D200 question - portrait / landscape / auto settings

Greetings - new member here so go easy on me. I have a question about

the D200 which I'm considering buying. In the initial reviews I've

read it says that it doesn't have the standard portrait / landscape /

auto settings that say the D70 or D50 have. Are there no standard

settings of this type on the D200 or do you have to set all the

parameters (white balance / ISO / etc) and program them yourself?

I'm pretty sure there are auto WB and auto ISO BUT you may actually make better photos if you pay a little more attention to "all the parameters":)

there are no 'simple' point and shoot pre-sets on the d200 (picture modes) . It assumes as a photographer you always wish to control your photography in some way (by aperture/shutter speed/iso) You may set white balance to Auto or many other presets. If your looking for a camera that will do the thinking for you, this is not the camera for you. It is an advanced photographers camera, it is a very powerful tool, but certainly not made fot the 'point and shoot' photographer. It also has an auto ISO function with a limiter, but once again it's not made to do the thinking for you.

Taking it easy on you - if you are seriously consdering limiting your photography to using mode presets then buy a decent Panasonic Lumix or similar full auto Point & shoot camera. Spend the rest of the money saved on travelling to exotic locations and enjoy taking pictures.

 

You have to ask yourself why you want a DSLR - P&S are much better/cheaper/easier if you just want to take nice snapshots and have no interest learning about f-stops, inverse square laws, fill flash etc.

 

If you want to learn, then absolutely buy a D200 or similar that specifically doesn't have any Auto settings. Working on full manual will teach you very quickly the relationship between aperture and shutter speed and ISO etc.

 

Jim

Well the D200 judging by the review on dpreview the D200 does have a few presets under the optimize image menu they are normal, softer, vivid, more vivid and portrait. These take care of sharpening , tone compensation, color mode, saturation and hue. There is also custom which allows you to set these yourself. If you were to use normal, auto white balance, auto ISO and program mode together it would work very much like a giant point and shoot. According to Ken Rockwells review he likes the way the D200 gives great results and requires less tweeking than the D70.

 

Personaly I fell the people should shoot what they like and like what they shoot. You should enjoy photography as a hobby even if the pictures you make are not that good. If you enjoy it thats all thats counts. Of course I find it more enjoyable when I get great results too. I also enjoy the technical side of photography too. Not everyone is interested in the technical side of photography some people just want to take pictures and use a DSLR to it.

I haven't looked at the specs for the D200 but I'm assuming it has pretty much the same interface as the D70, D2H, D2X and other Nikon dSLRs. If you don't want to bother with manually determining various settings simply set the camera to matrix metering, Program mode and auto white balance. Most of your photos will be fine.

 

Pictograph modes can be pretty disappointing. They can produce unexpected results such as shutter speeds that are too slow for handholding. And sometimes they're downright confusing. I've been a photographer for more than 30 years and I find some pictograph modes far more confusing that manually calculating everything. I mean, what the heck is the difference between "Baby in a crib mode" and "Granny in a rocking chair mode"? And what's with the modes for things like "Fast moving flowers at nighttime under a full moon mode"?

 

Program mode on my D2H is goofproof enough that I can hand it to anyone in my family, even the kids (they better not drop it!), and get properly exposed and focused photos.

I have never used anthing but P, S, A, or M modes. The rest are useless as far as I am concerned.

 

I find P to be useful because you can adjust the ballance between A and S using the menu wheel on the fly.

 

If I want more Depth of field I can just dial it in. If I want to stop action, the same.

 

I use A when I want to ensure the DOF and S if I want to blur or stop action.

 

M can be useful too especially with non chipped lenses.

 

So forget the other settings.

 

errol

I enjoy strong color and often set the color to vivid for scenic/landscape shots. I did find this setting was a bit over the top for portraits. I'd suggest you set the camera to portait color setting for such shots.

 

Mike