D80 AE-L/AF-L Lock Button and Bracketing

[jim_mohundro1]

<p>I’m slowly but steadily learning the D80 I purchased last August. I’ve not used the AE-L/AF-l button, but I can see its benefit if used on AE-L with spot metering. Thom Hogan, in his "Nikon D80 to Go", suggests AE-L, together with AE-L Lock Hold and FV-lock as settings. I can also see that focus lock is could be the highest priority in a specific situation, subject to one's confidence in the D80 metering for the situation.<br /><br />I’m now experimenting with bracketing and, with the pretty economical usage of higher-Gb SD cards, the bracketing tools appear to be a good bet for some critical shots. How does the AE-lock option work with bracketing? Does one hold down the button (presumably programmed for AE-lock only) separately for each shot in the brackets, for example, 0,-.3 and +.3? Will bracketing work for center-weighted metering and matrix metering (I’ve generally felt most comfortable with CW, coming from a long-time Nikon Ftn film camera experience)?</p>

<p>Disclosure: I'd posted these questions on Nikonians yesterday but nobody on the D80 forum has responded.</p>

[elliot1]

<p dir="ltr" align="center">AE Lock will only affect the exposure of the initial shot in your bracketing sequence. The 2nd and 3rd shots will be +/- however you have your camera set from that settings. You do not need to hold the AE-L button down for the 2nd and 3rd shots. Bracketing will work regardless of your metering mode. The metering mode will just determine the exposure of the first shot.</p>

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