Morning all!

Hey everybody.

I'm relatively new to the DSLR world, having recently upgraded to a D3200 from my previous Fuji Finepix bridge camera. It always took a half decent shot, but was very zoom-limited, and with a Spitfire flight experience coming up in a couple of weeks time, I felt the need to finally upgrade to do the event justice.

I've been practising with it as much as possible in the last few weeks, and I'm getting better. I'm still a little unsatisfied with the general sharpness of the pictures when you zoom in on them on a laptop, but having read a previous topic on here (Google brought me to this forum by searching for questions about that particular topic), I've already got a few ideas on how to improve things further.

So far, this is the picture I'm most satisfied with. Feedback welcome!

Welcome to Nikonites....

Pat in GA

Welcome aboard. That's a great picture. Question, is there a particular reason you're -2 on exposure compensation?

Hello and welcome......................................

PapaST said:

Welcome aboard. That's a great picture. Question, is there a particular reason you're -2 on exposure compensation?

Click to expand...

thanks

I wish I could give you a smart-sounding, knowledgeable response to your question........but I can't! :shame: I'm still playing around with the settings and learning my way, that setting seemed to be making the pictures look better in review on the screen. It was early evening, so the light was starting to fade, what would you have suggested as a setting?

Welcome to the forum.

Shutter speed is slow for a moving shot, 1/200. You got good results though. They say 1/(focal length) is a good start for safe handheld shutter speed. Some recommend 1/(focal length x 1.5), so 1/450. Lens VR helps you beat the odds too. I tend to use double the focal length for a zoom. Avoid minimum aperture (you did at f10).

My standard newbie recommendation is to brush up the exposure triangle.
Camera Exposure: Aperture, ISO & Shutter Speed

Shutter, aperture and iso all come together to create a proper exposure. Those parameters can all be juggled a bit within the 'triangle' to still produce a properly exposed image, but favoring a particular parameter and minimizing a side effect from another. Exposure compensation shifts that metered exposure for special situations where part of the subject might not expose properly with normal metering. In this case with the white car, it may have helped you. Maybe -1 rather than -2, but it probably helped to not blow the white out. Negative exposure comp underexposes the shot, positive comp will overexpose. This can help get proper exposure on a smaller main subject that is very bright or very dark.

Thanks for the feedback Nick. I think this was a lucky shot, some of my others on this evening were only "reasonable" in comparison. In low-ish light, and fast-moving subjects, I should have used a larger aperture and less exposure compensation?

I was worried I was having backfocus issues with the camera, but I did a test on it over the weekend I'm fairly sure it's OK. My results, even on static shots, haven't been as crisp as I'd hoped when you zoom in on them. I'm shooting in JPEG, fine quality, at maximum image size. I haven't checked what sharpness it's set at, will do that when I get home tonight.

robstopper said:

Thanks for the feedback Nick. I think this was a lucky shot, some of my others on this evening were only "reasonable" in comparison. In low-ish light, and fast-moving subjects, I should have used a larger aperture and less exposure compensation?

Click to expand...

You can go larger on the aperture. Avoid wide open if you can, but don't fear going wide open if light is low. Some lenses are less sharp wide open, but still acceptable. You will get to know the sweet spot of your lens. Use exposure comp if you know you need it. The matrix metering gets a lot of things right. A white car in the sun might be good reason to use some (-1) neg exp comp. You could probably live with leaving the -1 comp at the track if the sun is bright on the cars. Its not a routine thing though to walk around with exposure comp dialed in.
On your shot above, I might have gone down to f8, up 2 notches on the shutter speed and iso 200. I think that works out to the same exposure. You don't need to think too hard about this. Shutter or aperture priority with auto iso will figure it out for you. There are plenty of threads here with suggestions for tweaking up your in-camera jpg settings for a little more sharpness.

robstopper said:

So far, this is the picture I'm most satisfied with. Feedback welcome!
View attachment 208810

Click to expand...

Someone help that poor Porsche driver!! He's on the wrong side of the car!!

Howdy and welcome to Nikonites!

Thanks again Nick. At the moment, I'm trying to use fully manual as much as possible so I can learn myself what influence changing the settings has on my results, rather than letting the camera do it for me. I may revert to some of the half-way auto settings.

One change I made from my first track evening to the second was to use single point AF instead of dynamic - seemed to get better results that way, instead of confusing the camera with what it was trying to focus on. I was using spot metering too, not matrix. I see what you mean about not needing the exposure comp' if you're using a larger aperture in the first place.

RocketCowboy said:

Someone help that poor Porsche driver!! He's on the wrong side of the car!!

Howdy and welcome to Nikonites!

Click to expand...

hahaha, no, no, no - it's us, the Aussies and the Japs who sit on the correct side of the car!:shame: lol

thanks for the welcome Charlie.

robstopper said:

Thanks again Nick. At the moment, I'm trying to use fully manual as much as possible so I can learn myself what influence changing the settings has on my results, rather than letting the camera do it for me. I may revert to some of the half-way auto settings.

One change I made from my first track evening to the second was to use single point AF instead of dynamic - seemed to get better results that way, instead of confusing the camera with what it was trying to focus on. I was using spot metering too, not matrix. I see what you mean about not needing the exposure comp' if you're using a larger aperture in the first place.

Click to expand...

Yes, single point focus might be best. The camera doesn't know what is most important to you.

Exposure comp is not really linked to what aperture you use. Its more of a 'fool/shift the meter thing'. Black cat on white sand or white cat on black sand and you want details in the body. Relatively small subject and the meter will expose for the general scene and get the cat wrong. Compensation can help. Spot metering can solve the problem too. Probably not both exposure comp and spot metering though. Give the matrix metering a go, its pretty good. Spot meter is nice at times, but it can make you crazy for general use, depending where the spot falls.

OK, great stuff, thanks.

Welcome along

Welcome to the website.

thanks guys.

Am off to a car show this weekend, so as long as the weather is kind (bank holiday weekend in the UK?? I'll be lucky!!!), I hope to get some static shot practice in.

Greetings from Oregon, Rob; it's nice to have you with us. I'm looking forward to seeing some additional photos of your next shoot.