L30 exposure defaults to f3.2 all the time

Matt Cook

New member
Thank you for letting me join your forum. I hope you can help. I got no relevant hits searching for "3.2," "exposure," or "default."

I have had my L30 for about 9 months. It was set with the factory default settings. I use it for work, taking pictures of the insides and outsides of houses.

About 3 months in, I noticed that the automated exposure seemed to be defaulting to f3.2 all the time. I never really looked at the exposure settings before that, but I didn't think it was doing that.

The issue is that indoors, it defaults to f3.2 then adjusts the shutter speed, and a huge percentage of pictures are at 1/30 sec at f3.2, with no flash, which is kind of borderline for shooting clearly without shake. I have observed that it will not flash til the shutter speed goes down to 1/25. Outdoors, it wants to shoot at 1/1000 at f3.2 or even 1/1200 at f3.2. Many pictures come out not as crisp as they should with a Nikon, even an entry level one.

I brought it to a Nikon contract repair station and they basically said there is nothing wrong with it. The repair station did all the factory reset stuff, downloaded the most recent firmware, etc.

I spoke to Nikon a couple of times, and when I directly asked if shooting at f3.2 under all conditions was standard or normal behavior for this model, they would not give me a straight answer.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is this normal behavior for this model (and if so, why on earth?) My old L11 does not show the exposure, but it usually flashes inside, when the L30 will not.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give. I love the wide angle on the lens but the exposure issue drives me nuts.
 

RocketCowboy

Senior Member
Howdy Matt and welcome to Nikonites!

I don't have experience with the L30, but I'm sure there will be others along shortly who can provide some first hand knowledge on that model. Regardless, I hope you enjoy your time on the site!
 

Matt Cook

New member
Auto mode but it behaves the same in Easy Auto. Let me put it another way. The manual says the lens has an aperature range from 3.2 to 6.5. I have never seen any setting other than f3.2, even when shooting outdoors in bright sunlight. I am hoping someone else with this model can tell me their experiences.
 

WayneF

Senior Member
B&H quotes the L30 specs as:

Lens:
NIKKOR, 6 elements in 5 groups
EFL: 4.6-23mm (35 mm equivalent: 26-130mm)
Aperture: f/3.2 (W) - 6.5 (T)

So try zooming to telephoto, and see what you get.
 

Matt Cook

New member
Interesting. I almost never use the telephoto, mostly needing the widest angle available. When I zoom out, it does go to a smaller aperature.

But my main question remains: Is it standard behavior for the L30 to default to f3.2 all the time unless zoomed; that is, do others with this model experience the same thing? And if so, why in God's name would Nikon design a camera that forces the user to shoot 90% of indoor shots at a shutter speed so slow (1/30 at f3.2 without flash) that it is vulnerable to shaking, and 90% of its outdoor shots at an aperature so wide (f3.2) that is has to shoot some of them at 1/1200 sec.?

This is completely illogical to me as someone who learned the principles of photography almost 50 years ago. AND it is inconsistent with other cameras, including older Nikon L-series that I have owned. It makes no sense for a camera to behave that way, but the Nikon service center says it works just fine, and Nikon would not give me a straight answer about what its normal exposure behavior should be.
 

WayneF

Senior Member
But my main question remains: Is it standard behavior for the L30 to default to f3.2 all the time unless zoomed; that is, do others with this model experience the same thing? And if so, why in God's name would Nikon design a camera that forces the user to shoot 90% of indoor shots at a shutter speed so slow (1/30 at f3.2 without flash) that it is vulnerable to shaking, and 90% of its outdoor shots at an aperature so wide (f3.2) that is has to shoot some of them at 1/1200 sec.?


I'd guess yes about others seeing it, since that's the design of the camera. That is sort of the price of an automatic camera, you do what it does. It is designed to try hard, but if you want more control, you need a camera model offering more control.

I don't know enough to comment on their design, but after a quick glance, it seems very common on compacts, many Nikon and Canon models seem spec'd almost identically.

Canon PowerShot SX700 HS Digital Camera (Black) 9338B001 B&H

Canon SX700, $280,
Lens
EFL: 4.5-135mm (35 mm equivalent: 25-750mm)
Aperture: f/3.2 (W) - 6.9 (T)


Mine was far from an exhaustive search, but when you get up around the $500 range, then some models seem to offer more, with wider apertures like f/1.8, etc. The zooms still tend to show the same (W) (T) thing.

>>forces the user to shoot 90% of indoor shots at a shutter speed so slow (1/30 at f3.2 without flash) that it is vulnerable to shaking,

You need a wider aperture (like f/2) to get a faster shutter speed in dim light. Price could buy that, but $90 probably doesn't. ISO helps too of course, to a point. You didn't say what the ISO did. But the tiny sensor cannot go very high on ISO (noise).

And 1/30 is not all that slow for a 4.6mm wide angle lens. The vague rule of thumb about hand-holding is 1/focal length seconds. Yes, that is 1/50 second for a 50 mm normal lens with 35mm film, but it's 1/4.6 second for your wide angle. 1/30 second is pretty much faster than 1/4 second. It's not really that simple though, because your small sensor image also has to be enlarged 5.6x more (to view same size as 35mm film), which aggravates any shake. The rule of thumb doesn't take that into account, it is only concerned with lens for 35mm film. So 1/4.6 x 5.6 is back near 1/25 second, but the rule of thumb implies that is doable (sometimes). A camera model with image stabilization can help too.


>>and 90% of its outdoor shots at an aperature so wide (f3.2) that is has to shoot some of them at 1/1200 sec.?

The lens aperture doesn't seem to have much (if any) range, but I don't see 1/200 second as being a bad thing? Knowing ISO would be interesting... You did not say Bright sun, but Bright sun is EV 15, or 1/125 second f/16 ISO 100, expected. The L30 specs say ISO 80 is the minimum ISO, and 1/200 f/3.2 ISO 80 would be 3.67 stops overexposed? So it has to do something else there? If f/3.2, I think it has to be much faster shutter speed in bright sun, like 1/2500 second?

If maybe you're used to 35mm film camera numbers, your crop factor (from tiny compact sensor size) is about 5.6x, so f/3.2 actually compares more to 5.6x 3.2 or f/18. Not about exposure (that's still of course f/3.2), but about depth of field. Due to the small sensors, compacts are already (relatively) stopped down with significantly more depth of field and diffraction than larger sensors. It's generally considered a bad thing for compacts to stop down much, because diffraction becomes bad at numbers much above f/4. Compacts are just different rules. The automation tries to take care of it for you.
 
Last edited:
Top