Problems with Auto ISO on the D7200

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Jason Prince

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Hi,
I have been following your you tube videos for the last few days, and i have set my camera up with the Back button Focus.
Now the problem I'm experiencing is when i set the camera to Aperture priority, with the following settings, ISO sensitivity settings set ON, Auto ISO sensitivity control ON, Minimum shutter speed 1/500, and the Maximum sensitivity set 3200. I take the shot and when I've got home, ALL the photos have been taken at 3200 ISO.

Any advice would be gratefully received
 
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Jason Prince said:
Any advice would be gratefully received
Click to expand...
What range of apertures have you selected for the photos that all show ISO 3200 and in what kind of light? If you've stopped down quite a bit in Aperture Priority mode or if you're shooting in dimmer light conditions then with a 1/500" minimum shutter speed the camera may have been forced to hit the maximum ISO setting and even then some or many shots may be under exposed.

So what aperture are you dialing in for these shots, what was the lighting conditions and are the resulting images fairly well exposed or are some or many of them under exposed?

Also from a broader advice standpoint I'd highly recommend running Manual Exposure mode Auto ISO instead of Aperture Priority - Auto ISO. It just gives you better control over the essential exposure parameters. You set shutter speed to stop or blur motion as desired, select an aperture for the desired DoF and the camera selects ISO taking into account any exposure compensation dialed in.

FWIW, I switched from decades of shooting Aperture Priority mode to Manual Mode - Auto ISO a couple of years ago and these days shoot everything in Manual Exposure - Auto ISO mode or in full Manual Exposure - Manual ISO mode. One of the great things about Manual-Auto ISO is the floating parameter set by the camera is ISO and for many cameras small to moderate adjustments of ISO in the field is the same as making that adjustment in post processing. IOW, it's much easier to make adjustments to ISO in post to compensate for modest exposure errors. In Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority modes those same kinds of moderate exposure errors in the field (i.e. not dialing in appropriate exposure comp for the scene and lighting) makes a permanent change to either shutter speed or aperture that can't be reversed in post.
 
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DRwyoming said:
What range of apertures have you selected for the photos that all show ISO 3200 and in what kind of light? If you've stopped down quite a bit in Aperture Priority mode or if you're shooting in dimmer light conditions then with a 1/500" minimum shutter speed the camera may have been forced to hit the maximum ISO setting and even then some or many shots may be under exposed.

So what aperture are you dialing in for these shots, what was the lighting conditions and are the resulting images fairly well exposed or are some or many of them under exposed?

Also from a broader advice standpoint I'd highly recommend running Manual Exposure mode Auto ISO instead of Aperture Priority - Auto ISO. It just gives you better control over the essential exposure parameters. You set shutter speed to stop or blur motion as desired, select an aperture for the desired DoF and the camera selects ISO taking into account any exposure compensation dialed in.

FWIW, I switched from decades of shooting Aperture Priority mode to Manual Mode - Auto ISO a couple of years ago and these days shoot everything in Manual Exposure - Auto ISO mode or in full Manual Exposure - Manual ISO mode. One of the great things about Manual-Auto ISO is the floating parameter set by the camera is ISO and for many cameras small to moderate adjustments of ISO in the field is the same as making that adjustment in post processing. IOW, it's much easier to make adjustments to ISO in post to compensate for modest exposure errors. In Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority modes those same kinds of moderate exposure errors in the field (i.e. not dialing in appropriate exposure comp for the scene and lighting) makes a permanent change to either shutter speed or aperture that can't be reversed in post.
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For many years (at least 15 years) i have been shooting in Auto mode, and over the last couple of weeks i have recently changed to Aperture Priority.
Exposure seems not to be a problem but its the noise.
The lens was set to F5.3,6 and latterly F10 on a focal length varying between 250mm and 600mm and have reduced the exposure by 0.67. The lighting conditions are changeable over here in Scotland.
 
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Jason Prince said:
For many years (at least 15 years) i have been shooting in Auto mode, and over the last couple of weeks i have recently changed to Aperture Priority.
Exposure seems not to be a problem but its the noise.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the noise will be an issue with a D7200 at ISO 3200. There are tools like Topaz DeNoise that can help tame high ISO noise but that's a basic tradeoff when you hit your ISO cap.

Jason Prince said:
The lens was set to F5.3,6 and latterly F10 on a focal length varying between 250mm and 600mm and have reduced the exposure by 0.67. The lighting conditions are changeable over here in Scotland.
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Not really following this but certainly when you've stopped down to f/10 and limited to 1/500" as your slowest shutter speed the ISO will climb high to obtain a decent exposure unless it's bright and sunny out. But at f/5.6 (I assume that's what you meant by 'F5.3,6') it would have to be pretty dark to force the camera up to ISO 3200 when shooting at 1/500".

Personally for someone switching from full Auto exposure mode I'd either suggest Aperture Priority but you set the ISO manually or I'd go to Manual Exposure with Auto ISO. The problem for someone newer to setting exposure parameters with Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority when running Auto ISO is too many things are being set by the camera and it can get confusing. IOW, in normal Aperture Priority mode with a manually set ISO you pick an aperture, the camera picks a shutter speed as best it can down to your minimum shutter speed setting and if there's not enough light you have to manually bump up the ISO. But when running Aperture Priority with Auto ISO the camera is making decisions on both the shutter speed and the ISO which can have you chasing your tail when things don't work as you expected. For someone with a solid understanding of the exposure triangle and how settings interact this isn't a big deal but for someone coming straight in from full Auto mode it can lead to confusion.

It's certainly possible your camera is acting up and has some kind of firmware problem but from what you've posted I'd still suspect an issue with insufficient light for the aperture selected and your relatively high minimum shutter speed setting of 1/500" forcing the camera to max out the ISO.

A simple test would be to temporarily set the minimum shutter speed in the menus to something low like 1/60" and shoot some images with the lens set wide open (e.g. f/5.6 or f/4 or even f/2.8 if you have lenses that support that aperture). Then shoot some images. If the ISO keeps climbing sky high even with the lens wide open and slower shutter speeds selected by the camera then yeah, there's some issue in set up or in the camera itself but if things work as expected when shooting in daylight with your lenses wide open and the camera able to select slower shutter speeds then it's likely you just didn't have enough light to support smaller apertures at 1/500".
 
I think the camera is working as expected. You are setting a certain aperture but also forcing the shutter speed to be at least 500, so the only thing left for the camera to do is raise ISO. If you turn off the minimum shutter speed and just watch it and choose an f stop to keep things in balance, seeing how much aperture and shutter speed you can give in each situation to keep the ISO in check. Or switch to manual with auto ISO with no minimum shutter speed, that is sort of like aperture and shutter priority combined and just be aware of the impact on ISO. I don't know your camera, but exposure compensation will then control ISO if you need to + or - a bit.
 
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I agree with the others, your camera is working as expected. With a minimum shutter of 1/500 and the aperture at F10, the camera has run out of options to correct the exposure and will start bumping ISO until it either hits the maximum ISO reading or gets an exposure the on-board computers think will be acceptable. If you're setting your shutter minimum to 1/500, you may want to switch to shutter priority vs. aperture priority since it seems fast shutter speed is a higher priority for your shooting than depth of field. In shutter priority, the camera's computers will open the lens aperture as wide as the lens allows before boosting gain (ISO). In either case, at some point, if there isn't enough light to shoot at 1/500 of a second and you run out of gain (ISO) boost, the photo won't turn out the way you wanted it.

I set the max ISO on my D7200 at around 3200 same as you. At that, the images were pretty grainy but I always considered 3200 as the setting where getting a shot was more important than a noise free image. Those once in a lifetime shots where you may not get a chance to get a different exposure then high ISO is better than no shot at all.

Hope you get it working to your satisfaction.

Jeff
 
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I generally don't like shooting in modes where the camera is adjusting two settings, like ISO and shutter speed. I have to think about what the camera may be doing with both settings. If I shoot in manual mode with auto ISO then I only have to pay attention to where the ISO is going then I can make a decision on adjusting shutter speed or aperture based on the situation.
 
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Jason Prince said:
Hi,
I have been following your you tube videos for the last few days, and i have set my camera up with the Back button Focus.
Now the problem I'm experiencing is when i set the camera to Aperture priority, with the following settings, ISO sensitivity settings set ON, Auto ISO sensitivity control ON, Minimum shutter speed 1/500, and the Maximum sensitivity set 3200. I take the shot and when I've got home, ALL the photos have been taken at 3200 ISO.

Any advice would be gratefully received
Click to expand...
What have you set your minimum ISO to?
 
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