This was a great assignment in exposure. Since I first got my camera a couple of years ago I noticed that it tended to overexpose in auto so I always set the exposure to underexpose by .3 or .7. The beauty of this assignment for me is now I know much more about the best settings to use in order to get the correct exposure.
I set the ISO to 100, used a tripod, and took a bright outside photo of a tree. Like I suspected the neutral exposure was a little over exposed and the .3 to 1 were very overexposed. As far as the underexposed went I think the .7 was the best. This is what I usually use with this particular camera. I thought that in the 1 the background trees were a little too dark and the .7 brought back some of their color.
The ABE is a really nice feature. I set the three stops to -1, neutral, and +1. The exposure was as expected but I didn’t know you could do this and I see great advantages when you are trying to capture the same shot but don’t have time to keep changing the exposure setting. I think though instead of using -1 and +1 I will use -.7 and +.7 with my camera.
I think I got the best shots with manual exposure. I was able to get the green in the tree without the sun overexposing the background using f/5.6 and 1/400 with ISO at 100. I also tried f/5.6 and 1/800 which was too dark. I also took a couple of shots with the shutter speed at 1/125 and different f stops but they didn’t turn out as well.
The Auto Exposure Lock in P mode was the most difficult. It only lasts for 4 seconds and I felt like I didn’t have enough time to set the exposure before it went back to automatic. I can see where this would be very valuable in shooting a large landscape for a panorama and you want to keep the lighting the same.