Sunday Sep 27, 2009 at 08:37
Nikon D700 Custom Control Settings
I never blogged it, but a few months ago I upgraded to a Nikon D700 from my trusty D200. Excellent image quality aside, I think the singular winning quality of the Nikon SLRs is their handling and overall usability. The camera hardly ever gets in the way of what I want to do with it.
A significant part of the usability for me is the custom control settings on the camera. Here’s how I have things set currently:
FUNC Button
The FUNC button sits comfortably under the fourth finger of the right hand on the front of the camera. Custom Setting #F5 allows it to be assigned to a number of functions in two separate modes – button press and button + dials (i.e. press and hold while you move the command dials).
Given that the D700 is missing a dedicated bracketing control, you’re pretty much forced to assign FUNC Button + Dials to “Auto bracketing”. With the button held, you can move the command dials to set the number of bracketed frames plus the relative exposures you’d like to capture. I normally leave it at five frames (0, -2, -1, +1, +2) but there a number of other options.
For the Button Press setting, I use “Spot Metering”. I find this incredibly useful. The camera is left in Matrix metering mode by default, allowing initial exposure settings to be dialled in quickly (I almost always work in Manual mode). But if you have the slightest concerns about dynamic range (i.e. is it too large, such that I either need to use an ND grad filter or to bracket my exposures for subsequent blending or HDR), it’s very useful to have the spot meter at hand to determine that.
Holding the FUNC button down, I’m able quickly to check where the sky or the dark trees sit relative to dialled in exposure settings. For example, if I matrix meter the scene and dial in exposure such that the meter reads 0, I can then point at the sky (or select focus point in that region), hold the FUNC button and obtain a spot meter reading instantly. If the exposure for the spot meter reading is several stops higher, I know that I’m likely to blow the highlights in the sky area with my current selected exposure.
The great thing about this setting is just how quick it is to use – you don’t need to take your eye away from the viewfinder (which you otherwise would if you had to switch back and forth between metering modes using the selector switch on the back of the camera).
One word of warning however: you need to be disciplined not to change exposure settings with the FUNC button pressed. Why? Because you wouldn’t be changing the exposure settings, you’d be changing the bracketing settings (if you’ve followed my choices so far). Believe me, that can get very confusing…
Preview Button
The Preview button lies above the FUNC button (under the third finger of the right hand). Custom Setting #F6 allows it be assigned to a number of functions again, just like the FUNC button.
In this case, there’s only one choice really and that’s to leave it at its default assignment of DOF Preview. Depth of field preview, when activated, stops the lens down to the selected aperture so that you can evaluate… the depth of field. Invaluable for landscape photographers (assuming your eyesight is good enough to determine precisely what’s in focus and what’s not through the viewfinder – not sure mine is any more).
You can’t always combine settings for Button Press and Button + Dials, so in this case DOF Preview is the only thing this button does.
AE-L/AF-L Button
Custom Setting #F7 determines what the AE-L/AF-L Buton on the back of camera does. Given that I generally want these controls accessible while looking through the viewfinder, I tend to think of them in terms of musical instrument fingerings – in piano terms, this is like reaching from C down to A with your right hand thumb.
Despite periodically re-reading the manual on what this button was originally intended to do, I must confess I never really got it. I can only assume others didn’t either and that’s why Nikon made it assignable to other functions.
I have it set to Virtual horizon. There’s a virtual horizon that you can display on the rear LCD, but that involves moving through the menus so, for me, is a complete non-starter in the field.
The Virtual horizon you get with holding AE-L/AF-L is in the viewfinder – the metering graph turns into a virtual spirit level indicating whether the camera is perpendicular to the ground or not. Accuracy isn’t perfect, but it’s definitely better than nothing. I have a tendency to think I have the camera level when I don’t, especially for those more awkward shots close to the ground in portrait mode where you have to twist to bring your eye to the viewfinder.
Setting virtual horizon precludes you setting anything for Button + Dials, so that’s it for this one.
That’s all. AF-ON isn’t an assignable button – it’s one of the ones that prety much only does what it says.
Remember, my settings are but one combination of a wide array of choices you could make. You may not be shooting the same material as me or with the same approach, so these choices may not work for you as well as they do for me.
Posted in Equipment
Stephen · Sunday, September 27, 2009, 08:37 · Permalink · Comment [1]
Sunday Jul 19, 2009 at 22:52
This isn't Crested Butte...
North Clear Creek Falls
Crested Butte, “wildflower capital” of Colorado, has it’s annual flower festival in the week of July 4th. We planned a trip there a few days later, hoping to catch the flowers at their peak.
Alas – too soon. While the flowers were in decent condition around town, where we’d planned to go – north of Gothic town, in the lower reaches of Rustler’s Gulch – nothing was yet happening.
Rather than (i) camp too high and have no flowers around or (ii) camp down low where things were crowded, we decided to head a little further south towards Creede, some 132 miles from Crested Butte.
The road to Creede passes through pretty Lake City, up and over Slumgullion Pass, then Spring Creek Pass, and down towards South and North Clear Creek. North Clear Creek Falls lies very close to the main road (the 149), in the midst of flat pasture, making the drop all the more impressive.
The image above took a little setting up. There was some cloud over the falls, but the sky was bright and partly sunny. To manage the sky (nice to have some in the frame for context) and to get a reasonable length exposure to show the falls at their best, I used a Singh-Ray Vari-ND filter to slow shutter speed and 3-Stop hard Grad ND to hold back the sky.
The exposure was half a second, giving the water long enough to trace some nice arcs. The cattle give a good sense of scale.
We had one more adventure on this trip (unfortunately not very fruitful photographically) which I’ll post about later.
Stephen · Sunday, July 19, 2009, 22:52 · Permalink · Comment [4]
Wednesday Apr 15, 2009 at 22:35
Off to Arches National Park with a D700
Alice and I are heading off back to southern Utah for a long weekend tomorrow evening. As usual, we’re staying the first night in Glenwood Springs (around 180 miles from Boulder) to break the journey (won’t be leaving until late afternoon), then on to Moab for the weekend.
The plan is to visit Arches National Park – we’ve both been there before, but not long enough to really do it full justice.
For extra excitement, it’ll be the first real photographic outing for my new Nikon D700 (which arrived just last week). It, coupled with the Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 I picked up from B&H on Feb 1st, just before the yen-dollar exchange rate-induced price hikes, should hopefully prove a real step up from the D200 + 12-24 f/4 combination I’ve been shooting with to date (although I’ve been very pleased with what that setup has delivered, such as the Three Gossips above from February 2008).
The internal schizoid debate in which I indulged for several months as to whether I should go 14-24 or 17-35 is probably worth a separate post, but I’ll postpone until I have really tried out the 17-35 in the field (it hasn’t had much of an outing to date).
The other promising aspect of this trip is the timing: a late winter storm blowing through tomorrow, clearing through Friday and Saturday and with clear weather forecast all day Sunday – should give us a high chance of some interesting light and cloud formations.
All that, plus, April-May is – I read – the time for flowers in the desert. The National Park Service has some fantastic documents on the Arches National Park site detailing the bloom dates by species.
If you’re inspired by Tom Till’s Mule Ear Flowers and Courthouse Towers (and yes, I am) – then this information might prove invaluable.
Stephen · Wednesday, April 15, 2009, 22:35 · Permalink · Comment [3]
Friday Dec 19, 2008 at 23:10
Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G AF-S
My friend Holly has just picked up one of the new Nikon 50mm f/1.4G AF-S lenses. This one replaces (or perhaps supplements) the f/1.4D which I mentioned in my kit list post here.
Should make for a very nice indoor portrait lens on an APC sized sensor camera (such as Holly’s D90).
Take a look at some initial comparison images here on Holly’s blog.
Posted in Equipment
Stephen · Friday, December 19, 2008, 23:10 · Permalink · Comment
Monday Nov 24, 2008 at 08:40
Serendipity
On the treck back down to the car on Saturday morning after my abortive attempt at shooting the Loch I managed to salvage at least one decent image from the trip.
This small, inconspicuous water-fall is located just upstream from the first footbridge on the trail to Alberta Falls from Glacier Gorge trailhead. I just happened to glance to my left while crossing the bridge on the way back.
Just as with the Loch, timing is everything and in this case, it worked out perfectly. The sun was just catching the water through the trees. That, plus the nearly-but-not-quite frozen fall made for a scene with some potential.
Having just mentioned that I didn’t get to use my Singh-Ray Vari-ND filter often enough, this proved a perfect opportunity. The exposure was 4 seconds at f/13 ISO 100.
A nice way to use the Vari-ND is as follows:
- Select your preferred ISO (presumably the lowest, given that the whole objective here is longer exposure times
- Select your preferred aperture (probably somewhere in the sharpest range for your lens – here I was slightly on the darker side of f/11)
- Dial-in your desired shutter speed (depends on the subject and the effect you’re looking for)
- Finally, adjust the Vari-ND until your meter reads as you want it
Of course, on occasions, you’ll run out of ND stops before you get the metering where you need it. If so, you can tweak the sequence of the steps above. However, doing things in that order allows you to use the Vari-ND as I think was intended – set your camera up as you want it and then reduce the light hitting the sensor by using the filter.
You may want to focus your lens (either manually or use AF-Lock) before increasing the ND setting on the filter. This directly affects available light through the lens and make it harder for either you or your camera’s autofocus system to get things set precisely.
One final thing to note: you can get some odd optical interactions when using the Vari-ND at or near its Max setting in conjunction with a circular polarizer, so beware in those circumstances.
Stephen · Monday, November 24, 2008, 08:40 · Permalink · Comment [1]
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