Probably the first of many stupid questions.

[Ed FM]

Hi,

I have just bought a Nikon D80 and 18-105mm vr lens. I have been taking a few shots over the weekend and have a couple of questions.
When I set the camera to aperture setting it automatically chooses a shutter speed in this case aperture 5.6 and shutter speed 1/640. I then set it to auto and took the same photo it selected aperture of 5.6 and this time a speed of 1/400 and looked to me to be a better photo. Why would it select the different speeds, is it because being outside the light changes all the time due to clouds?
Secondly when I view some photos of landscapes that I have taken, on the camera viewfinder the white parts flash black because they are over exposed, mostly clouds flash. The colours also look quite washed out and pale, they were taken with aperture 32 and speed 1/8 taken on aperture setting.

Cheers,

Ed.

[ian in lancs]

First of all great combination. Iirc the difference in 400 and 640 is 2/3 stop easily caused by lighting changes of more likely a slight composition change. As for overexposure I found the D80 metering system has a tendency to do that. In contrasty lighting try bracketing shots and pick the best one or shoot Raw and tweak the exposure in computer. The White flashes signy over exposure to the extent detail is lost so if you want cloud detail expose for that. It is easier to get shadow detail back than highlight detail. Also, try the d- lighting setting if the d80 has it.

Edited by ian in lancs on Sunday 3rd April 14:52

[Simpo Two]

If you used 'Auto' as opposed to 'Program' then the camera may have been doing some extra 'thinking' under the bonnett. You said it looked 'better', but in what way - exposure, colour, focus?

If the camera is overexposing to the point images are washed out (highlights like white clouds usually knock the exposure the other way) check you haven't got EV set to +5 or ISO to 1600. It's easy to fiddle with settings and forget to put them back - and auto-bracketing is a good example!

Learn to judge exposure by using the histogram - this is immune from ambient light and instantly gives you an idea of how far out you are. How you get the right exposure is up to you but I find the Exposure Compensation (EV) button the simplest way. Don't assume your camera will always get it right; in fact it's probably better to assume the opposite, especially where you have extremes of contrast or highlights in view. And then there's centre-weighted (my preference), matrix or spot metering to choose from - all these can make a massive difference to the exposure you get.

Keep looking, keep watching, keep figuring out

[RobDickinson]

Exposure difference could be down to a fair few things.

Could be some highlight clipping stuff switched on in manual/av
Could be a different metering mode used
Could be a slight framing difference or change in light.


I wouldn't shoot much past f8 unless I HAD to on a crop camera, usually that will have enough DOF and keep shutter speeds up without hitting diffraction limits.

As for dull and colourless, that could be down to being RAW (in which case colour and contrast are down to you) or the jpg processing settins.

[LongQ]

Ed FM said:

Hi,

I have just bought a Nikon D80 and 18-105mm vr lens. I have been taking a few shots over the weekend and have a couple of questions.
When I set the camera to aperture setting it automatically chooses a shutter speed in this case aperture 5.6 and shutter speed 1/640. I then set it to auto and took the same photo it selected aperture of 5.6 and this time a speed of 1/400 and looked to me to be a better photo. Why would it select the different speeds, is it because being outside the light changes all the time due to clouds?
Secondly when I view some photos of landscapes that I have taken, on the camera viewfinder the white parts flash black because they are over exposed, mostly clouds flash. The colours also look quite washed out and pale, they were taken with aperture 32 and speed 1/8 taken on aperture setting.

Cheers,

Not the most common combination of settings ...

All of the foregoing is excellent advice. There are MANY MANY things to watch out for in most digital SLRs partly because they can often be customised with each basic setting set differently.

Did you buy this as a pre-owned unit?

If so I would be tempted to reset everything to 'default settings' and start from there just in case there are some special settings buried deep in the customisable values.

Also - where are you viewing the images when assessing their colour and so on? The camera screen is usually not especially competent for that. If you have transferred the images to a computer there are some things to watch for. Firstly as the images using the sRGB or Abobe colour space as shot in the camera. Adobe colour space displayed on a 'standard screen', which uses sRGB, will look odd usually. And then there are the graphics settings for the screen whch can also introduce some strange effects even if you think it basically looks 'OK' when browsing snaps on the internet.

Sorry to add more things to the mix but that's the nature of this hobby I'm afraid ...

[Ed FM]

Thanks for all the tips. The camera is pre owned so setting all back to default settings is definitely a good call, I had the iso set at 100 but hadn't checked the EV. As I metioned the aperture was set to f32 which sounds like it was not the best choice, what would you use a setting like f32 for if f8 will do a landscape? On reflection I think a lot of my problem was the shot I was taking was not very striking in the first place compared to the close up of a bright blue flower that I took.

Thanks,

Ed.

[Simpo Two]

Ed FM said:

the shot I was taking was not very striking in the first place

That's always a killer

I think I know why you went for f32 but it can be counter-productive, not least mullering your shutter speed. I suppose a 'typical' aperture, if there is such a thing and you don't need to alter it for DOF purposes, is f5.6-f11.

[RobDickinson]

Ed FM said:

what would you use a setting like f32 for if f8 will do a landscape?
Thanks,

Ed.

Depth of field is determined by a few things, focal length, focus distance, aperture.

If your shooting a typical wide landscape f8 on a crop is likely all you need (and 'hyperfocal distance').

If you want more DOF in macro, or using a longer lens (say 100-300mm or something) you may want to stop down more and deal with the diffraction hit vs oof areas.