Somewhat on a related note: Petapixel has an interesting article by two wildlife photographers, and they talk about exposure modes a lot, apparently they prefer manual with fixed ISO.
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P mode is definetly a feature i use. For example when i see something moving and nice and i pull out the camera from the bag and i don’t have time to choose aperture shutter iso and so on.
Maybe it won’t choose the best settings, but the alternative is to loose the picture. That is a feature i really miss in my fuji xt20, where choosing P mode requires a lot of time (i would need to mode the time dial, the aperture dial, and choose iso auto in the menu: a pain! and in fact with fuji i loose a lot of pictures due to this old style poor interface. in my t20 there could be a way to have something like P, called auto, but it disables raw so it’s a missed feature, also i don’t like fuji jpegs at all).
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Maybe I’m weird, but I just leave everything on Auto in my Fuji. The camera usually chooses a reasonable default. Only if the situation requires a short shutter or large aperture, do I turn the appropriate dial out of auto.
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as i recall you can often use the dials to bias the shutter and aperture settings used by P mode
I think this is fine if it works for you, most cameras will give you a reasonable default. Most cameras I have used have a bias for having everything possible in focus, but that is usually OK.
Yes, but if you use eg A mode or an aperture ring (these days, mostly premium lenses and of course those lucky Fujifilm users) you won’t have to adjust anything, it is already where you want it.
That said, the replies have convinced me to experiment with P mode a bit.
Whenever I used light meters back in the day I made a habit of guessing the EV before I checked the readings; this has saved me a lot of shots over the years.
FWIW, I usually shoot in Aperture Priority (A) mode as well and only set my Olys to shutter priority (S) (both w. auto ISO, with the min. shutter speed preset) when the light gets low and I need faster shutter times for moving subjects.
Unfortunately my older Olys don’t have a min. shutter speed option in auto-ISO like eg. my Fuji and Sony cameras but then it’s just a matter of turning the mode dial one click anticlockwise to S.
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“Natural Live View” is your friend! I’m not sure which models have it, but my X-S10 and X-T5 have it. It basically disables all film sim processing and shows you as close to the RAW as possible through the viewfinder/screen. It doesn’t affect the RAW data of course, but is really nice for visualizing how much DR you really have, because some of those film sims are really contrasty.
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I just checked, and it seems that I do too. I think I consciously made this decision a long time ago and have never changed it. And I guess that shows how much it gets out of my way and is not too noticeable. As far as I know, it doesn’t affect the RAW anyway, so you know you’re always getting a “clean” file even if your JPEG gets more processing applied to it. And I rarely find that Fuji JPEGs look unnatural. They’re famous for a reason.
I shoot almost exclusively in aperture priority and have everything else set to auto. I use Natural Live View and the highlight warning to make sure I know when I’m blowing out highlights in my RAW file. Auto ISO is a game changer, and I have to say that I rarely lose any images to under/over exposure nowadays, something that happened too regularly in the film days!
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No, it def is not! I tried it, and clipped way more highlights by several EV than without it.
I generally find fuji frame’s advice to be pretty solid: Fuji's Natural Live View | FujiFrame
Of course, if you can educate me to the contrary, I’d be happy to be wrong, but it seemed to work the same way for me on the X-T20 and X-T3.
I just recently realised that this not only affects the life view but also the live histogram.
Hm, I didn’t notice this problem on my X-T4 so far, but will take a closer look now.
Maybe it’s changed, but a shot that I really liked from my X-T3 of basically a white wall is clipped by like 2/3 stop because I was trying to ETTR while using Natural Live View. I guess if you don’t ETTR all the time, maybe it works for you if you’re just trying to make the in-camera preview look good.
I try and ETTR like 99% of the time, and generally try and push the histogram as far right as possible.
Interesting, I hoped I was introducing you to a lesser known feature that would change your life, but maybe not…
I admit I haven’t done extensive testing on it, but what little testing I did do, it showed clipping at about 2/3 of a stop over what my film sim was showing at the time. I was basically just using the highlight alert to warn me.
From what I know, it definitely isn’t as simple as showing you how the RAW file will look and is not a replacement for a RAW histogram. But it does strip away all the film sim processing and will give you a more natural view of your scene, including more accurate clipping indication… in theory.
Perhaps the difference is that I don’t really obsess of ETTR and so I’m not usually pushing the highlights to the limits. I rarely if ever clip highlights now, but I do usually use exp comp to get the blinkies, then back off till they’re gone. This is basically ETTR, but I don’t spend much time trying to maximize light gathering. I’m usually pretty happy with the way my Fuji handles noise anyway.
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I assigned a button to the rgb histogram and tilt the camera towards or away from the sun until it’s just about not clipping then push the AE lock button (on lumix I just use the zebras for this but they are video mode only on fuji)
I do something similar. My go-to user mode is based on A with auto ISO set to 400 to 3200. 400 because that’s where the dual gain of my camera kicks in and it allows me faster shutter speeds which I usually want. 3200 because that’s the upper limit where images look clean, I have yet to regret never going beyond it.
As it gets darker, the camera will raise ISO to compensate (set to faster shutter speed preference, i.e. raise ISO early and fast). Then at the upper ISO limit, as shutter speeds get slower, I’ll gradually open up the aperture until my 2.8 lens is wide open.
Then I go home and softly cry myself to sleep while dreaming about a collection of ultra-fast primes.
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Same here. The beauty of DR Auto is that I don’t need to worry about my highlights any more. As long as they look fine in the preview, I can trust that no significant data will be clipped in the raw. It took me a few years to build that trust, but eventually I switched off clipping indications and histograms. A clean frame gives me a better view of the content, rather than the technology.
Another hard-won realisation for me is that I need to focus on capturing the right moment, from a good position, first and foremost. Slightly blown highlights or blocked shadows, or a bit of noise really don’t matter if I get the former right. Therefore I delegate the light gathering to the camera.
I suppose I’d see this differently if I were capturing landscapes instead of people. They tend to be more patient.
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This is pretty much what I do (with the GR, no blinkies on the Nikon) but with shutter speed (usually): increase until I see blinkies, then back off until they go away. That’s pretty much ETTR, or at least that’s as good as I’ve figured out how to get it.
I never really got good at metering with the X-T3 and that’s a big reason why I got rid of it. The new Fuji has the eterna film Sim, which looks super flat. I need to put it through its paces this weekend.
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If we talk about Fujifilm’s DR200, DR400 - yes, they do affect the RAW. In those modes the camera basicaly underexposes one or two stops respectively in order to protect the highlights. Then, if you shoot JPG, lifts the shadows to match overall brightness of the photo.
If you take the same photo with DR100, DR200 and DR400 and load them into darktable, you’ll see how much you’ll need to raise the exposure for each to get the same result.
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I think ultra-fast primes (which would be f/1.2 I guess for most lens lineups, ignoring the exotic f/0.95 lenses out there) are overrated.
They have their applications, but the sweet spot is f/1.7. Much less bulk and weight, fraction of the price, quick focusing without fancy motors (less glass to move around), and you still get 50% of the light compared to f/1.2. If you like primes, you can get a small f/1.7 kit without breaking the bank and carry it around in your pockets.
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The X-T3 also shipped with Eterna though.