Settings for settings

[bobski1]

Having recently picked the camera up again it's taken me some time to get used to which settings to use for certain scenarios. So I wanted input from others on what they use to make a little wiki style thread for newbies or even people who've done it to use as a starting point e.g:

1) Night trails
Aperture - low as possible
ISO- 100-200
Shutter speed - 2s - 4min, depending on what you're capturing.
Tips: tripod is best to keep camera steady, ideally with a remote shutter release.

[Simpo Two]

Settings need to be done in the right order. I'd suggest that for a trail the most important thing is shutter speed, because that determines how long the trail will be. Then the other two, aperture and ISO. On aperture, let's consider depth of field (DOF). I'll guess that whatever is making the trails is a reasonably narrow distance away, so we can use, say, f4 because we don't need much DOF. If we go for f16 etc we may get too long an exposure. ISO is then whatever it needs to be to get the exposure in the ballpark (ie the histogram).

So in every case you have to think 'What is the most important parameter?' (usually shutter speed or aperture), set it, then let the others follow. That is much simpler than thinking 'I want to photograph my dog. What settings do I need for Dogs?'

[Lynchie999]

bobski1 said:

Tips: tripod is best to keep camera steady, ideally with a remote shutter release.

or if no tripod, put it on 2secs timer... that at least takes away any wobble from pushing the shutter button and gives you time to "brace" yourself as a human tripod ...

[Beggarall]

Depending on what sort of trail you want to capture, the shutter speed is the most important factor. Generally you are looking for something several seconds long and this may be difficult to achieve if there is a lot of ambient light - say in a town shooting car lights. This may require the lowest iso you can get and aperture f16 to achieve even a 2 or 3 sec exposure. I don't think you can create a "general" rule for this.