Nikon D7100 - Video settings.

JonathanS said:
This is exactly the behaviour I see with the D7000, only it is reliable – Live-view S mode pegs shutter speed at the selected value, and auto ISO floats the sensitivity to expose correctly according to the matrix metering. It's usually very good. The camera may report that it's changing aperture, but since it has no mechanism for doing so in live view it finds a metered exposure using only auto ISO. That is: if you ignore the aperture indication the camera behaves as expected and desired.
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That's what we'd hope, but I'm not sure how we could verify whether it's working properly or not. Judging from the LCD display, the D5200 S-mode firmware is attempting to set exposure via a combination of aperture and ISO adjustments. The lens, however, is transmitting a constant amount of light due to its mechanically fixed aperture. There are two possibilities here:

1. The camera's futile attempts to adjust the lens aperture produce an improperly exposed ISO setting. Or...
2. The lens' constant light transmission produces the correct ISO regardless of the ineffective aperture adjustments.

Perhaps a comparison of identical auto-ISO takes shot with AE-Locked aperture, shutter speed, and ISO in both M and S modes?
 
romandesign said:
Not exactly. Let's say the proper exposure is F3.5, 1/60 and ISO 100. 100 is the lower ISO limit, so it should only adjust exposure if it's too bright for the ISO 100, right? But it bumps shutter to 1/30! That's more light into the camera, not less. Auto-ISO should mean that it would instead bump ISO to 160 and leave shutter at 60. "A" mode would mean that it would adjust shutter without touching ISO until it gets too slow. But it's doing both! It can bump up both ISO and shutter! There is no condition whatsoever that warrants 1/125 F5 ISO 160 - that's what I saw on the screen just now. Aperture is irrelevant of course, as it's not variable in video mode. It should keep ISO at 100 and shutter at 1/60 or 1/80, right? There is no sense whatsoever to crank up both shutter and ISO up! None!
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I should say that the camera MOSTLY adjusts the ISO first, then it adjusts the shutter speed. There are times that both are adjusted in order to obtain proper exposure, but priority is given to adjusting the ISO first. It looks to me that the camera does maintain fairly good exposure by doing this.
 
JonathanS said:
This is exactly the behaviour I see with the D7000, only it is reliable – Live-view S mode pegs shutter speed at the selected value, and auto ISO floats the sensitivity to expose correctly according to the matrix metering. It's usually very good. The camera may report that it's changing aperture, but since it has no mechanism for doing so in live view it finds a metered exposure using only auto ISO. That is: if you ignore the aperture indication the camera behaves as expected and desired.

Playing around with live-view A mode on the D7000, I find it does the same thing only without the floating aperture indication. I suspect I settled on shooting in S mode partly because in my head that's how video cameras work (we select a shutter speed for a motion look, then an aperture for a depth-of-field look, then juggle sensitivity and ND for exposure), and partly because when I was first fiddling around I hadn't set up auto ISO properly.

Have we established whether A-mode shooting with auto ISO enabled is workable on the D7100? If it behaves like my D7000 does, that's an entirely usable workflow.
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I wouldn't call it reliable if the camera is showing that it's changing aperture but it really isn't. At least on the D7100, the displayed aperture stays constant in all video live view modes. But unfortunately, you don't have control of the shutter speed in S mode.

A mode behaves the same as P mode (and S mode), which is the camera controls both shutter speed and ISO, whether auto ISO is enabled or not.
 
I finally got around to reading the user's manual, and the exposure settings that I described above is exactly what is in the manual. I thought may be there was a bug with S mode, but I guess that's the way it was meant to be.
 
I "discovered" a way to change aperture while in live view mode: Use non-cpu lenses with aperture rings. Okay, it may seem obvious, but it surprised me. And it worked great. It didn't work for lenses with a cpu, even if they have aperture rings.
 
Sumfun said:
I "discovered" a way to change aperture while in live view mode: Use non-cpu lenses with aperture rings. Okay, it may seem obvious, but it surprised me. And it worked great. It didn't work for lenses with a cpu, even if they have aperture rings.
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Just change from the control wheel to the aperture ring (its a3 or a4 on the D7K) in the control menu. Works like a charm, especially if you have de-clicked lenses.
 
I'm curious about situations where using the camera's (mysterious) auto-video functions are useful.

I guess I really see DSLRs as more of the "artsy" stuff cameras, where things are very controlled - more like shooting a film or music video than grabbing an event. For run & gun, doesn't a "video" camera make more sense? Or is this more of a situation where you only own or have a DSLR?

There were some posts earlier about using auto-ISO when setting up the shot and then locking it in. Why not just choose the proper ISO for the scene yourself? I check histograms or waveforms during shot setup, but it always verifies what I'm seeing through the LCD or viewfinder.

I've shot events with a T2i on a shoulder mount, and I'm just rolling the aperture or shutter speed as needed. My AC 130 got "stuck" on auto aperture once, and panning around a scene was like someone moving a dimmer up and down. I'd much rather be making the exposure decisions - often the things that make a camera decide to change are things that don't matter to me - a hot spot or moving into a little more backlight, where it looks natural for the exposure to stay the same.

Seems like a lot of complexity for something that should be simple?
 
Sumfun said:
I "discovered" a way to change aperture while in live view mode: Use non-cpu lenses with aperture rings. Okay, it may seem obvious, but it surprised me. And it worked great. It didn't work for lenses with a cpu, even if they have aperture rings.
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This is why I'm keeping my D lenses. Love my 300 AF-S with aperture ring for video (I'm shooting wildlife/birds).
If you're into photography a lot like I am, setting up a user bank (U1, U2 on the mode dial) to store the aperture ring custom setting makes it easy to switch between video and stills (unless you want to use the ring for stills as well), without having to use the menus each time.
 
JeffD7K said:
Just change from the control wheel to the aperture ring (its a3 or a4 on the D7K) in the control menu. Works like a charm, especially if you have de-clicked lenses.
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Thanks for pointing this out. I saw the same suggestion on another post several days ago, and now I'm able to change aperture with all lenses with aperture rings.

Just to clarify, on the D7100 it's f5 on the custom settings menu. Change the "Aperture Setting" from "Sub-command dial" to "Aperture ring."
 
Sumfun,

I posted this in another thread but you are correct!

to use the aperture ring on manual lenses on a d7100 in Live view video mode.

1) Go to "MENU"
2) Next, Go to "CUSTOM SETTING MENU"
3) Go to "F-Controls" Click the "OK" button.
4) Choose "F5-CUSTOMIZE COMMAND DIALS" click "OK"
5) Select "Aperture setting" click "OK"
6) Then select "Aperture Ring" click "OK"
7) Then press either the "Shutter" button half way or press "Menu" until you are back where you started.
 
The custom setting menu is freaking handy as hell - I use the D7000 for commercial stills with packs & heads most of the time, but all my video and timelapse controls go in the custom menu. If you've ever spent ten minutes digging through the endless menu options, it's really handy to have your more esoteric stuff where you can get at 'em. Especially the time-lapse related stuff (mirror up, interval shooting) for those times you think "look at that sunset!!!"

Once you've done even a little time lapse, you can't look at clouds the same way again. And clients freaking love it - set up a still cam for timelapse while you're busy shooting other stuff and your client will think you're a creative god.
 
Michael,

You can also use the "My Menu" menu to put all of the things you use most use in one menu.

I believe you go into

1) Press "Menu" button
2) Go all the way to the last Icon on the left, It looks like a "notebook with a Check at the buttom""
3) It will say either" Recent Settings" or "Choose Tab"
4) If "Choose Tab" Click the "Ok" button and select "My Menu" this will allow you to add and remove all your most used menu items to one place
 
MTS said:
Can you change the volume while recording in Video mode?
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While recording video, you're locked out of the information window, so no changes in volume. But I think most people use external recorders, so this is not an issue to them.
 
bleach551 said:
Michael,

You can also use the "My Menu" menu to put all of the things you use most use in one menu.

I believe you go into

1) Press "Menu" button
2) Go all the way to the last Icon on the left, It looks like a "notebook with a Check at the buttom""
3) It will say either" Recent Settings" or "Choose Tab"
4) If "Choose Tab" Click the "Ok" button and select "My Menu" this will allow you to add and remove all your most used menu items to one place
Click to expand...

Ummm... doh! That's what I was referring to, with the wrong wording. I don't think Nikon has a "custom settings" menu.
 
Hey Bleach, wasn't taking a shot at you, just myself... seeing how I completely mis-named a feature I use all the time (and yeah, I referred to "My Menu" as "custom settings", that's what I was referring to). You see, I think I have early-onset alzheimers, and ... what were we talking about?
 
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