Memory Recall settings - What are yours?

I'm working my way through the A6000 thread for the umpteenth time! I don't recall seeing any discussion about memory recall settings. The A6000 has space for 3 favorites.

To all you experts out there, what do you have these set to and how do you use them?

Thanks for the filter advice Dave, it's due today.

Vic

As a dedicated photographic hobbyist, setting the memory recall choices shows a dedication to advancing your technical mastery of your equipment.

And no, I have never bothered to set mine... :)

Since I shoot in A-mode 99% of the time, i really haven't run into any particular combination of settings that I need to return to repeatedly.

Since you brought it up, I may set one of the recalls with my 99% settings so when I fiddle with HDR or scene modes, I can just twirl the dial to A and recall "normal" settings.

Dave

I'm a dedicated user of MR settings on all my cameras that have them...but I do use them for a very specific type of shooting that I do very often. For general and vacation shooting, I'll typically just use the P, A, S, and M settings as needed. But since I do a lot of bird and wildlife photography every weekend, I set up my MR 1 and MR2 banks for two very different types of situations I routinely need to switch back and forth between all the time. I use the same basic settings for MR1 and MR2 on my A6000 and new A6300, as well as my upcoming A68, so that they all are quite natural to use...they are:

MR1 - for non-flying birding: A-priority, AF-S, Flex Spot - Medium focus area, 3fps continuous drive mode, center-weighted metering, Auto ISO100-6400, JPG fine, auto WB, Stabilization on. With the A6300 I also added minimum Auto ISO shutter speed to 'standard'.

MR2 - for birds in flight: S-priority, shutter 1/1000, AF-C, wide focus area, 6fps continuous drive mode, center-weighted metering, Auto ISO100-6400, JPG fine, auto WB, Stabilization off. With the A6300, I've changed this to P mode, with added minimum Auto ISO shutter speed to 'fast' which is roughly double the one-over-focal rule, rather than a fixed shutter speed.

This lets me switch quickly between the two most commonly used settings back and forth as I encounter different birding opportunities on the fly.

I don't use MR settings often. But I do have 1 set up for HDR on the A6300. Since I normally shoot in RAW, if I want to switch use in-camera HDR, I would need to do multiple button pushes --- Switch to jpeg, then switch on the HDR level.

So this way, I can simplify the process.... I'm often shooting regular landscapes, for example. Which I would do with my own settings of the moment... usually aperture priority mode. But this way, I can quickly turn the dial and try a quick in-camera HDR.

Might set up in camera pano as another memory recall.

Just a quick note about saving MRs...remember to make sure you set EVERY SINGLE PARAMETER of the camera exactly as you want - it saves some pretty deep settings so there are things you may forget to check such as stabilization mode, RAW vs JPG or JPG settings, drive mode, even the P, A, S, M, or 'scene' mode is saved under the MR.

The first few times I experimented with saving my MR banks, I just paid attention to the basic things like shutter, aperture, drive, ISO...and then kept realizing that many other smaller settings also can be saved that I needed to switch and kept going back and re-saving until I had them all correct!

Not using an A6000 this may have no worth; however, to those that it makes sense to, here goes. 99% A mode, focus priority, FX frame size, ISO set manually to get about the shutter speed I need at that moment, meter is set with switches on the body as I require, level can be called up with a function button press, image size can be set on the fly with a function button and command wheel. I normally set the monitor to not display the image after the photo is taken. I can do that manually if I want to check it out. The exposer adjustment is used after I check the histogram. I use about 50% spot, 40% matrix and 10% area metering. Focus mode and type get left on dynamic21. If it's a static photo then I would switch to a single static sensor.

It all happens real fast.

I shoot to RAW so things like color balance, sharpness, contrast... are done in post processing. There is no point to even think about them.

I don't see how I could ever have several setups and it would work.

Everything and day brings challenges to overcome.

framer

 

MR1 - for non-flying birding: A-priority, AF-S, Flex Spot - Medium focus area, 3fps continuous drive mode, center-weighted metering, Auto ISO100-6400, JPG fine, auto WB, Stabilization on. With the A6300 I also added minimum Auto ISO shutter speed to 'standard'.

 

MR2 - for birds in flight: S-priority, shutter 1/1000, AF-C, wide focus area, 6fps continuous drive mode, center-weighted metering, Auto ISO100-6400, JPG fine, auto WB, Stabilization off. With the A6300, I've changed this to P mode, with added minimum Auto ISO shutter speed to 'fast' which is roughly double the one-over-focal rule, rather than a fixed shutter speed.

 

This lets me switch quickly between the two most commonly used settings back and forth as I encounter different birding opportunities on the fly.

Thanks for bringing this up Vic, I too want to use as many features as this camera allows - but the various "preset" modes cover just about all for me.

I quoted Zackiedawg because wildlife photography has always, but lately much more so, grabbed my interest. "Stabilization - Off" on moving subjects: Can you explain why you do this? I imagine (hope?) it may somewhat explain why I have a devil of a time getting crisp airplane and bird shots.

Or is it just practice, practice, practice to get near the quality you constantly attain? :)

"Stabilization - Off" on moving subjects: Can you explain why you do this? I imagine (hope?) it may somewhat explain why I have a devil of a time getting crisp airplane and bird shots.

 

Or is it just practice, practice, practice to get near the quality you constantly attain? :)

Actually, the key reason is that once you get to a certain shutter speed threshhold, stabilization really isn't capable of helping out in any way - and in some cases may actually hurt. Stabilization can only help out with countering shake or vibration of the camera body itself, which in most situations would only be 'recorded' at shutter speeds typically lower than the classic 1-over-shutter rule (ie: a shutter speed should be at least the fraction of the focal length used, so a 100mm focal length needs to be at 1/100 shutter speed to avoid unwanted movement and blur - UNLESS stabilization is there to help). Stabilization can't do a thing to correct for a subject's movement. Of course, the variable is always the photographer as someone particularly unsteady could still get blurry results from movement at double that rule, and some extremely stable photographers can handhold a perfectly crisp unblurred shot with no stabilization at 3x slower shutter speeds. But the general rule is a good one to keep in mind.

So once you get over that threshhold where your shutter speed is high enough to no longer be susceptible to small movements of the camera body, the stabilization no longer is needed. The problem can come in when you get to very quick shutter speeds, which I'll typically use when shooting birds in flight - ie: 1/1000 is a typical minimum and I could be pushing up to 1/4000. Stabilization is moving either a lens element, or the sensor, depending on how it's deployed - with the A6300 it's going to be lens-based. Consider that this optical element in the light path is trying to adjust itself to counter slight movements it detects, but the shutter speed is so fast that the camera can actually end up capturing a frame right when the stabilization had started to kick in and make its adjustment. At those shutter speeds, it's feasible that the shutter can trigger faster than the stabilization can trigger/adjust/and set. While it's not a guarantee that leaving it on will ruin a shot, it's possible that it will - so once I get to shutter speeds that are double the 1-over-focal rule, I find turning stabilization off to be safer and better.

Note too that some cameras or lenses have a 'panning' style stabilization mode - I experimented with that often on my A6000 and FE70-200mm F4 - and it works pretty well - essentially it's a special mode of stabilization that will allow for some left-right movement without trying to correct it - such as when you are panning the camera to follow a subject as it goes past...but will still attempt to correct for up-down motion which it figures is likely being caused by the photographer not being able to keep level. But again I think these modes are more useful when shooting slower shutter speeds of subjects such as a child walking or running by, or street photography, where you might be shooting as slow as 1/100 or 1/50 with an 80mm to 200mm focal length, and following the person's motion...this lets you get some desirable motion blur in the background as they move past, but still help correct for any wobbles up or down that you might have inadvertently caused.

Great question and even better answer about the stabilization! Thanks everyone and keep the suggestions coming!

Vic