Daylily

Last July 18 I abandoned my usual get-the-shots-in-early rule and headed to Kalamazoo to visit my sister. While I shot a few pictures in Kalamazoo (I'll discuss those a bit below), none were satisfactory so I took some (mostly) high-contrast shots around the yard when I got home. (This daylily's about the only normal-contrast exception.)

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Thought I'd talk for a minute about how I set up my Nikon 1 V1. These are close to the settings I was using a year ago, when I took the 366 Snaps photos, since I've changed them only slightly since.

I use the camera almost exclusively in Still Camera Mode (the green setting on the dial). Everything that follows assumes that setting.

I turn the display off except in unusual circumstances. The reason I do this is the Electronic View Finder starts up faster with the monitor off. I consider this the single most useful thing I've learned about setting up the V1 camera.

I shoot with all the icons on in the EVF. I'm a bit surprised that I do so.

Display Options:
* Rotate Tall: On. [I've seen reasonable arguments not to do this, but I'm happy leaving it on.]
* I pretty much ignore the other Display settings.

Shooting options:
* Exposure Mode: Manual
* Image Quality: Raw
* Continuous: Continuous [also: check out this comment 9/15/13]
* Shutter Type: Electronic
* Metering: Center-weighted
* White Balance: [to match the situation; perhaps the worst V1 design decisions was putting this on the menu]
* ISO Sensitivity: 100 [occasionally 400 or 800 if light or activity demand; another setting that shouldn't be on the menu]
* Picture Control: Neutral
* Custom Picture Control null
* Color Space: sRGB
* Active D-Lighting: Off
* Long Exposure NR: Off [a fairly recent change, actually]
* High ISO Noise Reduction: Off [On does odd things to high contrast, or I'd leave it on]
* Movie Sound Options: null
* Interval Timer Shooting: [ignore]
* Vibration Reduction: Normal [no longer: now OFF 9/15/13]
* AF Area Mode: Single-point [while it's not the reason I shoot this way, this setting's the first clue I've bumped the mode dial]
* Face-Priority AF: Off [might change if I shot candids or portraits regularly]
* Built-In AF Assist: Off [I hate the flashy green light]


Setup Options
All of these are basically set-once-and-ignore. Most I have no strong opinion about. A few I consider worth changing...
* Welcome Screen: Off
* Grid Display: On
* Auto Power Off: 5 minutes [YMMV; I carry two spare batteries at all times]
* Remote On Duration: 5 minutes [not that I really care]

I'm not recommending these, just documenting how I use the camera. There are probably clues about my personality in there, and certainly clues about my photographic preferences.

I set up the D300 rather differently, by the way. And at the ballpark I change several things in this direction.

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I promised a note about my Kalamazoo pictures: Sitting in a hospital is pretty boring, mostly, even (or maybe especially) when the patient's apparently healthy (as was the case on this day). So eventually I went outside.

Kalamazoo's Riverside Cemetery, where my parents are buried, is next door to Borgess Hospital. I wandered over there to take pictures, and was surprised to find an old family friend's gravesite very near Mom's & Dad's.

Under the circumstances, the graveyard pictures seemed pretty morbid. I didn't want to send such messages to our cousins who'd see the day's photo on Facebook; thus the late-in-the-day pix I actually selected the 366 Snaps pic from.

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This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps.

Number of project photos taken: 79
Title of "roll:" Riverside Cemetery
Other photos taken on 7/18/2012: none.