may not be able to hold a single focus point steadily enough over the subject.
It also, when you know what you're doing, can speed up the focusing of off-center still shots, but I wouldn't recommend using it for that as a beginner, until you know more intuitively about how the AF points behave.
So yeah, if you're just shooting things that sit still, mostly, use spot focus.