New D600 users

For those that have just bought a D600, such as myself, before you go out and start shooting, check the settings of the camera. I found out the hard way as my first few photographs were not sharp, but on inspection, I saw that the ISO was set to 100 for all the shots. Checking the settings revealed that the ISO settings was set to 100 and not Auto. All part of the learning curve!

Cheers macjim,

Funny that, I checked mine and it too was on 100 and yes, the first few shots were yuck, but it was very grey, overcast... In the sunlight though I have got good results with 100,, but I always change per conditions... It would be due to many thing including the lens you are using... I too am on the "learning curve" with the D600. Completely different from my D300...

One of the first things I did with my camera was set the ISO to 200

I don't think an ISO setting of 100 would have a lot to do with images not being sharp...

Sounds more like incorrect technique or a slow shutter speed to me..

pedroj said:

One of the first things I did with my camera was set the ISO to 200

I don't think an ISO setting of 100 would have a lot to do with images not being sharp...

Sounds more like incorrect technique or a slow shutter speed to me..

Click to expand...

Yes, I have to put my hands up and say guilty! It was down to the fact that I was shooting at f5.6 that forced the camera to use a slow shutter speed, but this was also down to the camera defaulting to ISO 100.


Cheers, Macjim.

If you use auto ISO the camera over compensates some times and you end up with noisy images...

As i said I have mine set at 200 and if I cant achieve the shutter speed needed I alter it to suit...

Fill flash is another alternative to Higher ISO...

Using flash while street shooting is the last thing you want as you'll draw attention to yourself. I generally use my X-Pro1 for street photography as its discrete so, yes, setting the ISO manually is a good idea. I only wanted to save others finding out the hard way by shooting in the wrong ISO as most cameras are set to auto straight out of the box.

One other thing to watch out for is the minimum shutter speed setting... My first shots were out of focus too. I began to think I'd got a duffer of a camera so I checked the metadata and that revealed that not only was the camera set to ISO 100 but it was also shooting as low as 1/50th hand held! Please note that I'm using the Nikon 50 mm f1.4G lens as my prime lens so no VR. obviously if your using a VR lens then this problem shouldn't affect you but it will pay dividends if you thoroughly check you camera settings first before taking it out for the first time saving you missing a once in a lifetime shot

Well, I thought I'd better show you something taken with the D600, so here you are. I decided to try the Auto setting to see what difference it would make rather than my usual Aperture Priority choice. I also set the ISO to Auto, and set the minimum shutter speed to f1/125th to cut out the problems mentioned previously.

If I get the chance today to get out, I am going to give the Auto setting a tryout too. On a camera of this magnitude, I'd not usually use a Auto option, mainly because they don't usually have that mode but strangely enough the D600 does, so I'll see what it is capable of - that's IF I can get out today...