Manual with auto ISO, who does this?

myotis said:
I have the Nikon function control option "release button to use dial" set to "on" (f6 on a D750), so I don't need to hold the compensation button down while trying to adjust the compensation. I found this makes adjusting exposure compensation much easier than the Nikon default.
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Also a single click of the front dial on a D750/780 (no doubt others) knocks you in or out of Auto ISO allowing it to be set to whatever you want.
 
I use it often but I set an upper limit. You need to keep an eye on the setting it selects as sometimes it is much higher than I would expect.
 
Faldrax said:
When using auto ISO like this I tend to set aperture, shutter and comp once, then take a bunch of shots, letting the camera handle any exposure variations via auto ISO.
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I'm not trying to be annoying, sorry if it comes across that way. But I'm genuinely interested in what circumstances the lighting changes that much from shot to shot? Even live dance performances tend to be pretty consistent - apart from the start and end of a routine.

... fwiw I shoot landscapes only rarely and wildlife even more rarely ...
 
juggler said:
I'm not trying to be annoying, sorry if it comes across that way. But I'm genuinely interested in what circumstances the lighting changes that much from shot to shot? Even live dance performances tend to be pretty consistent - apart from the start and end of a routine.

... fwiw I shoot landscapes only rarely and wildlife even more rarely ...
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I can give some wildlife examples (I can't see any reason to use auto ISO for landscape), but are you looking for examples other than wildlife?

If you are following. a bird feeding in a tree, the bird will often hop in and out of full sunlight into deep shadow and back again. The moving bird needs you to keep the shutter speed as high as possible, and you are usually using the lens wide open (to allow the high shutter speed). The only way you can do this is by adjusting the ISO, as you couldn't possibly manually keep up with the bird moving into different positions on the tree or bush.

Wading waterbirds can walk along the edge of a lake, and walk in and out of shadow. or be feeding in shade and then fly into sunshine.. A particular problem with bright white birds such as egrets who can be rather grey in shade but brilliant white if they take off into the full sunlight.

There are lots of examples from wildlife and there are good reasons why auto iso is so popular with wildlife photographers, I gave an explanation of how I use it for wildlife in my earlier post.
 
Well, I've read all your responses and I find myself quite surprised at the number of people who use this method, previous to this I thought it was a pretty niche method of doing things.

Anyway, I went out today in manual mode with auto ISO and didn't bat an eyelid, everything went smoothly and I didn't even think about the ISO much; in fairness though, it was a very bright day. it looks very promising as an exposure method, even for general use.
 
Most of my photography is birds or motorsport and this is my go-to setting on the D780. I just set the shutter speed and aperture according to my subject and situation and let the camera pick an ISO. The camera has superb noise handling so I usually set the max ISO to 32,000 but have, on occasion, gone higher than that. As long as I expose to the right then noise is relatively easy to deal with using LR's new denoising feature (or Topaz Photo AI if I also need some sharpening) and tend to add 0.7ev in exposure compensation to achieve that.

Last week I was on holiday in the Netherlands and shooting normal holiday stuff but I left the camera set to manual with auto-ISO and got really good results :) TBH, it was so sunny I probably could have used any setting and it would have worked just as well (y)
 
juggler said:
but if you're twiddling exposure comp and min shutter speed then you're still twiddling, no?
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But not to anywhere the same extent as when you're doing it all manually.

An example.

I'm using aperture priority and suddenly I'm looking at a shutter speed of 1/60 which I think is too slow so I switch to manual and dial in fxx and 1/125 (or whatever is appropriate) and let the ISO float. I'm now free to concentrate on the composition and the timing of the shot or shots until something needs to change.

If you see no advantage in this then maybe it's not for you. For me auto ISO was a revelation and auto ISO combined with the ability to dial in exposure compensation is even more of a revelation.
 
ShinySideUp said:
Well, I've read all your responses and I find myself quite surprised at the number of people who use this method, previous to this I thought it was a pretty niche method of doing things.

Anyway, I went out today in manual mode with auto ISO and didn't bat an eyelid, everything went smoothly and I didn't even think about the ISO much; in fairness though, it was a very bright day. it looks very promising as an exposure method, even for general use.
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I limit its use to lower light as in general use as I prefer aperture priority as a starting point until the shutter speed becomes a problem.
 
myotis said:
I can give some wildlife examples (I can't see any reason to use auto ISO for landscape), but are you looking for examples other than wildlife?

If you are following. a bird feeding in a tree, the bird will often hop in and out of full sunlight into deep shadow and back again. The moving bird needs you to keep the shutter speed as high as possible, and you are usually using the lens wide open (to allow the high shutter speed). The only way you can do this is by adjusting the ISO, as you couldn't possibly manually keep up with the bird moving into different positions on the tree or bush.

Wading waterbirds can walk along the edge of a lake, and walk in and out of shadow. or be feeding in shade and then fly into sunshine.. A particular problem with bright white birds such as egrets who can be rather grey in shade but brilliant white if they take off into the full sunlight.

There are lots of examples from wildlife and there are good reasons why auto iso is so popular with wildlife photographers, I gave an explanation of how I use it for wildlife in my earlier post.
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That's very helpful, thank you.

I'm not a wildlife photographer but if I was I'd probably shoot the way I normally do, i.e. wait (or arrange for) the subject to be good (predictable!) light rather than just tracking it and shooting wherever it happened to be. And I'd probably make almost no images as a result :)
 
andrewc said:
I use it regularly for sports photography where the brief I’m given usually gives a minimum shutter speed and an aperture to work to.
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Thats a new one on me.. Anyone gave me that brief I would tell them to find someone else haha
 
ShinySideUp said:
I have set my camera up to use manual settings for aperture and shutter speed while setting my ISO to automatic, as per the instructions on a couple of Youtube videos, as I fancy trying it out. I'm presuming it will be a question of getting used to it, similar to when I started to use back button focussing.

Anyone use this method of exposure and how is it for you?
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It's brilliant for when you want to keep your Aperture and Shutter Speed constant with a fast changing scene such as a dog racing around in and out of shadows.

But I also use Aperture Priority mode with Auto ISO and min. shutter set, so as to ensure the highest possible quality at the slowest shutter speed I reckon I can get away with. But to be honest I usually prioritise shutter speed because you can't really recover an OOF shot, whereas you can usually get creative to mask a poorly exposed or noisy one.
 
juggler said:
I'm not trying to be annoying, sorry if it comes across that way. But I'm genuinely interested in what circumstances the lighting changes that much from shot to shot? Even live dance performances tend to be pretty consistent - apart from the start and end of a routine.

... fwiw I shoot landscapes only rarely and wildlife even more rarely ...
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One situation I can think of was photographing my daughters learning to surf - typical British summers day - sunny with scattered cloud.
I wanted to keep the aperture relatively wide to help isolate them, and the shutter speed nice and fast to freeze the motion.
As they were moving over the water I was concentrating on capturing 'the moment' - if I'd had to worry about adjusting settings when they moved from sun to shade, etc, I'd have missed shots.
 
KIPAX said:
Thats a new one on me.. Anyone gave me that brief I would tell them to find someone else haha
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Its a standardised brief that encompasses both experienced and new sports photographers. The experienced ones will be using appropriate settings for the sport - in the case of running, fast enough to stop motion blur, and a wide aperture to give a bit of separation from runners behind, yet sufficient to ensure all the runner is in focus - so anyone who has done a bit of sports photography will be automatically be using similar settings. Cameras which have the ability to add exposure compensation at the same time is useful.



The newbies have to start somewhere, and having suggested settings isn't a bad idea.
 
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juggler said:
That's very helpful, thank you.

I'm not a wildlife photographer but if I was I'd probably shoot the way I normally do, i.e. wait (or arrange for) the subject to be good (predictable!) light rather than just tracking it and shooting wherever it happened to be. And I'd probably make almost no images as a result :)
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Wildlife photographers use all sorts of approaches, including trying to make things as predictable as possible, e.g adding carefully positioned perches, building ponds to attract wildlife with carefully designed backgrounds, artificial lighting, baiting with food or calls etc etc. Actually, if you read about wildlife techniques, all sorts of approaches are, and have been, used. Some of which are ethically questionable.

But "Wildlife" and "Predictable" aren't words that generally go that well together. Even though you can add a certain amount of control, and some elements of wildlife behaviour can be predictable e.g. dragonflies returning to the same perch, or birds taking off into the wind, it's being "prepared" for the unexpected that makes auto ISO so useful. And of course if its totally predictable, using auto ISO wouldn't matter, because it isn't going to change :)

On the subject of predictability, I once spent 7 days live trapping small mammals where the traps, as part of the trapping routine, needed checked at sunrise. Every morning for the 7 days, I saw a brown hare make the same journey along a track and through some fields, completely ignoring my presence

On the 8th day after I had taken in the traps, I got up a bit earlier, and set up my camera in the spot I had determined would get me a good photograph. The lighting was good, and I had never photographed a hare before, so I waited, and waited and waited... and then gave up. I still don't have a photograph of a hare :-(

Again, not speaking for all, but I was birdwatcher first (from five, my parents would hand me over to the local bird club for birdwatching trips as neither of them were interested in wildlife) so as well as trying to make "good photographs" I'm also interested in record shots of birds I've seen for the first time.

And for many people. it's their interest in wildlife, the challenge of grabbing the unpredictable, and the technical difficulties involved that makes wildlife photography interesting.

Ideally, I choose hazy sunshine days in terms of lighting and will try and anticipate where an animal might appear and set my tripod up where lighting and background will suit the subject.. But while waiting for the principal subject e.g a marsh harrier, a bittern or whatever, to appear (if it does), lot's of other things are usually going on around me.

A grass snake swims along the edge of the lake in the shade of branches overhanging the water, backlit dragonflies are laying eggs, a peregrine falcons zooms overhead, a Cetti's warbler starts singing in a bush in the scrubby and shaded woodland behind me.

The hazy sunshine occasionally gives way to dull sunshine or bright sunshine as the clouds pass over. But generally, everything is changing very rapidly, the required shutter speed and the required aperture will vary as the lighting and subject changes. Auto ISO just reduces the number of things I need to think about.

It also makes it easier to swing back to the main subject of the day when pointing in the wrong direction at that Cetti's warbler and my wife quietly shouts "bittern.. reed beds left...just above the reeds". This will usually allow me to capture yet another well exposed, but slightly mis-focussed picture of a bittern !!

But as I said, this isn't the only kind of wildlife photography, just the kind that really benefits from auto ISO.
 
Usernameuser said:
Its required on my camera (canon 800d) if I want to use exposure compensation in manual mode.
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If you are in manual, you don't actually need exposure compensation - all it does is change the zero point on the exposure meter.
So if you think you want 1 stop of EC, simply adjust Aperture, Shutter and (fixed) ISO so that the meter measures +/- 1 (as applicable) rather than zero.
 
Faldrax said:
If you are in manual, you don't actually need exposure compensation - all it does is change the zero point on the exposure meter.
So if you think you want 1 stop of EC, simply adjust Aperture, Shutter and (fixed) ISO so that the meter measures +/- 1 (as applicable) rather than zero.
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It's might be not quite as easy as that.

The reason I use auto ISO is because I want to set the aperture and shutter to specific values so I may not want to alter them and of course altering the aperture or shutter might not change the exposure if I'm using auto ISO. Auto ISO is very nice but it might not necessarily give the exposure I want all the time so for me there is a use for exposure comp in manual with auto ISO, and none of my cameras have a dial for easily adjusting the ISO.
 
woof woof said:
It's might be not quite as easy as that.

The reason I use auto ISO is because I want to set the aperture and shutter to specific values so I may not want to alter them and of course altering the aperture or shutter might not change the exposure if I'm using auto ISO. Auto ISO is very nice but it might not necessarily give the exposure I want all the time so for me there is a use for exposure comp in manual with auto ISO, and none of my cameras have a dial for easily adjusting the ISO.
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Yes, that's exactly why I use Manual + Auto ISO + EC.
What I was saying is that this is the same as Manual + Fixed ISO, then adjusting the settings (which might mean just adjusting the ISO) to give an offset exposure value - it all depends on the situation, and what controls you have.
 
I use aperture priority and set the ISO myself for the majority of my photography. For shooting birds / wildlife i'll use auto-ISO to take away the worry. Underground photography I use full manual as i'm using torches to light myspace.

I've never got my head around using full manual when I can lazily delegate most functions to the camera, and only worry about composition.
 
TheTimeChamber said:
I've never got my head around using full manual when I can lazily delegate most functions to the camera, and only worry about composition.
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Agree, and if the camera is set to manual, an ISO is set, the photographer then chooses an aperture and then manually adjusts the shutter speed to get the exposure indicator in the viewfinder on "0" then the result is the same as if the ISO had been set Av had been chosen.

Dave
 
Still being a relatively newbe, I adopted M + auto iso after watching a few youtube vids and it works for me. I will be focusing on car photography, so may well resort to manual iso for that, but to me, M + auto iso, seems like a useful setting for general shooting.
 
It can be useful and I've certainly suggested it to a number of people over recent years. It's a quick "hack" to getting a certain look. Set the slowest shutter speed to avoid camera shake or subject motion in whatever subject you are interested in. Set widest apature and auto ISO. You won't get camera shake or under/over exposure but you will get a blurry background. The camera is still using the lowest (indeed only) ISO to get the image. Also good for wildlife.
If you consider cine work the apature is used only to control depth of field and the shutter speed or angle is predetermined by viewing requirements that only leaves ISO. That being said most would use base ISO and set exposure with a vari nd.
Auto ISO is a tool digital cameras offer. What's the point I using modern kit if one only wants to limit its use to what used to be possible?
 
ilikebowens said:
Set widest apature and auto ISO. You won't get camera shake or under/over exposure but you will get a blurry background. The camera is still using the lowest (indeed only) ISO to get the image.
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Or set a narrow aperture so you don't get a blurry background. :)
 
andrewc said:
Its a standardised brief that encompasses both experienced and new sports photographers.
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haha no its not :) might be for someone you work for but its not an industry standard thing to do :)
 
ilikebowens said:
It can be useful and I've certainly suggested it to a number of people over recent years. It's a quick "hack" to getting a certain look. Set the slowest shutter speed to avoid camera shake or subject motion in whatever subject you are interested in. Set widest apature and auto ISO. You won't get camera shake or under/over exposure but you will get a blurry background. The camera is still using the lowest (indeed only) ISO to get the image. Also good for wildlife.
If you consider cine work the apature is used only to control depth of field and the shutter speed or angle is predetermined by viewing requirements that only leaves ISO. That being said most would use base ISO and set exposure with a vari nd.
Auto ISO is a tool digital cameras offer. What's the point I using modern kit if one only wants to limit its use to what used to be possible?
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A hack? To get a shallow DOF look? I'm pretty sure it isn't the easiest way to get that look. And it's surely not a set and forget thing, you must have to still change settings for exposure sometimes?
 
I use this and full manual for wildlife. If I had a camera with 3 dials, I would likely stick to full manual, with ISO being the most frequently changed parameter.
 
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