V1.03 Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 211 Top View 13. Exposure Mode button (doubles as Format button) 14. Exposure Compensation button (doubles as Reset button) 15. Flash hot shoe 16. Power switch (extreme position is LCD illumination) 17. Top LCD Display panel 18. Focal Plane F 73 indicator φ 19. Shooting Method Lock Release button 20. Shooting Method dial (Mode dial in Nikon manual) 21. ISO button 22. QUAL button (doubles as Reset button) 23. WB (white balance) button 73 What’s a focal plane? It’s the point at which the image is focused (i.e. the surface plane of the sensor for a D200 or the surface plane of the film for a 35mm film camera). In close up (macro) work, it’s sometimes necessary to measure distances from the focal plane, thus the mark. V1.03 Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 212 Back View 24. Bracketing button 25. Delete button (doubles as Format button) 26. Color LCD display 27. Viewfinder eyepiece 28. Metering Method dial 29. Diopter Adjustment knob 30. AE-L/AF-L button 31. AF-ON button 32. Rear Command dial (main command dial in Nikon manuals 33. Autofocus Area Direction pad (doubles as Autofocus Sensor selector and Direction pad for the menu system) 34. Direction Pad Lock lever V1.03 Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 213 35. Autofocus Area Mode Selector switch 36. Playback button 37. MENU button 38. Thumbnail button 39. Protect button (doubles as Help button) 40. ENTER button (doubles as Playback Zoom button) 41. (This icon is a reminder that holding in the AF-ON button on the MB-D200 and rotating the Front Command dial allows you to select the AF sensor) 42. CompactFlash Card Door Release lever 43. CompactFlash Card Access lamp 44. MB-D200 Battery Compartment Door latch Side View 45. Flash Options button (Flash Sync Mode in Nikon manual) 46. Flash Release button 47. PC Sync socket (under cap) 48. Video Out connector (under top rubber flap) 49. DC In connector (under top rubber flap) 50. USB connector (under bottom rubber flap) V1.03 Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 214 D200 Displays The D200 features three displays, all of which can present information about the current camera settings. On the top of the camera is the familiar (to 35mm film users) informational panel (called the Top Control Panel by Nikon), though it displays additional information not found on the film bodies. This monochrome LCD is primarily used to show the camera’s main shooting modes, exposure settings, frames shot and remaining, and active primary features. Most of the information on the top LCD is associated with camera controls on or near the top of the camera. A few of the areas on this LCD have multiple uses, so pay close attention to the information being presented. In this book, whenever I refer to “top LCD,” I’m referring to this display. D200 Top LCD V1.03 Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 215 51. Internal Clock Battery Condition indicator & 52. Wide Frame AF indicator 53. Exposure Compensation indicator £ 54. Shutter Speed indicator/Exposure Compensation value/Shots in Bracketing indicator/Interval indicator/Focal Length/ISO indicator -88.88 55. Aperture indicator/Bracketing Increment indicator/Number of Shots per Interval/Maximum Aperture/PC Connection indicator [8.8 56. Exposure Bracketing indicator BKT 57. White Balance Bracketing indicator WB- 58. Frame Count indicator Note: remains displayed even when camera is turned OFF. 888 59. Over 1000 Frames indicator k 60. Flash Options indicator dg 61. Focus Area indicator/AF-Area Mode indicator / 62. Battery Condition indicator ! 63. Exposure Mode indicator \ ] ^ l 64. Flexible Program indicator * 65. Aperture Stops from Maximum indicator Δ 66. Metering bar/Bracketing Progress indicator/Exposure Compensation value òóô 67. Interval Shooting Method indicator INTERVAL 68. Flash Lock indicator ?LOCK 69. Image Comment Active indicator COMMENT 70. Flash Sync indicator X 71. Flash Exposure Compensation indicator 72. Beep indicator 73. GPS indicator GPS V1.03 Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 216 74. Multiple exposure indicator ~ 75. White Balance indicators ¯×å®çæãä (<> indicates you’ve altered the basic value) 76. Image Size indicators (L = large, M = medium, S = small) 77. Image Quality indicators ( RAW, FINE, NORM, BASIC) 78. Custom Settings Bank indicator CUSTOM ABCD 79. Shooting Menu Settings Bank indicator SHOOT ABCD 80. Auto ISO indicator ISO-AUTO D200 Color LCD On the back of the camera is a large (~2.5”) color LCD (Nikon refers to this as the “Monitor”), which can be used to review images taken with the D200. The color LCD displays 100% of the picture when viewing images. If you’ve turned on automatic rotation of vertical images, the color LCD rotates those images. In this book, whenever I refer to the “color LCD,” I’m referring to this display. The color LCD is okay for casual previews of images, but don’t count on using it to critically evaluate sharpness or color balance. It’s most useful function is for judging composition and for analyzing information from the image (histogram, highlights, etc.). 81. Frame Number indicator (upper right corner) 101/101 82. Focus indicators (used indicator in red) 83. Folder Name 100ND200 84. Filename _TEH1854.JPG 85. Image Quality RAW + FINE 86. Image Size (L, M, or S) L V1.03 Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 217 87. Protected File indicator n 88. Wireless Transfer indicator (not shown here) 89. Date and Time 12/29/2005 13:33:18 90. Folder+Frame Number 100-101 Note that other information about the photo appears on separate information pages (selected by pressing the < or > keys on the Autofocus Area Direction pad while viewing images). See “Image Review” on page < H387>. D200 Viewfinder When you look through the viewfinder, you’ll see an information display below the image area and another to the right of the image area. These lighted displays are activated when you press the shutter release partway, and turn off automatically with the metering timeout to conserve power. In this book, whenever I refer to the “viewfinder display,” I’m referring to this information. V1.03 Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 218 91. B&W Shooting indicator B/W 92. Battery indicator 93. No Memory Card Warning indicator 94. Focus Confirmation indicator = 95. Metering Method indicator t 96. Flash Lock indicator ? L 97. Exposure Lock indicator AE-L 98. Shutter Speed value 88.86 99. Aperture value [8.8 100. Aperture Stops from Maximum indicator Δ 101. Exposure Compensation indicator £ 102. Flash Exposure Compensation indicator 103. Exposure Mode indicators P A S M 104. Manual Exposure display/Exposure Compensation setting òóô 105. Frame Count indicator/Frames Remaining indicator/Exposure Compensation value/PC Connection indicator 88.8 106. Over 1000 Images indicator k 107. Flash Ready light ç 108. Automatic ISO indicator ISO-AUTO 109. ISO value 1888 110. Autofocus Sensor areas [ ] 111. Center-Weighted Metering area 112. Viewfinder grid lines Autofocus Sensor indicators that double as spot meter targets are superimposed over the image. Note that two kinds of AF indicators can appear: normal (11) and wide area (7). Normal (11 areas) Wide (7 areas) The highlighted area indicates the active autofocus sensor (or sensors). I’ll have a lot to write about this in various sections V1.03 Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 219 of the eBook, but pay close attention to spot metering (see “Spot Meter Point” on page < H227>). The large circle superimposed over the image in the viewfinder helps you estimate the area used for center- weighted metering. The area used for center-weighted metering can be changed using Custom Setting #B6 (see page < H440>). The displayed circle corresponds to the 8mm setting (if you change the setting, you have to guess at the circle size in the viewfinder). The image area you see in the full viewfinder is approximately 95% of the area that is seen by the sensor when shooting normally. I personally would have preferred 100%. Metering and Exposure Cameras need some way to adjust the amount of light that gets through to the digital sensor (CCD). In very bright scenes, for example, we may need to limit the total amount of light or the time that the light hits the sensor. In dark scenes, we may need to increase the total amount of light or time the light gets into the camera. Such control is called “setting an exposure.” For any fixed amount of light and camera ISO setting, there is one or more aperture opening (size of the hole in the lens) and shutter speed combination (length of time the CCD gets light) that can be used to get a “correct exposure.” Way back in the early days of film photography we used to have to measure the amount of light by using an external (handheld) meter, and then manually set both the aperture and the shutter speed on the camera. Today, all SLR-type cameras such as the D200 have multiple automatic ways to do the same thing. First, the D200 has an internal and automatic metering system (see “Metering Methods” on page < H220>), and this system has a variety of settings to control how the metering is accomplished. Second, the D200 has multiple methods of interpreting what the meter says is the proper exposure, called V1.03 Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 220 exposure modes (see “Exposure Modes” on page <H243>). We need to examine both things, as they are direct contributors to the whether you get the right exposure or not. Metering Methods The D200 has three metering methods available: Matrix Matrix metering is a system that divides the image area into pieces (the “matrix”) and analyzes the differences between them. The brightness pattern seen in the matrix is compared against a Nikon-proprietary database of image patterns stored in the D200’s internal memory, and the exposure is set accordingly. The D200 uses a dedicated 1005-cell CCD in the viewfinder to provide metering, ala the F5, D1 series, D2 series, and D70 cameras. The “brains” behind the matrix metering have been significantly improved from the older bodies, however. Older versions of this metering system used a 30,000 pattern database to test against; the D200 (and D2 series) has ten times that number of patterns to consult, plus there appear to be significant improvements in handling pure white and pure black. Nikon calls this new system 3D Color Matrix II. The 1005-cell CCD covers virtually all of the image frame. The grid is 15 rows of 67 columns, and consists of alternating color sensors (RGB; but it’s not the Bayer pattern described in the section on the sensor). If a D-type or G-type lens is used (with or without flash), matrix metering also takes into account the focus distance (the “3D” in the name) to help guess where the subject is and what kind of shot you’re taking. Example: normally, the matrix meter discounts brightness in the upper half of the scene, as it thinks this is sky, and unimportant; however, if you’re using a wide angle lens and are focused near infinity, the camera [...]... the Direction pad to navigate to Display Mode and press the > key on the Direction pad to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to each option you wish to set and press the > key on the Direction pad to toggle it on or off (⌧ indicates it is turned on) 5 When you’ve selected all the options you want active, use the Direction pad to navigate to Done and press the > key on the Direction pad to. .. Dynamic Autofocus or Dynamic Autofocus with Closest Subject Priority is set, in which case only the central sensor of the group or the central sensor is Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 225 V1.03 used, respectively (see also “Metering Compatibility,” below) Most photographers use the outer edges of the autofocus brackets to envision the circle of what’s being metered This gets them into... has to do with the seven segment AF sensor used So read the section on the autofocus sensors carefully and compare what you learn about their shape and size to what you see while spot metering I think you’ll come to the same conclusion I did: the spot meter on the D200 isn’t as tight, and tends to follow the size and shape of the AF sensor more than expected The spot metering point follows the autofocus... of the image area, the gray blob will placed near the midpoint in the dynamic range of the camera If your subject is a yellow parakeet filling most of the image area, the parakeet’s yellow will be placed near the midpoint in the dynamic range of the camera Why “near” and not “at?” Because Nikon tries to account slightly for perceptual differences between colors Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon. .. normally about the same size (0.31” [8mm]) as the area indicated by the large circle etched in the viewfinder (the one that touches the top and bottom autofocus sensor indicators) You can change the size of the central area by using Custom Setting #B6 (see “Center-weight Circle Size” on page < 440>), though I personally don’t find this to be an overly useful feature H One throwaway note in the Nikon D200... Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 234 V1.03 RGB Histogram Adds an information display page for each image that shows overall and individual channel histograms for the image This helps you detect channel blowout The individual channels are on the right and colored to match the channel (red = red, green = green, blue = blue) The white histogram below the image is the luminance histogram This... have all of these options active and use them to review what the camera is doing Over time, you’ll probably want to just select Data and RGB Histogram Remember, with RGB Histogram active you can get the highlights display for the RGB channel histograms by holding the Thumbnail button (±) at the same time as pressing the > key on the Direction pad Note that the flashing black that represents the blown... Fortunately, the camera has some useful tools that’ll help you do just that, which I’ll cover next Options for Evaluating Exposure The D200 has several useful exposure evaluation features that analyze the exposure data after you’ve taken a picture: Histogram, RGB Histogram and Highlights These features need to be turned on: 1 Press the Menu button to see the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the. .. pad to complete the selection Note the options you picked in Step 4 are Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 233 V1.03 not applied until you complete this last step! Here’s what each option does: Data This option toggles the appearance of two additional information display pages for each image; these pages overlay the camera setting data (from the EXIF tags) over the image Histogram Adds... Complete Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 237 V1.03 • Most pixels skewed to the left of the histogram If a significant number of pixel values exist at the very left edge, it’s likely the shot is underexposed Histograms that are “left heavy” tend to have troublesome shadow detail If there is little or no exposure shown in the right side of the histogram, you need to add more exposure to the shot Note that . (0.31” [8mm]) as the area indicated by the large circle etched in the viewfinder (the one that touches the top and bottom autofocus sensor indicators). You can change the size of the central area. Auto ISO indicator ISO-AUTO D200 Color LCD On the back of the camera is a large (~2.5”) color LCD (Nikon refers to this as the “Monitor”), which can be used to review images taken with the. Guide to the Nikon D200 Page 213 35. Autofocus Area Mode Selector switch 36. Playback button 37. MENU button 38. Thumbnail button 39. Protect button (doubles as Help button) 40. ENTER button