Lesson 1 - Bracketing
The D610 offers built in bracketing, which is one of the reasons I wanted a camera upgrade. But just because it's there doesn't mean it's easy to use!
I got two e-books for my Kindle, as I mentioned in my last blog. I went through both of them, configuring my settings as I went. Reading about something and modifying some settings is only part of the story however.
I thought I had the bracketing set up the way I wanted in advance of when I would use it. Last Saturday I went to the Superstition Mountains, east of Phoenix, to at least shoot pictures of something. After driving around, I found a location that I could park and shoot the west face of the mountains as the sunset hit, casting them red. Cool!
I got my dog Elmer, found us a little clearing, got my camera and tripod set up. I used the camera's built in level which is really cool. It eliminates the need for a separate level which is nice because the one I have mounts in the hot shoe but I also use the hot shoe for the GPS attachment (it doesn't need it for signal, it just uses it to keep it steady).
I got my exposure set and, using auto focus, I took my first shot of something real with my new D610! I was photographing!
After the shot I looked to take another one but my exposure was different - the shutter speed had changed and I had to change it back. How weird. Maybe it was something I did.
Unfortunately, after each shot I took the shutter speed (and therefore the exposure) was different than before I took the shot. What the heck? Then I remembered...
I had recently seen a post on Facebook/Stunning Digital Photography where someone had the same thing happen to them and I'd suggested to them what the problem was, and I was correct.
It's the bracketing.
The way the settings work is that as long as you specify to shoot the 2 or 3 frames available in bracketing mode, the camera will be doing the bracketing. I was under the assumption that I had to press the bracketing button when I wanted to do a set of bracketed exposures, but that's not the way the functionality was implemented. I guess it makes sense - the way it is implemented the camera will do bracketing until you tell it not to.
To turn it off, you have to select 0 (zero) frames of bracketing. Fortunately, it's not too hard to do since there's a dedicated button. You push the bracketing button [BKT] and turn the command dial to 0 (zero). The little BKT icon goes off on the control panel. I figured all of this out AFTER I got home from the excursion.
Lesson 2 - Mirror Up
After I got home from the Superstition Mountains at about 8:30PM, I loaded the pics onto my PC, did some post processing, and posted some of the pics on my jAlbum site as well as Facebook.
Then I turned to figuring out why I'd had the exposure issue. I pulled out the manual and the two e-books (using my Kindle for PC reader) and solved the problem. By then it was about 3:00AM and I was wide awake. I decided to go try my luck again...
I packed up my dog Elmer along with my 3 camera bags (the big Amazon bag with my extra stuff including the D3200, the LowePro waist bag with the D610, and my bag with the Manfrotto tripod) and got back in the Explorer. We stopped at the QT gas station and I got myself a coffee and donuts, then headed back to Encanto Park.
I've wanted to shoot this one little "island" there to try to get it so it had better lighting and wasn't red. The other time I shot it I used my YongNuo flash but I only fired it once. I wanted to try shooting it again but firing the flash multiple times during the exposure.
When we got to the park, I took my coffee and donuts and Elmer to just scope out the place. We walked over to the location and found someone sleeping on one of the park benches right where I wanted to flash my light. I decided I wasn't going to get that picture that morning.
We walked around more of the park while I ate my two donuts and drank my coffee, just enjoying the almost empty park at 4:00 AM. After the ingesting we headed back to the Explorer, got in it, and drove to the other parking lot closer to the main lake.
I got set up to take the sunrise pictures, this time using the remote and mirror up. I had changed another setting in the camera, the exposure delay (or what ever it's called) so that the camera would raise the mirror, wait 1 second, and then capture the image and thus reducing or eliminating any shake from raising the mirror.
However, I had NOT taken the remote trigger out of mirror up mode. Consequently, when I pushed the remote's button, the mirror would raise and I expected the picture to be acquired a second later. But it took a lot longer. In fact, using my new photography watch (a Casio with temperature, elevation, and compass), I determined it was about 30 seconds of delay.
What was going on now?
This time I figured it out "in the field". Once I took the remote off of the mirror up mode, things worked great and I got some shots.
Wrapping Up
The shots from Encanto park were okay but they really weren't any different from my other shots with the D3200 that I'd taken a couple of months earlier. The Superstition Mountain shots were cool - I'd never got any of them and especially not with a reddish cast due to the sunset. I like the shots I got there, especially the panoramic that I created (even with the struggle over the changing exposure settings I found three that worked well together).
One final lesson I've learned is that I really want a longer focal length lens. I like the 50mm lens a lot. I like the stop at infinity focus. I like the f/1.8 ability. I like the pictures I get with it. I just wish I could crop in more.
Maybe I'm just to used to the crop on the D3200 and eventually I'll be okay with the 50mm. I was thinking I'd want a 24mm and that the 50mm would be too narrow of an angle. Now I'm looking for probably an 85mm although I wonder if that's enough. I think the Encanto Park pictures would have needed about 1/2 of the angle of the 50mm. Well, I guess I've got something new to ponder now!
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