D30 - Program AE

[DanS]

This is my second week with the D30 and I just discovered the Program AE mode. It turns off the fill flash (yes!) and seems to bring out the camera's ability to handle low light situations.

The following pic was a handheld shot at about 8:00pm near my home in the deep woods. Program AE, 1/30, f/4.0, Eval., ISO400, 28mm(45mm).

http://myshell.veriomail.com/dans/Meadow.jpg

I was pleased with how the D30 + 28-135 zoom lens performed in this low light situation. My only disappointment was the DOF. Would f/5.6 or f/8.0 have brought the plant in the front into focus?

I reread the manual and discovered the "Shifting the Program" feature. Nice design! If I'd only known.

So, if I had used the 'shifting' feature and a tripod, the exposure would have remained the same, but the focus would have been better front to back. Correct?

[reddawn]

DanS wrote:
I was pleased with how the D30 + 28-135 zoom lens performed in this low light situation. My only disappointment was the DOF. Would f/5.6 or f/8.0 have brought the plant in the front into focus?

I reread the manual and discovered the "Shifting the Program" feature. Nice design! If I'd only known.

So, if I had used the 'shifting' feature and a tripod, the exposure would have remained the same, but the focus would have been better front to back. Correct?

I think it depends on where you focus as well. DOF covers one third in front and 2nds behind the plane of focus, so where you focus is also very important.....

Since you stopped down to f4, you can try the DOF preview button to check that everything is in focus.

[DanS]

reddawn wrote:
I think it depends on where you focus as well. DOF covers one third in front and 2nds behind the plane of focus, so where you focus is also very important.....

Since you stopped down to f4, you can try the DOF preview button to check that everything is in focus.

Thanks. Those are good points to keep in mind. Learning all the features of the D30 is the challenge (fun) and knowing when to rely upon them is critical.

It was the camera's program (P-AE), not I that selected f4. Being new, I didn't realize that I need to stay closer to mid range f/ stops for landscape type pictures. And yes, using the DOF preview button would have alerted me to the problem.

[reddawn]

DanS wrote:
Thanks. Those are good points to keep in mind. Learning all the features of the D30 is the challenge (fun) and knowing when to rely upon them is critical.

It was the camera's program (P-AE), not I that selected f4. Being new, I didn't realize that I need to stay closer to mid range f/ stops for landscape type pictures. And yes, using the DOF preview button would have alerted me to the problem.

Oh yeah....f8-11 usually covers it.

Do you find the evaluative metering accurate in most situations? I am a bit disappointed to find that it can still be quite easily fooled......

[DanS]

reddawn wrote:

Oh yeah....f8-11 usually covers it.

Do you find the evaluative metering accurate in most situations? I am a bit disappointed to find that it can still be quite easily fooled......

Fooled? What I appear to be having a problem with is landscape where the sky is bright. With evaluative metering, the ground is often underexposed. From what I've read, this problem is common in the film world, landscape photogs use "graduated neutral density filters" to tone down the sky and give better exposure to the groundscape.

I'm just now attempting to understand how the three metering modes work, since I've been doing several landscape shots--and will be flying to Alaska tomorrow.

I've been shooting at each setting then comparing results. No conclusion yet.

I'm wondering (hoping) that Partial or CWA metering can give results similar to the use of a GNDF mentioned above. Maybe not. I hope someone can shed light on the metering mode issue. :-)

[redbutt]

DanS wrote:
I'm wondering (hoping) that Partial or CWA metering can give results similar to the use of a GNDF mentioned above. Maybe not. I hope someone can shed light on the metering mode issue. :-)

I had the same question. I noticed that in Pekka's G1 shots, most of them were using the G1's CWA mode. Is that significant? Does he do the same with his D30?

[Pekka]

Most of the time my D30 is in evaluative mode. I use spot metering sometimes for metering different areas of high-contrast scenes.