Settings for shooting groups outside

diggyb

Hey, I am currently in college pursuing a career in Medical Laboratory Technology. My parents got me the D3200 for Christmas. I stay so busy with school that I haven't had a chance to really get to know its features. All the terminology is foreign to me as I have never really had anything but a point and shoot camera that the film has to be developed, nothing digital. I was asked by one of the club sponsors to take some pictures at Relay For Life. I am supposed to be there around 5 pm. I live in Kentucky. I would imagine that it will still be rather sunny out. I have the two lenses that came in the box. I need help. I tried to take some pictures of my nephew's graduation and honestly they all turned out horrible. I messed around with the settings as much as I could while I was there, but they were blurry and dark. I don't want to let down the club sponsor who asked me to take pictures by messing them up because I am absolutely camera illiterate. Any suggestions on what settings to use for groups of people outside in daylight and night time? I would purchase the Cheat Cards but money is tight now and I only have 5 dollars to my name. We had great success in raising money as a school for this event. I sure would like to make some great pictures to send to the Sponsors in thank you cards purchased. Also, the cancer survivors will start the relay so they will be moving. I know this is probably a pain for you, but any suggestions are appreciated. Thank you!

bruto

If you're in a hurry, and need to take decently exposed pictures of people running outdoors, here are a couple of suggestions.

First of all, make sure you do not use Auto or Portrait mode. They may activate flash when you don't want it, and will also take over too many options.

Which lens you use will depend on how far you are from the action, and how much you need to include. If you're reasonably close, stick to the 18-55mm. If you find yourself far off, trying to zoom in closer, use the 55-200mm (I'm assuming that was the other lens, as it usually is). If it's not clear which lens to use, err on the wider side, as you can crop a picture to get closer, but cannot put in what you miss. However, remember too that most snapshots suffer from being too distant. You get better portraits if you close in a little. Go for faces, and when you aim at a face, try to focus on the eyes.

For now, keep the camera set to "AUTO ISO" (menu option which is the default) and set your manual ISO to 100 in P, A, S and M modes. If you use Sports mode, keep the ISO at auto with the ISO dial or in the "i" menu. ISO works a little differently in different modes. In P, A, S and M, Auto ISO is a menu option. When it is on, you then set a starting ISO number, and the camera will change it as needed. If it's on in the menu, it can always override your settings. For this reason, when in Auto you can always start at the slowest, which is best when possible, and the camera will raise it only as needed. In all the other modes except "auto" mode, Auto ISO is the default, and the ISO selector (front button or "i" menu) will include "Auto" and all the individual speeds. If you set a number here it will not be overridden, so stick to "Auto" here if you want the camera to adjust it. In "auto" mode all ISO choices are taken over and you have no control.

For focus, if you are not doing general crowds of people but trying to get individual runners, try AF-C mode and Dynamic Area or 3D focus. These will start focusing on a single point, and follow a moving subject. The focus point used will be lit up in the viewfinder. To center it, push the [OK] button, as it is easily moved by accident. Use the center focus point when possible, as it is faster and more sensitive than the others.

For sports and people in motion, keep your shutter speed fairly fast, at least 1/250 or more. You can use shutter priority mode, set the shutter speed, and the camera will set aperture and ISO. Change the release mode to "continuous" if you want more opportunity to catch runners. The camera shoots continuously as long as you hold down the button, until its buffer fills, when it will stall while it transfers images to the card. If you do only a few at a time, it works well.

You can also use "sports" mode (the little running figure on the dial), and it will duplicate most of the best settings. It takes over AF settings, and turns "active D-lighting" on, a dynamic range expansion that is on by default but optional in other modes.

How successful this all is will depend to some degree on how much light there is. As it gets darker, the auto ISO will boost your sensor speed. It should be enough, but the kit lenses are not exceptionally good in low light. Even though it is possible to get an exposure in near darkness with a D3200, auto focus becomes more difficult. As it gets darker you may have to look for contrasting edges and bright objects to set focus on. The camera will not fire if it does not lock on focus.

Make sure you have lots of battery in reserve. At least freshly charged, and preferably a spare. Also make sure you have plenty of memory. If you are taking multiple shots a lot, try for the fastest card you can get. Make sure you know where the controls on your camera are, and make sure that the lenses' switches are set to AF on ("A") and to VR if they have it.

Ordinarily I would recommend that you use Raw mode for file saving, because it allows considerable post processing without loss. However, if you are doing a lot of continuous shooting, you only get about 8 Raw shots in a row before the camera stalls to finish reading to the card, and that can leave you hanging for 15 seconds or more. The longer you take between shots, the less a problem this is. If you find you are stalling often, switch to JPG mode. I'd still try to keep the file size as big as you can, and the quality as high, so as to allow more cropping of results. The very dense sensor of the D3200 allows you to take shots wider than you'd like, and crop them later with little if any noticeable loss.

If you have any time at all, try to do some practicing. Remember this is a digital camera, and you can erase erase erase. Take chances and experiment; nobody will ever see your mistakes. Especially for this event, experiment with how many continuous shots you can take at a time, and at what speed. You must know this beforehand. If you find you're constantly overrunning the camera's buffer, switch to JPG. If you still overrun it, switch to a smaller density JPG (that's in the "QUAL" setting in the "i" menu, by the way). Aim for the biggest, least compressed file you can get away with. I just experimented with mine, and with no letup on the button, I get about 9 Raw shots in a row, about 18 large JPG, and with a moderately fast (#10 speed) card, in medium size JPG, continuous shooting is nearly limitless with "fine" compression. It slows down but never stops. You should never need to go to higher compression.

For this experiment, if you have an empty card, just go out and fire, and reformat the whole card at once when you're done.