[regken]

There seems to be a lot of fairly new DSLR users like myself on this forum. As I am learning more each day, there are times I stumble across something that blows me away. The TAV mode is a case in point. Until this last weekend everything was shot in manual or P mode because I was afraid of extending myself because I am having a hard enough time understanding the relationship between f stops, shutter speed, and ISO settings.

Believe it or not the TAV mode has helped out a great deal in understanding these relationships along with making it easier to get the exposure I want. The beauty of this function is it shows all of it to you in the view finder. For those of you trying to learn your K10D let me walk you through the steps I am using. For you pros out there that know how to do this, please tell me if I am doing this right.

The first thing I do is set the ISO auto to 100 to 1600 so it picks out the proper speed. I then turn the back wheel to the aperture I want for the DOF, in this case a moderate amount. Let's say f3.5. There is some movement by the people so I want to stop action. The front wheel is turned to dial in 125 of a second for the shutter speed. When I look through the view finder it shows me what ISO is needed for these settings. If the shutter speed and aperture are blinking I push the green button and it will set the shutter speed to the correct setting for an ISO of 100. When that is done let's say it reads shutter speed 30, the f stop will still be f3.5 and the ISO will be at 100. Without taking My eye away from the view finder I can increase the shutter speed which automatically changes the ISO to a higher setting. If I push it up to about 125 of a second to stop action the ISO will read about 400. Now I can decide if I want to shoot at 400 or use a lower shutter speed or change the aperture. The camera never leaves my eye and I just have to turn 2 dials. If I am doing this right it makes it even easier than manual and gives me the added control of the ISO without having to use the FN button.

Hope I'm doing this right and if I am I hope it encourages some of you other newbies to do a little experimenting.

Regards,

[WMBP]

Ken,

You and I are on the same learning track, apparently. I myself "discovered' (i.e. finally got curious about) TAv mode only very recently and I think it's a great feature. I found it very useful while shooting a girls volleyball game ten days ago. I was able to set the aperture to the max (f/2.8 on my Tamron 28-75), set the shutter to a desirable speed (1/250s, sometimes less) and let the camera work out a satisfactory exposure by adjusting the ISO. Because there are lighter and darker spots in the gyms where the girls play, some of the shots were taken at 800, some at 1600 - and some at 1100, which as far as I can tell is only available in TAv mode. (Not sure that's right, but that's what seems to me at the moment to be true.)

If I had just a little more light, I'd change the ISO range to go no higher than 800.

Will

[SupremeMoFo]

Being the cynical bastard that I am, (and also in a very bad mood - sorry) - if you'd read the manual...

Personally, I'd rather use M mode than TAv - it'll tell you how under/over exposed the photo will be compared to what it would do anyway so you can adjust accordingly.

[WMBP]

Being the cynical bastard that I am, (and also in a very bad mood - sorry) - if you'd read the manual...

Personally, I'd rather use M mode than TAv - it'll tell you how under/over exposed the photo will be compared to what it would do anyway so you can adjust accordingly.

I don't think you understand TAv or why we like it. It's not a replacement for M for use by lazy shooters. It is, in fact, the perfect solution to a certain photographic problem - and using M would, well, be stupid. That is why the Pentax engineers included it on the mode dial - while at the same time eliminating the scene modes.

When I'm shooting a basketball game or volleyball game, I'm in gymnasium that is badly lit. The lighting is not great anywhere, but it also varies - there are bright spots on the court and less bright spots and these spots are usually just five or ten feet away from one another. Now, I want the following:

1, as fast a shutter as I can get
2, as low noise as I can get

Of the two, 1 is more important than 2. I draw upon my experience to know what will work for starters. To get the shutter to a satisfactory speed (180s or 250s), in TAv, I open the lens up all the way to f/2.8. I set the shutter to a speed that seems to work most of the time for the particular gym. I then let the camera automatically figure out what's the lowest ISO that will work. Works perfectly.

M in this situation would simply not work - or certainly wouldn't work as well. At a typical game I might shoot 300 pictures. The action is fast and the subjects move around. In a space of five seconds, I might need three different exposures. There simply isn't time to keep adjusting the ISO or the shutter manually.

Will