Optimal settings for 35 f/1.8 DX?

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gustafson

Senior Member
I've posted before about my struggles with this lens. On the last go-around, it had to do with overexposure issues, which with the help of friendly Nikonites, I was able to isolate to inadvertently setting the camera for spot metering. http://nikonites.com/prime/35215-overexposed-photos-35-f-1-8-dx-d3100.html#post532089 (I incorrectly mentioned D3100 in the title of that previous post - it was supposed to be D3300).

Had a near repeat of the situation this past weekend. My kiddo lost her first tooth, so I thought I'd take a few portrait shots for posterity.
  • Threw the 35mm f/1.8 on the D3300, and since we were indoors, decided to throw on the SB700 to boot. Set the camera to aperture priority and went for it. First shot out of the camera was overexposed (fortunately was recoverable and ended up being one of the few keepers).
  • Tried stopping down to speed up the shutter to control exposure, but saw that it wanted to stay at 1/15s.
  • Then I noticed that the camera was spot metering, so I switched it to matrix mode, but shutter speed was still staying put at 1/15s.
  • So I switched to shutter priority and a fast shutter speed and managed to get some crisper and properly exposed shots, but by then my kiddo had lost her patience and I wasn't able to get any keepers.
  • Later noticed that I had set the camera to Auto ISO and a minimum shutter speed of 1/15s, and looks like the Auto ISO mode needed to keep the shutter speed at the minimum. I suspect I had the max ISO set to 800, which may explain that.

I will post some samples from the shoot in due course to help troubleshoot what I might have been doing wrong. Meanwhile, I was wondering if others have encountered similar issues with fast short / normal primes, where aperture priority results in slower than desired shutter speeds, requiring one to shoot in shutter priority (or manual) to control exposure and reduce blurriness from camera shake? Thanks in advance.
 
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Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
gustafson said:
I've posted before about my struggles with this lens. On the last go-around, it had to do with overexposure issues, which with the help of friendly Nikonites, I was able to isolate to inadvertently setting the camera for spot metereing. http://nikonites.com/prime/35215-overexposed-photos-35-f-1-8-dx-d3100.html#post532089 (I incorrectly mentioned D3100 in the title of that previous post - it was supposed to be D3300).

Had a near repeat of the situation this past weekend. My kiddo lost her first tooth, so I thought I'd take a few portrait shots for posterity.
  • Threw the 35mm f/1.8 on the D3300, and since we were indoors, decided to throw on the SB700 to boot. Set the camera to aperture priority and went for it. First shot out of the camera was overexposed (fortunately was recoverable and ended up being one of the few keepers).
  • Tried stopping down to speed up the shutter to control exposure, but saw that it wanted to stay at 1/15s.
  • Then I noticed that the camera was spot metering, so I switched it to matrix mode, but shutter speed was still staying put at 1/15s.
  • So I switched to shutter priority and a fast shutter speed and managed to get some crisper and properly exposed shots, but by then my kiddo had lost her patience and I wasn't able to get any keepers.
  • Later noticed that I had set the camera to Auto ISO and a minimum shutter speed of 1/15s, and looks like the Auto ISO mode needed to keep the shutter speed at the minimum. I suspect I had the max ISO set to 800, which may explain that.

I will post some samples from the shoot in due course to help troubleshoot what I might have been doing wrong. Meanwhile, I was wondering if others have encountered similar issues with fast short / normal primes, where aperture priority results in slower than desired shutter speeds, requiring one to shoot in shutter priority (or manual) to control exposure and reduce blurriness from camera shake? Thanks in advance.
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Well there are several ways you could have approached this.

Personally, I don't like using Auto-ISO with flash but you can do it and I don't mean to say you shouldn't; I just find it easier not to do that. I'll go out on a limb and say I would have used Matrix metering, Aperture Priority (probably at f/4 or thereabouts), ISO 200, and bounced the SB-700 off the ceiling if at all possible. I do typically drop the Flash Compensation by about a stop, sometimes one-and-a-half stops, if there's good ambient light but that's something I just sort of play with to find what works.
 
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480sparky

Senior Member
Um............ the only settings a prime lens can have is aperture and focus distance.

ISO, flash, shutter speed, metering and shooting modes & priorities.......... none affect the performance of your lens. If your issues are with any of those, it would matter not what lens you use.
 
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gustafson

Senior Member
480sparky said:
Um............ the only settings a prime lens can have is aperture and focus distance.

ISO, flash, shutter speed, metering and shooting modes & priorities.......... none affect the performance of your lens. If your issues are with any of those, it would matter not what lens you use.
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Are you possibly suggesting that my technique sucks?? J/K, and touché!


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Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
gustafson said:
Sorry to be a bother. It makes me appreciate all the more the folks that have been patient with me and have contributed a helpful response!


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At one point or another we all have had these types of problems. The key is to learn from them. Maybe one day I will learn a little something about photography. :cool:
 
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gustafson

Senior Member
Horoscope Fish said:
Well there are several ways you could have approached this.

Personally, I don't like using Auto-ISO with flash but you can do it and I don't mean to say you shouldn't; I just find it easier not to do that. I'll go out on a limb and say I would have used Matrix metering, Aperture Priority (probably at f/4 or thereabouts), ISO 200, and bounced the SB-700 off the ceiling if at all possible. I do typically drop the Flash Compensation by about a stop, sometimes one-and-a-half stops, if there's good ambient light but that's something I just sort of play with to find what works.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the pointers, esp. the tweaks to consider when using the SB-700.

I know I need to experiment with Auto ISO to understand the ins and outs of how it works. Not sure why I didn't have the min shutter speed set to Auto, where it uses the lens focal length to set the min speed. That would have helped some if nothing else.

The spot metering setting was inadvertent and a holdover from a previous shoot, like the last time. No excuses there. Oz
 
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olegeiser

Senior Member
My opinion: Disable the auto ISO for now. Set the ISO at 100 and go from there. Get down to basics using the camera's indications in the viewfinder/live view screen.
 
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gustafson

Senior Member
On reviewing everyone's comments and my photo set again, looks like I made the following errors:

- First and foremost, had the camera set to spot metering instead of matrix. Were it set to matrix, I may have gotten proper exposure right off the bat.
- In the outdoor shot, I probably didn't press the back button to focus. I looked into this and it turns out that on the D3300, switching to BBAF apparently disables "focus priority" and switches to "release priority".
- On the next shot, I had Auto ISO on with a minimum speed of 1/15s. The auto setting for the minimum speed would have been a wiser choice, if not disabling Auto ISO entirely.
- On the next shot on the couch, when I turned the flash back on, I should have bounced the flash instead of pointing it directly.

While things worked out on the final shot, looks like I could have saved myself some grief by a) disabling Auto ISO altogether and selecting an appropriate ISO, OR b) using Auto ISO but with the Auto setting for the minimum shutter speed, or manually selecting an appropriate setting for the lens. Doing the above may have given me more balanced exposures with or without flash. And if using the SB-700, I would have done well to bounce it rather than point it straight at the subject. Am I missing anything?
 
Woodyg3

Woodyg3

Senior Member
Contributor
I think you need to simplify. You seem to be constantly changing settings, then you get lost or forget how you have things set. Most of the time you can use aperture or shutter priority, set the ISO to 100, and use maxtrix metering.
 
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gustafson

Senior Member
Woodyg3 said:
I think you need to simplify. You seem to be constantly changing settings, then you get lost or forget how you have things set. Most of the time you can use aperture or shutter priority, set the ISO to 100, and use maxtrix metering.
Click to expand...

Touche'. I had a tiny window of time to capture her excitement when she got home from school that day, so I grabbed the camera in a hurry (which had been setup for a moon shoot, hence in spot metering) and ended up having to tweak settings on the fly. Definitely need to be more methodical in my approach, both before a shoot and during a shoot if things go awry.
 
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paul_b

Senior Member
I'm only a beginner but I learnt so much by researching on Google about "flash ratio" and how the exposure triangle effects it (shutter speed, aperture and ISO).

The flash ratio is the ratio of flash light vs ambient light captured in a shot.

Here's a couple of links that explain it, but Google 'flash ratio' yourself and find lots of interesting articles:

Camera Flash: Exposure

Strobist: Lighting 101: Balancing Flash and Ambient, Pt 1

Sent from my XT1562 using Tapatalk
 
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gustafson

Senior Member
paul_b said:
I'm only a beginner but I learnt so much by researching on Google about "flash ratio" and how the exposure triangle effects it (shutter speed, aperture and ISO).

The flash ratio is the ratio of flash light vs ambient light captured in a shot.

Here's a couple of links that explain it, but Google 'flash ratio' yourself and find lots of interesting articles:

Camera Flash: Exposure

Strobist: Lighting 101: Balancing Flash and Ambient, Pt 1

Sent from my XT1562 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Thank you for sharing this. I just read the first article and it was extremely helpful. Much appreciated!


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gustafson

Senior Member
paul_b said:
Also, this interactive website allows you to practice your shooting settings (but it's flash player based so probably only works on a PC rather than mobiles):

Aperture, shutter and ISO value

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Click to expand...

This is nifty - the only issue I'm finding is that it does not seem to be consistent with the Sunny 16 rule, where at f/16, shutter speed should be the reciprocal of the ISO. Otherwise a great tool. I'm off to search if there's an app that does something similar :)
 
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paul_b

Senior Member
Yes, it's a bit basic. I think it is more for teaching absolute beginners the principal of the exposure triangle. You're obviously past that and more interested in things like flash ratios.

With a lot of things, including things like the flash ratios I think it's easier to simplify it so it's more easily remembered, ie:

For the sake of argument, let's say the light in your photo has a flash ratio of 1:1, ie half your light exposure is from ambient (room or natural light) and half your light exposure is from your flash (usually falling on your subject).

I if understand the principle correctly (remember I'm just a beginner and could be wrong) then the following would be true:

1) adjusting the ISO doesn't affect the flash ratio, ie you capture more (or less) light in equal amounts from the ambient and flash

2) adjusting the aperture doesn't affect the flash ratio, ie you capture more (or less) light in equal amounts from the ambient and flash

3) but adjusting the shutter speed only affects the ambient light in the ratio (it obviously effects the overall exposure, but importantly it affects the flash ratio too)

When the flash ratio is wrong you get an unbalanced look between the light on your subject and the background including the possibility (depending on settings) of that over flashed subject on a dark background (especially if the camera is trying to give you a full exposure using mostly flash light)

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