Luckypenguin
Hall of Famer
- Location
- Brisbane, Australia
- Name
- Nic
As I sit here trying to learn the ins and outs of the Samsung NX300 I come across a programmable Auto ISO logic item in the menu that is so comprehensive and yet so simple at the same time, which makes me wonder why I can't have something similar on every camera.
Going into the first page of the menu there is an item called "Minimum Shutter Speed" which deals with the camera's Auto ISO logic
Selecting this item brings up a submenu as follows
Selecting "Off" restricts the camera to using the standard 1/equiv focal length as the minimum shutter speed before bumping up the ISO. This is fairly standard practice and is perfectly acceptable in a lot of different scenarios. However, if you have a lot of faith in your own hands or in the IS system to keep the camera still, or you think that higher than normal shutter speeds will be required then the next menu item is for you. Selecting "Auto" brings up this screen
In this case the middle setting applies the same 1/equiv focal length logic as the "Off" setting. Slow and fast allow you to tell the camera to lower or raise the calculated minimum shutter speeds from this rule by increments of one or two stops. Very logical, very easy.
This is all very good, but sometimes when you are doing street photography to give an example you want to set a minimum speed much higher than usual since both you and your subjects are likely to be both moving. In the past I have previously used my cameras in "S" mode with the shutter speed set to about 1/500 and then had to live with whatever aperture the camera chose. On this Samsung however I can also set a discrete value for the minimum shutter speed, but rather than restrict me to only a couple of values as I have seen elsewhere, here I can choose any value (in one stop increments) from 1/2000 all the way to 1 sec.
Again; very logical, very easy. In this case I can choose my preferred minimum shutter speed of 1/500, and put the camera in "A" mode using a larger aperture of about f/2.8 or maybe f/4 to narrow the depth-of-field. When it's bright outside the camera's native ISO 100 and 1/6000 maximum shutter speed will protect from overexposure, and in darker areas the minimum shutter speed will protect from motion blur and start to bump up the ISO whenever 1/500 is reached. If the maximum Auto ISO setting is reached (3200 on this camera) only then will it start to increase the shutter speed from the selected value in order to maintain the correct exposure.
I've had a few different cameras that allow you to customise the Auto ISO logic to a degree but for me this is easily the best setup I've seen.
Going into the first page of the menu there is an item called "Minimum Shutter Speed" which deals with the camera's Auto ISO logic
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Selecting this item brings up a submenu as follows
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Selecting "Off" restricts the camera to using the standard 1/equiv focal length as the minimum shutter speed before bumping up the ISO. This is fairly standard practice and is perfectly acceptable in a lot of different scenarios. However, if you have a lot of faith in your own hands or in the IS system to keep the camera still, or you think that higher than normal shutter speeds will be required then the next menu item is for you. Selecting "Auto" brings up this screen
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
In this case the middle setting applies the same 1/equiv focal length logic as the "Off" setting. Slow and fast allow you to tell the camera to lower or raise the calculated minimum shutter speeds from this rule by increments of one or two stops. Very logical, very easy.
This is all very good, but sometimes when you are doing street photography to give an example you want to set a minimum speed much higher than usual since both you and your subjects are likely to be both moving. In the past I have previously used my cameras in "S" mode with the shutter speed set to about 1/500 and then had to live with whatever aperture the camera chose. On this Samsung however I can also set a discrete value for the minimum shutter speed, but rather than restrict me to only a couple of values as I have seen elsewhere, here I can choose any value (in one stop increments) from 1/2000 all the way to 1 sec.
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Again; very logical, very easy. In this case I can choose my preferred minimum shutter speed of 1/500, and put the camera in "A" mode using a larger aperture of about f/2.8 or maybe f/4 to narrow the depth-of-field. When it's bright outside the camera's native ISO 100 and 1/6000 maximum shutter speed will protect from overexposure, and in darker areas the minimum shutter speed will protect from motion blur and start to bump up the ISO whenever 1/500 is reached. If the maximum Auto ISO setting is reached (3200 on this camera) only then will it start to increase the shutter speed from the selected value in order to maintain the correct exposure.
I've had a few different cameras that allow you to customise the Auto ISO logic to a degree but for me this is easily the best setup I've seen.