What Camera Settings

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
An excellent explanation but I think Tony is probably all but pi$$ing in the wind here. Not that I don't agree with what he's saying, because I absolutely do, 110%.

I just think this is One of Those Things: you either GET IT, in which case you don't need it explained to you; or you DON'T GET IT, in which case no amount of explaining is going to help you get it.
 

Ironwood

Senior Member
Hes right to a certain extent, but to say the settings dont matter is just wrong. Sure, once you have got that shot, they dont matter much anymore, but to get the shot looking like that, they do matter.
 

Roy1961

Senior Member
Contributor
i bet if his SS was 1/640 and the osprey was blurry the camera settings would matter.

Usually its someone less experienced (or not really familiar with that type of shooting) that's asking for that advice.
 

Michael J.

Senior Member
I think that he means the settings he used doesn't matter for others to copy cos there is no same shots, situations, conditions, etc..
 

Fabrefaction

New member
I think he likes tooting his own horn a little too much... especially as I am not sure he actually has a clue about photography. I mean how do you travel all that way to a remote location and not have the right lens with you? It is the most basic of things you check that you have along with a charged battery.

Apart from that, I don't agree with him, you can't just trust the camera to take a shot, my D3100, if left on Program, has a horrible ability to white out everything. Nor can you "save" all baldy exposed pictures in RAW. A totally whited out image just won't have the detail to save. Same with a hugely underexposed image because the sensor just did not have the time to actually capture the detail.

At the end of the day, settings are important! I don't know about anyone else but I learnt how to take photographs by following other peoples settings. I would spend hours going through sites like 500px and writing down the settings of shots that I liked then taking my camera out and trying them out. It is how I learnt to read light and learnt how all the settings in my camera worked.

I am not even going to touch him saying that photography is now about only about PP. There is also still a skill level required with the actual camera.
 

Blacktop

Senior Member
Settings do matter. There is a reason we shoot landscapes at different settings then BIF or sports or portraits. Try shooting that osprey with a landscape setting set to ISO 100 and a slower SS.
As a matter of fact there are many different settings for the same landscape shot, even if you're on a tripod.
The same exact shot might need a whole different setting on a different day depending on weather conditions for example.

On a windy day you might need to up your SS so the leaves on the trees will come out sharp. All this comes with experience. Just because you copy someone else's EXIF on a shot that you may want to try, it doesn't mean it's going to work for you.
Yes it might be a good starting point, but you still have to experiment and put in the time.

This why when someone asks about settings, you can never give a precise answer because it all depends on various factors.

BTW I did not finish watching the video. When he started talking about the tens of thousands of shots he took and how one needs to be an artist and all that, I got turned off fast.
 

Blade Canyon

Senior Member
I can tell you one setting that matters: ISO! Yesterday I shot over a hundred head shots at a realtor's house and had the ISO at 800 instead of 100. I cringe to think how much better those shots would have been had I let in 8x more light.
 

Fabrefaction

New member
Settings do matter. There is a reason we shoot landscapes at different settings then BIF or sports or portraits. Try shooting that osprey with a landscape setting set to ISO 100 and a slower SS.
As a matter of fact there are many different settings for the same landscape shot, even if you're on a tripod.
The same exact shot might need a whole different setting on a different day depending on weather conditions for example.

On a windy day you might need to up your SS so the leaves on the trees will come out sharp. All this comes with experience. Just because you copy someone else's EXIF on a shot that you may want to try, it doesn't mean it's going to work for you.
Yes it might be a good starting point, but you still have to experiment and put in the time.

This why when someone asks about settings, you can never give a precise answer because it all depends on various factors.

BTW I did not finish watching the video. When he started talking about the tens of thousands of shots he took and how one needs to be an artist and all that, I got turned off fast.


I agree, on an overcast day the right settings might change minute by minute as the clouds move across the sun. He can't just say that he never pays any attention and that settings don't matter.

What using other peoples settings is good for is getting yourself into the right ballpark settings wise when you are new to photography. If you look at someones action shot, you can see "Ok if I want to freeze an action I will need a high shutter speed and I will need to turn my ISO up a little and...." It makes learning quicker. Once in the right area, it is easier to find the right path.
 

Woodyg3

Senior Member
Contributor
He's not saying settings don't matter. He's saying you can't just copy someone else's settings, and there is way more to a shot that the EXIF data. I think he could be very tired of people wanting simple as pie settings for every situation instead of people thinking for themselves. This is kind of like how people always want to know about what equipment was used for a shot instead of being more focused on the process of getting the shot.

It looks to me that Tony made this out of frustration with people wanting easy answers instead of really learning exposure basics for themselves.
 

Blacktop

Senior Member
What I would like to know, is how many people actually walk up to him while he's out shooting, bugging him for setting information to a point that he is soooo frustrated that he has to make a youtube video.

I shoot at places a lot where there are others around and I can't remember ever being asked that question. Whenever I start up a conversation with someone else, it's usually just about the subject and how we are composing the shot. Once in awhile the subject of which lens we are using comes up, but that's about it.:indecisiveness:

If the subject of settings do ever come up, it's usually like "Man I wish we had some more light. My shutterspeed is really low this morning".
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
What I would like to know, is how many people actually walk up to him while he's out shooting, bugging him for setting information to a point that he is soooo frustrated that he has to make a youtube video. ...
I don't know but... I assume they're coming from his forums-site, sdpcommunity (dot) com (that stands for Stunning Digital Photography, BTW, the title of one of Tony's books). I'm speculating of course, possibly hypothesizing, when I say that but who among us doesn't love a good hypothesis?
 

Texas

Senior Member
Everybody wants to be a youtube star or at least an "influencer".

On the topic of settings I get a kick out of advice to beginners to go "manual" and once in a while they will get a good photo, of course the same settings will be easier to get with auto or P.


 

grandpaw

Senior Member
I know that I have been asked several times over the years what my settings were. When you first start out and are learning this just gives a beginner some ballpark settings that it took to capture a certain mood or how fast a shutter speed was needed to stop the wings of a bird in flight. I don't thing even a beginner would be inexperienced enough to the point that they would think by using this particular combination of settings that it would work in every situation, but it does give them a ballpark idea for this type of shot in similar lighting what would get them close.

When I talk to people new to photography and they ask me about settings I tell them that the settings that will really tell them the most is the settings in the data in their own pictures. I tell them to look through the pictures they have taken in the past and see what pictures gave them the results that were looking for and make a note of those settings and also make a note of what didn't work. You can learn a lot from your own settings that you have access to all the time. You can easily see if the shutter speed that you used for a image stopped the bird in flight or that it didn't and if you need a faster shutter speed. You can also see what F stop gave you the depth of field you wanted and what didn't work so well.

I myself looked at hundreds of other peoples pictures to get some idea of what focal length I would need the most for my trip to Disney World before i went and found that probably 95% of all the pictures were taken from 18mm to 40mm so I took my 17mm to 50mm Sigma lens and that covered just about everything I needed. Settings can be very useful when you find out what works for the type and style of photography you shoot but asking what setting others use will only give you guidance for that same type of shot under the same circumstances. Looking at your own settings and determining what worked and what didn't for you in the past is the most helpful information of all in my opinion. Knowing what works or doesn't work with the equipment you own is much more valuable than finding out what work for others and the gear they are using.
 
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rocketman122

Senior Member
I think he likes tooting his own horn a little too much... especially as I am not sure he actually has a clue about photography. I mean how do you travel all that way to a remote location and not have the right lens with you? It is the most basic of things you check that you have along with a charged battery.

Apart from that, I don't agree with him, you can't just trust the camera to take a shot, my D3100, if left on Program, has a horrible ability to white out everything. Nor can you "save" all baldy exposed pictures in RAW. A totally whited out image just won't have the detail to save. Same with a hugely underexposed image because the sensor just did not have the time to actually capture the detail.

At the end of the day, settings are important! I don't know about anyone else but I learnt how to take photographs by following other peoples settings. I would spend hours going through sites like 500px and writing down the settings of shots that I liked then taking my camera out and trying them out. It is how I learnt to read light and learnt how all the settings in my camera worked.

I am not even going to touch him saying that photography is now about only about PP. There is also still a skill level required with the actual camera.

I used to be a fan no more. he likes to instigate and poke and sting and hes too snobbish and his work really isnt inspiring to me. plus looking 30 with that white wig hair. same with fatt granger and artoftheimage whos trying to sell clothing with banners in his videos. settings matter VERY much, to understand regarding ODF and speed needed to blur or freeze action. like panning a car on a racetrack. many wouldnt know what speed to use. someone more experienced would tell a range of shutter speeds they can use. or even someone telling you to use the long exposure NR that you never knew of. YES! settings matter very much for a less experienced photog. I always help another photog with getting his settings honed in. I also ask settings of an image taken to understand the mindset of the photog and his technique. feck P/auto. you wont learn jack shet and most of the images willl come out crap. youre relying on an exposure meter that gets spooked with a bit of light in the frame. screw you tony
 

spb_stan

Senior Member
I fail to understand why the statement generates criticism. Settings mattered to him at the time but should have no bearing on what someone else does at another time. There is way too much talk about specific settings or specifications comparing cameras when every camera made in years could get desirable images that tell a compelling story. It it assumed one knows the basics of exposure triad, if not they won't be able to get what they wanted in the first place and only discover that a shot worked after seeing one they liked from a day of shooting.
Settings and camera spec mean very little to the story, and the drive to replace perfectly good cameras with each new model seems counter productive, causing people to advance slower, having to learn a whole new system. If someone is not getting shots with their D3400 that are intriguing to people changing to a D500 is not going to change the lack of artistic content.

Each one of those images he showed could have been shot in an infinite number of ways, and the only criteria that matters would be the impression on other people. A lot of people shooting the same scene would end up with a lot of different reactions from viewers. It is not art until perceived by others, and their impression determines whether it is desirable or not, communicative or not.

Shot with what you have, before spending money on a new body, invest in travel to good art museums or galleries. Notice your own reactions to works. That will teach you more about the art of storytelling than a new camera body. All this assumes you know a lot about the exposure Triad, if you have to ask settings, maybe you need to study a little more about exposure. Once you do know exposure you will be able to have more control of how the results conform to your intent when comfortable using manual exposure control.
 
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