Start with low ISO, ƒ8, 1/200 s and adjust according to the available light and the priority you have in mind.
Assuming f16-Sunny, and a lowest ISO of 100, that would be about right for a bright clear sunny day... we can tell you are a kanook, cant we? How often have you seen a bright clear sunny day in the North of England's Lake District? Lol!
Whilst most of Canada is 'north' of the 42nd parallel, you do realize that so is ALL of the isles of Britain, and that Hadrian's Wall, that marks boundary between England and Scotland is all above 54DegN, and Canada does't have much settlement at all above that... whilst most of this Little country is pretty close to sea-level, and rarely more than 80 miles from the sea.... so we get almost as much rain as Seattle! Clear sunny days are rare... especially this summer! Lol!
Hi all, I've been thinking about this and have been getting confused. I'm still very much a beginner but have an understanding of most of the settings on my camera now and what things do. I normally like taking action shots of my dogs and some landscape photos with long exposures etc, I 'kind of' know what I'm doing there.
Stop thinking so much... Hintimation is you are trying to get pretentious and 'Go-Manuel' for some reason..... why? The automatic and semi automatic 'modes' are there to help you not hinder, if they are confusing you, DON'T use them! Simples!
You have umpety gazillion hours of 'expert' programming packed into your cameras electrickery, and them folk that programmed the thing probably knew a lot better what ex
posure settings would be more or less useful for a given ambient lighting and focus distance, and better still if you have given the thing a few more clues by way of an icon setting, than you do right now, and can make them settings and change them in an instant... so WHY buy a fancy all singing, all dancing auto-everything expert program electric-picture maker to turn all that off, and try using it like a clock-work film camera?
In a couple of weeks we're going away to the Lake District and will be doing plenty of hill walking. I will want to use my tripod to capture some shots of us with a nice backdrop. I'm confused on the best settings to keep us all in focus, plus a nice clear background? I'm thinking higher f number, ISO as low as possible and shutter speed at whatever I can get away with vs ISO (if that makes sense). I know it probably depends on what direction the light is coming from and how light it is too.
I'd be thinking day-glow doggy coats, neon ice-cream van's, getting in on the shot and adding distractg blobs of olour n the corners of the frame, and dodging groups of townies trying to walk three abreast along foot wide paths on steep slopes, mad-mountain-biker's, oblivious that foot-paths are no different in the hills than a city shopping precinct, and how quickly the weather can change up on them fells.....
Aperture, Shutter and ISO Settings would be about the last thing I would be worrying about, let alone fretting over, let alone before I even got there! And a tripod? Walking up a big hill? Rather you than me mate... especially when it comes to them three abreast townies and mad down-hill wannabees!
The f16 sunny rule our maple munching mate there alluded to, isn't far off, though that's the 'best' you'll likely see in the UK... when its not cloudy, wet or hissing it down... ambient light levels out-doors with good day-light without 'too' much cloud, you may get a shutter 1/ISO at f16.
That means that even if you rigidly adhere to the lowest ISO of 100, you shouldn't need let the shutter drop beneath maybe 1/50th, which aught be plenty to be hand-holding, with all but a telephoto-lens, and what would you be doing trying to take landscapes with one of them? And even which-way, what's the problem going up one or two ISO's? Especially on a subject that's reasonably well lit, contains a good range of tones and aught not be overly contrasty; its hardly stretching the limits where 'noise' is likely to become an issue, is it?
IF you are determined to 'go-manual' then you are fretting about the wrong manual control.... issue I suspect is you are worried that focusing on a near-mid distance group of people, the back-ground will drop Out-of-Focus, hence you want to tighten up the aperture to max DoF.....
WRONG...
DoF extends 1/3 infront of your focus range, 2/3 behind.... and is a proportion of the focus range, up until you reach the 'hyper-focal-distance', which is when the infinity mark on the focus scale falls inside the DoF brackets at set aperture.... which is getting technical.... but the infinity mark comes up earlier on shorter lenses, so shooting 'wide' you are likely at Hyperfocal-distance, at any aperture tighter than f8 at any focus range greater than about 15ft.. about the length of a car..... and that would be with a 50mm lens.....anything wider, hyper-focal will come up even shorter....
Which is to say, you are PROBABLY worrying about nothing....
B-U-T exploiting ;selective-focus' rather than 'long/short DoF effects... go-manual FOCUS..... it's probably the more useful and less used 'manual' setting on your camera....
B-U-T.. now you can push the focus range back, behind your subjects.. increasing the focus range, will increase the DoF, that's a proportion of it remember, 'and' pull the far focus limit closer to if not beyond the hyper-focal distance bringing the back-ground all into focus, and using that 1/3 of the DoF in front of the focus range to get the subject in focus, rather than waste it on free space....
THAT little 'trick' digested, and you can take stunning 'Deep-Focus' landscapes, even at pretty wide apertures, like f3.5 or f5.6,
Doing it back-wards and pulling the focus range forwards, so that the 2/3 of the DoF zone you get behind the focus range is getting the far landscape in focus, whilst the 1/3 in front is pulled that much closer to the camera, to get near scenery in the DoF zone too, and overall, get more 'depth' in focus than if you let AF focus on far hills, waste the big 2/3 of your DoF behind them, and only get 1/3 in front stretching some short way towards the camera.... make sense...... ish?
Basically, THIS is where taking manual control makes more sense, and going manual FOCUS not manual exposure, where it can make more difference than faffing with exposure settings, that without exploiting selective focus are actually working against you, rather than for you as far as trying to get the DoF you want, where you want.
As to lugging tripod up the fells? Well, yeah.... like I said, rather you than me..... I STILL rather lug my little AX2 flm camera up a hill, in my pocket, than the SLR and gadget-bag... and for situational shots and general landscapes, where with a 35mm mild-wide lens, I can safely hand hold down to 1/30th.. it IS rather 'redundant' a lot of the time, and I would only be lugging the bulkier SLR, to do more prosaic stuff with alternate lenses.. and the tripod for stuff like sunsets when the lights going, or deliberate long exposure effects like streaky clouds... its FAR from 'essential' equipment, and even when 'useful' improvisation, by way of a scrunched up jumper, back-pack, dry-stone-wall, pictnic table or whatever and the self timer, is just as effective and a darn site more 'portable' !!!
B-U-T... essence IS a) you are over-thiking the matter b) for the 'problem' you haven't yet encountered, but expect to, SETTINGS is't it... and 'going manual (exposure)' part of the problem, NOT part of the solution, and IF when you get to it it IS a 'real' problem, 'going manual FOCUS' and exploiting selective and hyper-focus techniques IS the answer, NOT a tripod, NOT an F-Number.
Back to highlighted, you know enough to be making life very much harder for yourself, and not enough to actually know what would be helpful.... its NOT in the settings, its in the SEEINGS... and as alluded to... BIGGEST difference to your shots i this situation will be in carefully scannng the scene and checking the corners of the frame, for those day-glow dog-coats, lurid Lycra mountain bikers, and other obviously 'un-natural' and distracting elements in the composition.. and that kind of stuff.... spend more time looking THROUGH the camera than you do AT the camera..... and if you are on them hills with family, you do NOT want to be making a chore of the job, risking thier patience to get on, get crabbly through de-hydration, or worse, mountain rescue slipping off a rock to save the ruddy tripod, or just getting cought out by the weather changing in a rush..... don't sweat the small stuff... there's far bigger 'worries' going up them hills than what f-no may be 'best'!!! And I'd be much more bothered about carrying an extra bottle of pop, a bar of Kendal mint-cake and a rain-mac than a tripod!!!
