I get so frustrated with myself, I get the settings set on my camera for a special shot, then forget to set it back. and miss good shots because of the wrong setting! How do you remind yourself to change the settings back? This is one of my biggest problems. At times I'm ready to give up!
In theory, you should always go back to "basic" settings before you turn off your camera... Whatever settings will work if you need to pick up and shoot without thinking... Maybe aperture priority at f2.8 or f7.1 w auto ISO... Or 200 or 400 ISO... I never do this, of course, and frequently find myself with the same frustration as you... And frankly, my "basic" "go to" setting has so many variables that I'm not sure I even have one...
Ha! Know the feeling!! I think it's because I used to shoot aperture priority most of the time and didnt have to really think about it. Now tgat i use manual settings, I'm slowly hetting out of that expectation. I try to remember to take a quick glance after each photo so if i do forget, I know right away and i can make corrections and hopefully still het a good shot.:)
I do this all the time, too, and to make matters worse, sometimes things get changed around by accident. I don't know if it's someone playing with my camera (probably not) or just me accidentally hitting a dial and moving something. I've had my focal point move, I've accidentally gone into manual when I thought I was in aperture priority and more. Many of the mistakes can be compensated for in Lightroom, but not all.
I don't know, I've taken some of the best snaps of my nephew after a night of star trails, 30" shutter, f3.5 with 6400 iso, really brings out his eyes. :p
@meemakelley I don't really have anything to add in addition to the others other than to confirm I've been in the same boat and had to "train myself" (also via pain and suffering) to always revert my camera back to my base settings anytime I set it down. It has ended up being a long checklist: drive mode, shooting mode, focus mode, metering mode, white balance, shutter, aperture, ISO, bracketing, exposure compensation, and flash compensation, but after while only takes a couple of seconds to get through it.
I leave it on "P" (auto aperture and shutter speed) so I can grab a snap shot quick if needed. Change the settings as needed, then change the back to "P" when I'm done. (Well, except when I forget ;-P)
Thankfully the Canon 7DII has 3 custom modes so I have a basic set up for Aperture Priority & a basic for shutter priority which helps a lot :)
The 7D had it as well so maybe the other Canons use it!?!
@meemakelley As Beth says switch it to "P" after taking special shots then at least you are ready to point and shoot. If you have a Nikon you could also set up your preferred standard settings on "U1" or "U2" then all you have to do is turn the dial to that setting and you're ready to go again
@dbj@meemakelley personally i dont really care what mode my camera is in when i turn it off. I rarely am in the situation where i need to take a snap shot of something. So what i do is whenever i take a first shot at anything (be it the first shot of the day or the first shot of a new set), I always look at the image on the back of the camera and check out whether i'm happy with it.
Then i figure out where to go with it - thats definitely due to pain and suffering in the past :)
I think we all have had this "problem" more than once. For my default settings, I keep the most flexible set possible so that I don't have to worry about ISO settings particularly. ISO Auto, which in the Nikon world are the ISO sensitivity settings. In "A" priority you can set a minimum and maximum allowed ISO (100 and 3200 for me) and a slowest shutter speed allowed before the ISO will increase. Even better with the D7100 and other more "advanced" cameras, you can set this to AUTO which will adjust the "slowest allowed shutter" based on focal length so that it will even apply nicely when you change lenses or change the zoom.
And one last thing that's the icing on the cake, you can bias this "AUTO" setting up or down by up to 2 stops, which works to slow this even more with VR/VC/OS/IS lenses.
All this takes care of almost everything, except of course if I want to bias with exposure compensation. And then I have to remember to cancel that when finished...
Other makes besides Nikon have this in varying degrees. Unfortunately my second most favorite manufacturer, Sony, doesn't, and that's probably the deal breaker for me not making a major investment in the new a7r II...
Of course, with flash all bets are off, and I have to remember to CANCEL this ISO Auto and go "M", then remember to turn it back on and back to "A" the next time. I forgot this last week! There indeed is a downside for having so much auto technology, you tend to forget even more easily. :)
the worst for me is accidentally leaving my camera in bracketing and then driving myself nuts because I can't get the exposer right in M mode. Grrrr You'd think I'd realize it right away.
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Maybe you could start chimping?
@semjaja That's great! I might have to try!
The 7D had it as well so maybe the other Canons use it!?!
Then i figure out where to go with it - thats definitely due to pain and suffering in the past :)
And one last thing that's the icing on the cake, you can bias this "AUTO" setting up or down by up to 2 stops, which works to slow this even more with VR/VC/OS/IS lenses.
All this takes care of almost everything, except of course if I want to bias with exposure compensation. And then I have to remember to cancel that when finished...
Other makes besides Nikon have this in varying degrees. Unfortunately my second most favorite manufacturer, Sony, doesn't, and that's probably the deal breaker for me not making a major investment in the new a7r II...
Of course, with flash all bets are off, and I have to remember to CANCEL this ISO Auto and go "M", then remember to turn it back on and back to "A" the next time. I forgot this last week! There indeed is a downside for having so much auto technology, you tend to forget even more easily. :)