New D300 and first question

Hey guys,

I've been sorting options and customizing menus without much confusion on my new D300. My 20 yr. old lenses work beautifully so far - the screwdrive autofocus is surprisingly quick and quiet.

I've been getting used to the Auto-ISO feature and ran into a curiosity when I pointed the camera at my dark cat in dim light and wanted to use the pop-up flash to provide some subtle fill...

The camera was set as follows:

ISO: 200
Auto-ISO: 3200, 1/60s
Mode: A, f8

This lead to a calculated shutter speed of 1/40s and the ISO floating to the 3200 max.

When I popped up the built-in flash with it set to Slow synch and Flash Shutter speed of 1/60s, the ISO immediately pegged to 200 and the calculated shutter speed went to 1.6s

I concluded that raising the flash effectively cancels the operation of Auto-ISO. I haven't had time to check the manual for this, but so far, this is the only behavior I haven't liked or adapted to!

Are my conclusions correct? Is there a setting I might find of interest that changes this behavior? Is there a solid rational as to why the camera behaves this way?

Ed,

I believe that you are correct - using flash cancels ISO Auto; but I can't give you a citation to the manual to that effect. I can say, however, that my D300 acts the same.

Joel

Ed,

I have recently been investigating this Auto ISO / Flash issue and found that Auto ISO does work when using flash on the D300 but only "when all else fails".

If the flash used at full power would have resulted in an under-exposed pic., Auto-ISO will THEN be implemented.

Find a nice dark corner having a meter reading < your minimum shutter speed set in menu item e2 and also < your len's minimum aperture. Flip up the built-in flash and even though Auto ISO is showing ISO 200, the EXIF of the resulting exposure taken with the flash providing the major source of light will show Auto-ISO has been applied. The ISO will be shown in red and will be > the original ISO 200.

A thread on the Nikonians website had a similar discussion recently:

http://www.nikonians.org/forums/dcb...id=117270&prev_page=show_topic&gid=117270#117

Alan Cole

Thanks Alan and Joel,

That seems like a good feature for Normal flash and x-synch flash, but not for slow and rear synch flash, no?

I'll check out that link, thanks.