What Confuses You The Most About Your New Camera?

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What Confuses You The Most About Your New Camera?

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NikoDoby

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This is mostly for those who are just starting photography or have recently purchased their first DSLR. What are you having the most trouble "getting right"?

For me when I was a kid and starting with photography, I was so confused about f-stops. It took me a while to remember f2 was "bigger" than f22 :^)

When I switched to digital I fumbled with fully understanding how white balance worked. Now every new camera's menu layout loses me. It's frustrating finding and changing menu settings since I use cameras from more than one manufacturer.

Posted 3 years ago #
bmxdad

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White Balance was be far the one item that took the longest to figure out, and is still giving me a hard time, but I do understand more how to work with it

Pete

Posted 3 years ago #
NikoDoby

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HA! It's good to know it wasn't just me then :^) After using film for so long setting WB to take a picture was so strange for me.

Posted 3 years ago #
NSXType-R

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Not reading the manual and being too excited with playing with the camera.

That's the absolute worst.

Actually, the D40 isn't such a hard camera to figure out. That's probably why I love it so much.

Posted 3 years ago #
kanuck

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For me it was not remembering to jackup the iso once the lights go down. I used to keep the setting of say iso 100 to 400 even after the sun went down at say 6pm. It might not matter as much with a D700 but I paid the price for my growing pains. Must be from my film experiences I used to buy one set of film and thats what I shot like Kodak gold 100 for example in an F90x body.

Posted 3 years ago #
Jessi

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As I have stated almost every time I have posted, I just started DSLR photography this past spring. I was so happy and hopeful the day that my D60 arrived. I knew nothing about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, etc...I did however, inconveniently enough have a strong desire to shoot manually. So I opened my manual and started reading. When I was done I felt like I was going to puke. I knew less about how to operate a camera after reading that thing than before. Thank heavens for Nikon D60 for Dummies. Yes, I am serious.

After that little hurdle, my biggest technical struggle has been with lighting and metering. I am so prone to overexposure and blown out highlights. I feel like it should be so simple, yet for me, it hasn't been.

Posted 3 years ago #
NikoDoby

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I was at the book store once and a little old lady comes up to me and asks if I could help her. She said she was looking for an easy book to read on how to use the internet. I smiled and said to her, "Oh all the Dummy books are over there".

I'll never forget as the expression on her face instantly changed to anger. She walks away from me looking back with an evil stare! I didn't understand until I told my wife about the strange encounter.

"NIKO!? You called that poor lady a dummy and told her to go look at the books over there!", my wife explained to me :^)

I just assumed everyone knew what a Dummy book was!
*double facepalm* for me :^(

Posted 3 years ago #
NSXType-R

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Jessi said:
As I have stated almost every time I have posted, I just started DSLR photography this past spring. I was so happy and hopeful the day that my D60 arrived. I knew nothing about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, etc...I did however, inconveniently enough have a strong desire to shoot manually. So I opened my manual and started reading. When I was done I felt like I was going to puke. I knew less about how to operate a camera after reading that thing than before. Thank heavens for Nikon D60 for Dummies. Yes, I am serious.

After that little hurdle, my biggest technical struggle has been with lighting and metering. I am so prone to overexposure and blown out highlights. I feel like it should be so simple, yet for me, it hasn't been.

When you're in manual, there should a small bit of a light meter where the exposure compensation is. Adjust your shutter/aperture settings until you don't see the bar too far skewed to one side and you should be fine.

Honestly, I tried manual with my camera, and it's no fun. I prefer a metal bodied film camera for that.

Posted 3 years ago #
bmxdad

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NikoDoby said:
I was at the book store once and a little old lady comes up to me and asks if I could help her. She said she was looking for an easy book to read on how to use the internet. I smiled and said to her, "Oh all the Dummy books are over there".

I'll never forget as the expression on her face instantly changed to anger. She walks away from me looking back with an evil stare! I didn't understand until I told my wife about the strange encounter.

"NIKO!? You called that poor lady a dummy and told her to go look at the books over there!", my wife explained to me :^)

I just assumed everyone knew what a Dummy book was!
*double facepalm* for me :^(

That is the kind of book I would have recommended for you too, Niko

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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"How to tell people about Dummy Books for Dummies"

Posted 3 years ago #
jonnyapple

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kanuck said:
For me it was not remembering to jackup the iso once the lights go down. I used to keep the setting of say iso 100 to 400 even after the sun went down at say 6pm.

I had (have?) this problem. I still sometimes regret not setting it higher when I process pictures and see there's some camera shake in them.

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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So many people don't know about this. Auto-ISO should be on by default in Auto and Scene Modes.

Posted 3 years ago #
jonnyapple

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It's not a matter of ignorance, alpha; it's a matter of overconfidence: oh yeah, I can handhold 135mm at 1/50s. I'll just take 7 shots and one will turn out.

Or none will turn out, Jonny.

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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My dad just sets his cameras to ISO 400 and forgets it. I'm like, "Dad, you know you have a full-frame camera, which means use ISO 6400 like all the time." He doesn't listen though. He's very particular about grain. The other day I showed him a photo, and he told it was grainy and that I should have used a lower ISO. I showed him the metadata—I shot the image at ISO 100! At least I can laugh when he get's a blurry shot. "I told you to raise the ISO!"

Posted 3 years ago #
Gentoo

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For me, it was exposure compensation. For the longest time this setting bewildered me and I would never remember to adjust it when needed. When I overexposed or underexposed, I would screw with other settings but never quite got the results I wanted. On the D40, I was lazy about learning these because it was such a pain in the ass to always have to go into the menus to change most things. I learned this better when I got the D300 but it still took me a while to get used to messing with this setting. Now it's like second nature to me.

Posted 3 years ago #
jonnyapple

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Gentoo said:
For me, it was exposure compensation. For the longest time this setting bewildered me and I would never remember to adjust it when needed. When I overexposed or underexposed, I would screw with other settings but never quite got the results I wanted. On the D40, I was lazy about learning these because it was such a pain in the ass to always have to go into the menus to change most things. I learned this better when I got the D300 but it still took me a while to get used to messing with this setting. Now it's like second nature to me.

I'm probably going to sound like a snob, but I had a hard time remembering to adjust the exposure compensation when I shot auto all the time. It was like I stopped paying attention to the exposure since I knew the camera would get me close. When some of the other stuff became more familiar, I switched to using manual almost all the time, and now I do the exposure compensation while looking through the viewfinder: subject in in front of a bright backgroud, adjust until the meter shows a stop or two above zero or whatever.
I know, in birding you probably don't have the luxury of sitting there adjusting your aperture and shutter speed since your subject is halfway to the next town by the time you get it right, but for situations when I can use manual I do now and I've had much better luck with exposure. What? I think I'm smarter than a camera? I am sounding like a snob. At least I admit I'm almost completely dependent on the camera's metering system.

Posted 3 years ago #
bmxdad

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You know what would be great:

Liveview histogram and the ability to spot histogram and move the histogram around the liveview or playback screen

Pete

Posted 3 years ago #
Gentoo

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jonnyapple said:
I'm probably going to sound like a snob, but I had a hard time remembering to adjust the exposure compensation when I shot auto all the time. It was like I stopped paying attention to the exposure since I knew the camera would get me close. When some of the other stuff became more familiar, I switched to using manual almost all the time, and now I do the exposure compensation while looking through the viewfinder: subject in in front of a bright backgroud, adjust until the meter shows a stop or two above zero or whatever.
I know, in birding you probably don't have the luxury of sitting there adjusting your aperture and shutter speed since your subject is halfway to the next town by the time you get it right, but for situations when I can use manual I do now and I've had much better luck with exposure. What? I think I'm smarter than a camera? I am sounding like a snob. At least I admit I'm almost completely dependent on the camera's metering system.

Haha, Jonny you don't sound like a snob at all. I've gone through several shooting methods. To learn, I shot manual a lot at first. Missed lots of shots and screwed up lots of exposures but it was fun to learn that way. I shot in S mode for a while too but that was weird as well. Today I use A mode, most birders do. I use this mode precisely for the reasons you mentioned; in birding, you don't have a lot of time to worry about getting the exposure right, you need to at least get that much. The cameras are good at getting me my shutter speeds I need (usually high, especially if you're hand holding non VR lenses like I do). Now I can adjust exp. comp. with relative ease when I need to along with ISO. My shooting conditions change when I turn in another direction to get another shot. It may have been perfect in one direction but now the exposure is crazy over or wicked underexposed.

Posted 3 years ago #
jonnyapple

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bmxdad said:
You know what would be great:

Liveview histogram and the ability to spot histogram and move the histogram around the liveview or playback screen

Pete

Pete, couple it with a touch screen and an EVF that I can't tell isn't optical and I'm sold.

Gentoo, Auto ISO sounds handy in that situation. I'll bet you were one of the people who were jumping with joy when they updated the D300 firmware to give faster than 1/250s as an option for Auto ISO. What was with that limitation, anyway? It almost made Auto ISO worthless until you could set it to 1/1000 or faster.

Posted 3 years ago #
Gentoo

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You know Jonny, I no longer use auto ISO. I stopped using it about a year ago. I don't like what it selects most of the time. I've gotten to where I know almost exactly where I need to set it. Auto usually pushes it too far or not far enough. Most of the hummingbird pics I posted, the one a while ago that was super close up I know I needed it at ISO 1000. I think in the recent ones I may have used 800. Auto often selects weird numbers like 720, WTF? And I need to use third stops. However I do agree with you that, that limitation was borderline mental illness on Nikon's part.

Posted 3 years ago #
bernard

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Could someone tell me how to rewind the memory card when it's full ?… :oD

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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bernard said:
Could someone tell me how to rewind the memory card when it's full ?… :oD

Can't tell you that, but I do know how to rewind a DVD ;^)

Posted 3 years ago #
bernard

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Ah ! At last ! I've had a DVD stuck in my player for ages waiting for someone to tell me how to rewind it. Thanks alpha ! :o)

Posted 3 years ago #
Gentoo

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Oh yeah, when I ordered my D90 the site said please enter your credit card so I did. Now the damn floppy drive is jammed! LOL

Posted 3 years ago #
optimaforever

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For me it was BOTH the WB and the exposure compensation.
For a while I thought it was inevitable and soon I realized that the WB settings range wasn't wide enough (on a p&s) and that exposure compensation was on ("why is that f***ing little +/- icon blinkin'?"). the problem was that these aperture and shutterspeed wheels acted differently according to the PSAM modes, so it was very confusing.
Luckily I discovered that shooting RAW on my D80 allowed to modify the WB issue... ;-)
Thinking about it I had problems mastering the exposure on my D300 too (the easiest for me is still spot mode; matrix produces sometimes unpredictable exposures). I guess my future D700s (D800?) will ease these issues a bit... (will it?) :D

Posted 3 years ago #

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What Confuses You The Most About Your New Camera?

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