Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lawrence" data-source="post: 416330" data-attributes="member: 16844">I am going to post here because I don't think this deserves a whole new thread ....Please tell me this gets easier!Because of a couple of threads I have been following regarding "correct" exposure and something I was reading last night in a magazine I decided to go out this afternoon and try a few settings with one thing in mind. Learn more about exposure and in particular how my camera's sensor measures it.To do this I took only my 70-300mm and kept it on the long end where aperture options were limited.I switched to aperture mode (the magazine article's influence) and set ISO to auto with minimum shutter speed of 1/400th So far so good.  Maximum ISO was set to 1600 which I have found in the past to be a bit high for my D5100.Next I set off in search of a fox (the magazine is from the UK) and I soon realised that there weren't many around.  I based this conclusion on  the fact that there were lots of ducks out - they wouldn't be out if a fox was around - and not on the fact that we don't get foxes here.The fun began and I continually kept referring to my histogram trying to shoot so that I was "exposing to the right" and something to do with the 18%.The pictures weren't great (hey ducks are pretty boring - especially if they are plain brown) but I found out a few things about my camera with these settings. I still haven't worked them out but it seems that the ISO was stuck on 1600, the shutter speed was moving around and went below 1/400 at times.I also discovered that when i was trying to adjust the shutter speed I was adjusting the exposure compensation.  A lot of the shots were exposed too far to the right as a result.I still haven't got my head around all of this and why it happened. The +/- button which should have been the shutter speed change was the one that was changing the Exposure adjustment. My conclusion is that once you hit the parameters of your minimum and maximum settings the only thing you can change with +/- is exposure compensation.Having reached that conclusion I adjusted maximum ISO down to 800 and from there things seemed to work more or less as I am used to them working.I never use aperture but want to try it tomorrow at a polo event. Its ongoing and ever learning - I just hope it comes naturally to me at some point. Like a flash going off.Thanks for listening. PS I may post some of the boring duck photos once I have looked at them.O</blockquote>

Verification