D300 Auto ISO

M

meatcandy89

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Somewhat by accident, I discovered a very powerful combination of settings on the D300 for shooting low-light sports action.


The secret: manual exposure mode in combination with Auto ISO (or what Nikon calls “ISO sensitivity auto control”). This is a combination that does defy logic, in two ways.

First, Auto-ISO in combination with manual exposure is pretty counterintuitive (fellow photographer/writer Ken Rockwell calls it a ‘defect‘). Back in the days of film, there wasn’t much to else to change when you set your aperture and shutter speed manually. Sure, you could manually adjust your ISO, but you had to do it a roll at a time and push or pull process your film. But allowing your digital SLR to adjust ISO based on lighting conditions while maintaining a constant shutter speed/aperture combination is a great feature for sports photography.

Second, Nikon only provides a “floor” shutter speed of 1/250 for Auto-ISO. In program or aperture-priority mode, the D300 will start adjusting ISO at the minimum shutter speed set in the Shooting Menu for ISO auto sensitivity control. This might make one think that shutter speeds of faster than 1/250 (more desirable for sports action) aren’t readily useable with Auto-ISO. Au contraire! The minimum shutter speed setting has no effect whatsoever in manual or shutter-priority modes, since shutter speeds do not vary in those modes.

Thus, I can happily set my D300 to, say, f1.8 and 1/320 in manual mode, and the camera will automatically fine-tune the ISO (in 1/6 steps, no less) to achieve optimal exposure. At a recent basketball game, I could shoot anywhere on the floor or even into the crowd at automatically-adjusted ISO settings ranging from 800 to 2000, all while achieving perfect exposure at 1/320 and f1.8.

Consequently, I’ve added this very useful setting to my recommendations for shooting basketball and other fast-paced indoor sports.
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just found this, thought it was super cool as i was trying out auto ISO the other day and thought exactly that, seems a bit useless for sport as i want to set a higher minimum iso.

its like my prayers were answered! if this is old news im sorry but thought i would share!
 
meatcandy89 said:
just found this, thought it was super cool as i was trying out auto ISO the other day and thought exactly that, seems a bit useless for sport as i want to set a higher minimum iso.

its like my prayers were answered! if this is old news im sorry but thought i would share!
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Useless, i use it all the time, its the best weapon in the Arsenal when shooting under floodlights

Shoot Manual, set shutter speed to 1/800th, set aperture wide open, go into the auto ISO settings and enable, select a maximum ISO of 12,800 and minimum shutter speed of 1/800th and shoot away.

Has massive benefits on poorly lit grounds and grounds where the lights drops off in the corners or the light coverage is patchy.

Why, well because remember when you shoot in aperture priority mode, you set the aperture wide open and set your ISO to get the required shutter speed of say in your case 1/640th, what happens when play quickly crosses the field and someone goes over to score in the corner, brilliant, you think you captured a try, brilliant until you get home and check it on your nice big monitor and you find all you captured was a big blur of mush because all floodlights drop off in the corners and while you were busy tracking play to the corner you forget to check your shutter speed which has dropped a full 2 stops to 1/160th sec because the light had dropped off so much.

Dont forget im still in Manual so can still adjust aperture and shutter speed with the control dials should i want to, under good lights i can just increase the SS up to 1/1000th if i feel the need
 
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yeah thats what i gathered from the info, i think when i first tried auto iso i didnt quite get how to use it properly. With what youve said and the info in the post auto iso seems extremely usefull!

maybe i should have made my original post more grammatical.

I tried auto iso having no real idea how to use it properly a few months agoand found it useless,
now i understand it more, it looks like a great tool!
 
Ita all a learning curve Tom, you might find it of less benefit to you purely because of the restrictions of your current kit, dont be afraid of running at high ISO's mate, a well exposed grainy clear/sharp photo will always get published over a less noisy bag of mushy crap.
 
Gary Coyle said:
Ita all a learning curve Tom, you might find it of less benefit to you purely because of the restrictions of your current kit, dont be afraid of running at high ISO's mate, a well exposed grainy clear/sharp photo will always get published over a less noisy bag of mushy crap.
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There is that...

Although, I'm probably guilty of both..
 
Just looked at this for my D200, minimum shutter speed i can get is 1/250...boo

May have a go with it at the weekend and see how i get on.
 
im not sure 100% but i think its the same with the D300. sucks, but i guess this is a little workaround for it. i got an FA Vase game to attend tomorrow, so depending on light ill give it a whirl. but fingers crossed for some sunshine as my storm jacket hasnt arrived yet and cba wrapping lens in clingfilm again :)
 
Wow, how usefull is that! love that trick, was able to shoot yesterday in the chainging sun/cloud/rain/sun conditions so easy with auto iso and keeping the same settings that i wanted and camera choosing the right iso when they run into/out of cloud shadows on the pitch!

Love it!
 
meatcandy89 said:
Wow, how usefull is that! love that trick, was able to shoot yesterday in the chainging sun/cloud/rain/sun conditions so easy with auto iso and keeping the same settings that i wanted and camera choosing the right iso when they run into/out of cloud shadows on the pitch!

Love it!
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Oh ye of little faith :LOL:
 
i also reduced the ISO step value so that it was able to adjust it more accurately.
 
Yeah auto ISO is great. Don't use it for floodlit matches though, much better to go manual unless the light is extremely uneven, but even then I wouldn't.

For those only having the option of using it with a slow shutter speed, it might be a good idea to check you're using the latest firmware. My old D300 a few years back could only go as fast as 1/250 until I updated.
 
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yeah mine can only go upto that, but the above post relates to using it with manual mode so that you can set the shutter speed to whatever you want anyway.
 
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