Stick to AV mode (or TV mode)

[ivans75]

I have been getting ALOT of advise in this forum for the past weeks. I thank Tony (tannin) especially for his tips. I ve been leaving my camera mode to AV 98 percent of the time shooting anything, I mean ANYTHING that interests me, from silly faces of my kids to some boring streets (hundreds of them) pictures practically anywhere. I ve been taking my camera along with me almost everyday now.

Leaving the camera mode on AV and iso 100-200 certainly makes my photography learning so much easier and I am getting quite good pictures (pleasing to my eyes at least) it was just one occasion where I had to leave the ISO setting on auto when I shot that guy in a manhole at st kilda rd, he was working on a fibre optic kind of thing underground with his workmates and I was there and they let me take their pics.

The AV mode setting is so good for 3 of my lenses. And I can learn more about apperture and I am getting more understanding each day about apperture and what apperture number I set before I go to the site and take pics. I occasionally have my camera on TV mode to capture some "movement" effects such as this bicycle

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4354/35999380014_711f770750_h.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/WR9etL)Cycling around melbourne (https://flic.kr/p/WR9etL) by Ivan Sutrisno (https://www.flickr.com/photos/52812952@N08/), on Flickr

(not sure but I was quite happy with my slow speed expriment there haha)

Having on AV mode also makes it faster to take that "right moment" without having to worry about other settings. And I certainly recommend for beginners to leave your camera mode on AV at most of the time and learn each of the apperture opening and what they do to your image.
So once again thanks guys, thanks Tony for your wonderful tips.

[ameerat42]

Mdj... Don't make fast rules for yourself. Do what you find is useful and meaningful at the time.
Like you say, learn from what any mode offers. I never get off Manual mode, except that I will
set my AF lenses to AF and stabilisation ON. No one thing is any better than any other all the time.

CC: You achieved a good and interesting result with that cyclist. Two other things about this pic:
1. Pity you truncated his front wheel (and he probably came a cropper just out of the frame:eek:).
2. That blurred car is a distraction here. If you could have avoided it, better.

You must try this again with more space about the rider, so that you can eliminate any unwanted
vehicles.

[ivans75]

Mdj... Don't make fast rules for yourself. Do what you find is useful and meaningful at the time.
Like you say, learn from what any mode offers. I never get off Manual mode, except that I will
set my AF lenses to AF and stabilisation ON. No one thing is any better than any other all the time.

CC: You achieved a good and interesting result with that cyclist. Two other things about this pic:
1. Pity you truncated his front wheel (and he probably came a cropper just out of the frame:eek:).
2. That blurred car is a distraction here. If you could have avoided it, better.

You must try this again with more space about the rider, so that you can eliminate any unwanted
vehicles.
Yeah that chopped wheel rim is a pitty. i tried to take some more on other cyclists but nothing came up good. Was bit busy on that time of the day. But yeah will try again for sure
I was panning on TV mode on burst shots. (think it was 1/60) so that car caught up just in time with the good image. I checked on other images, this is by far the best one...sigh.

By sticking to AV i mean for beginner like me it is so much easier to learn before I step up to a more manual later. Thanks again Ameerat

[Mark L]

By sticking to AV i mean for beginner like me it is so much easier to learn before I step up to a more manual later.

And once you learn more you may find no reason to step up to a more manual. :) It can of cause depend on the photo you are taking.
It is good that you have found a way to help your learning process. Chopping and changing what to do leads to not learning what and why and dissatisfaction.
Don't be afraid to use ISO 400-800 to get shutter speed up if needs be.

[Geoff79]

I actually had my camera set permanently on Av mode for the last five or more years. After a stint with the manual mode a while back, I just found Av was generally better for my needs. And it is a good all purpose mode... except with fast moving young kids and varying light. A lot of the time I've just accepted losing occasional shots to unusable, blurred results when the light failed me. However, in a completely random, meaningless discussion with my brother in law, we got onto the subject of Tv mode and it was just one of those light bulb moments. Not two minutes earlier had I just missed out on a few shots of my boy jumping down some stairs at f3.5 and I forget the ISO, but the shots were useless, all blurred. And I just had this clear moment where I wondered why on earth I wasn't favouring the Tv mode when taking photos of my kids. And I now do this.

So in general I shoot landscapes and seascapes in Av, kids in Tv and the few recent night photos in manual. Everything in between? Take your pick. As noted above, variety is the spice of life, and whilst I do have go to settings, I guess in general you just use at the time what suits.

Point of my post? There was one somewhere, surely? Probably just that the Tv mode is really good for kids, trying to remove those blurry images that end up straight in the recycle bin. [emoji6]


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[ivans75]

Hi geoff interesting with the tv mode for kids. What speed do you normally do on kids? I tried using tv mode for my kids playing around at an outdoor playground, some good some bad as you said, straight to the bin. But i got a few with a bit of ghosting effect showing their movement in shadow. I havent got time to upload it but will do next i have a chance. Thought it was quite good and artistic but there re still some dof issue as overall pic looks bit blurry

[Geoff79]

Hi geoff interesting with the tv mode for kids. What speed do you normally do on kids? I tried using tv mode for my kids playing around at an outdoor playground, some good some bad as you said, straight to the bin. But i got a few with a bit of ghosting effect showing their movement in shadow. I havent got time to upload it but will do next i have a chance. Thought it was quite good and artistic but there re still some dof issue as overall pic looks bit blurry

Yeah, I've noticed it's still not 100% foolproof. Whilst it cuts out the risk of motion blur, sometimes there are issues with maintaining focus. So it's definitely not a case of every single photo is a winner. But without question, I find the results dramatically better than Av mode.

As for shutter speed, it's completely dependant on the light. In good light I like to get up around the 1/1000 sec to really try and eliminate blur. Obviously you can't really achieve this in low light without dramatically increasing ISO, which I still obviously want to keep nice and low. But yeah, it is a bit about experimenting with the light on offer at the time. It kinda makes me wonder, why not just go one step further and use manual mode, which I see happening in the near future.

But in another example of how daft I can be sometimes, Mark's recent reply in the Tullamarine airport thread about exposure bias was another lightbulb moment for me. When I hear such basic and infinitely helpful hints like this I wonder why I'm not already across stuff like this.

But yeah, upping the exposure a few stops when the light fades in order to cut back the noise a high ISO will create, whilst keeping a favourable shutter speed... what could be simpler? Can't wait to experiment.


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[arthurking83]

I'll make some suggestions(but with the caveat that I have no idea what camera you're using!!)

If you're totally new to photography(and are keen about it) then forget Av and or Tv mode, and manual mode for that matter!

Again I'm basing my recommendation not knowing what lens(es) you use or have access too as well. So I'm going to assume that you're using kit zoom type lenses. 18-55 or 18-135 or something like that.
Because you mention Av and Tv mode, I think it's safe to assume a Canon camera.

So: for kids, stick to Av mode. Set aperture to the lowest number and don't let it move from there.
Set ISO to Auto ISO, but don't just leave it there without further tweaking that setting(if possible). In the Auto ISO settings, you should have an option for an upper limit value. By default I think most if not all cameras will be set to the maximum ISO number possible.
So if it says ISO12800, then change it to 6400. Assuming a modern Canon(eg. 70D or 80D or similar) then ISO6400 won't be an issue unless you need to crop heavily.
Just be sure that there is no exposure compensation set in camera with those settings above. ie. exposure compensation set to 0Ev.

So camera settings will be something like:
Av mode
Auto ISO with a maximum ISO6400
0Ev compensation.

Now not knowing what lenses you have, the longer the focal length, the faster the shutter speed needs to be, with or without IS. IS helps in some situations, and does nothing in other situations.
if you're kids are running around like small twitchy birds, then IS will not help.
If they are moving about, like playing with sand in a sand pit, or down a slide, IS can help.
This depends on the lens being used too tho. At shorter focal lengths(say up to about 70-ish mm, IS doesn't help as much.
If you're lens can do 200-300mm, then IS helps you hold the lens steadier at slower shutter speeds.
So even if the kids are moving about quickly and you need say 1/100s shutter speed, but your lens is set to 300mm, 1/100s may stop motion blur of kids moving, but you're at the very edge of hand holding a lens at 300mm and 1/100s. This is where the IS helps.

The other aspect of AutoISO usage is the minimum shutter speed set. This tells the camera at what speed to start increasing ISO. It's not an easy value to set either. Once again it's dependent on the lens type you're using.
But what this shutter speed value does is that it's the minimum shutter speed where the ISO is increased to maintain that shutter speed.
The important point to note here is very simple: it's far more important to most images to have a sharp point of focus(ie. due to shutter speed) than it is to have the lowest noise grain quality at the risk of focal point blur.
Many people think AutoISO is some kind of evil feature best avoided, but I can tell you it's probably the best feature in this modern age of digital cameras. (note that older age digital cameras had woeful high ISO quality compared to what you have in the modern era!!)
So your options are to set ISO as low as possible and get nice noise-less images of interesting blur .. or slightly grainer images of something interesting and clearly in focus. minimum shutter speed choice is important. longer focal lengths = faster shutter speeds. Don't forget to add iin the IS variable too tho!
So if you lens is a 15-85mm lens, maybe use 1/60s as a minimum shutter speed. If your lens is a 70-300mm, then maybe use 1/100s as a minimum shutter speed. it varies according to lens used.

I don't know how Canons have AutoISo set up, but some cameras have a 1/focal length shutter speed for minimum shutter speed. If your Canon doesn't .. it's a great point to illustrate why you really wanted that Nikon, but didn't know why! ;)
Anyhow, if you can use a 1/focal length value for minimum shutter speed, then awesome, as it doesn't matter what lens you use .. the minimum shutter speed will vary accordingly. so at 50mm it'll automatically set to 1/50, and at 300mm it'll set to 1/300s.
Not only that, but also allows you to factor in IS too(in Nikon speak that's VR). So if you have a 300mm lens with IS(VR) then you can adjust for that, and it'll automatically set to something like 1/150s or 1/80s.

FWIW: I can't remember a time when I've used my cameras handheld when I haven't used Auto ISO. On a tripod, it's silly to use it .. you just don't need it unless you want extra shutter speed there too, but handheld I use it all the time, and even back to the crappy old D70s days where ISO400 looked dreadful!! But like I said earlier .. better a clear image with noise than a mess of mush with super quality grain level at low ISO. I don't pixel peep blurry images, and only inspect my sharper images with the view to keep the better versions.

Hope all that makes sense, because there's more! .. and this may be the more important point to be ware of.
Focus mode and focus point usage.
It's probably more important than any of the above. The above suggestions only help if you can get a clear sharp rendering to begin with.
Many cameras come by default set to auto area focus point mode, and use what's known as Single shot focus mode.
That is, the camera wants to choose which focus point to set, and it only focuses and then allows the exposure to be made. You hear the focus beep and shoot.
BAD!!! .. big bad BAD!!
Use Single point focus mode. And use the central one when chasing kids. If your shooting kids playing in the sand pit(ie. not moving about much) you can vary the focus point to get better framing(framing is not only important, but vital for a pleasant looking image).
And set the camera to use continuous focus mode. I don't know what Canon call it(maybe 'servo') but it's where the camera always focuses and refocuses, and focuses again and refocuses again. That's why it's called continuous focus mode.
In single shot focus mode, it focuses once and then it takes the shot. In the micro second between focus and shot, the subject(or yourself) may have moved enough to be slightly out of focus in a fast paced shooting situation.
In continuous focus mode, it's always re-focusing up until the point of exposure. There's a better chance that if all the other aspects of the setup are OK, then you won't have slightly misfocused at the point of exposure. (actually it's not the operator that will have misfocused, it's actually the camera that does.
if the scene is more static(like the sand pit playing situation) then the difference between continuous and single is less obvious(if at all).

Lastly, for kids moving about a lot and quickly, shoot multiple exposures in rapid shot mode. If you camera does 5fps, then good. if it does 7fps .. better. Use it to advantage.

So the point of all this is .. don't worry too much about one single aspect of the cameras settings. It's more important to figure out a selection of settings that work well as a whole. Yes those single elements make a difference, but if the other settings aren't helping, that one setting that becomes a discussion(or sticking) point may not help at all!

So my suggestion is to set up the camera:(and to recap)
Av mode
AutoISO max ISO6400
Auto ISO min shutter speed(depending on lens focal length)
AF mode: Single point focus mode and Continuous(servo?) mode. (keep the shutter half pressed as you track the subject and always be ready to shoot .. and as side note, you may have an option to use 'back button focusing' which also helps)
high speed frame advance mode .. max it out.

What will this do?(assuming a lens like a 15-85 f/3.5-5.6 or similar)
it could .. if you track the rapidly moving subject, holding the shutter to half way down, it will continuously focus on the subject as you track, You're using single point AF mode and you keep the af point at the subject. You have a 15-85mm lens at set the aperture to f/3.5 at the wide end. Even tho you zoom in to 85mm, the lens will stay wide open at f/5.6. You set the AutoISO to 6400 and 1/60s min shutter speed. Light is good for 1/60s and ISO 200 at f/5.6. Even tho you set AutoISO to 6400, as the light is good, ISO will stay put at 200, as your minimum shutter speed is still only 1/60s. Shoot a set of 5 frame at 5fps as you follow the subject. Now the subject moves into the shadows, and light drops. You have touched nothing on the camera, no fumbling for settings just keep following the subject. Your only concern is following the subject, forget the camera settings now(unless you change lenses to something really different!!). Now light levels are 1/60s ISO1600 at f/5.6 at 85mm. But you change the lens to 50mm as you stepped a bit closer. So aperture changes up to f/5.
Camera knows all this(because you set it all up earlier, and have touched nothing since), so shutter stays put at 1/60s, aperture now moves to f/5, so ISO is set to 1250(not 1600). ISO is set to a minimum value as possible. Because it needed 1600 at f/5.6, you moved the lens to 50mm which set aperture to f/5, so ISO is adjusted to suit(ie. ISO1250).
If you go back out into the light again and say shutter speed is now automatically set to 1/500s as the light is much brighter than before, ISO is set back down to ISO200 automatically again as the shutter speed is way above the 1/60s minimum we set in the camera for AutoISO.

Hope all that made some sense too. :confused013

[Geoff79]

Thanks Arthur, that was detailed! For the record, I have a Canon 70D and if I'm not mistaken, Ivan the 80D. For the kids I use my 18-200mm all purpose Canon lens, though more recently I have opted for the 18-250mm Tamron I also own.

Thanks for all the tips, mate, very comprehensive. Some of it I have implemented before, some not. I will certainly try some of the things you suggest.

I assume you're talking from a full frame perspective? I know ISO 6400 on the 70D is pretty grainy... not really usable for kids, if you want any sort of usable picture quality. I believe it offers far greater results with a full frame camera? Which I dearly hope to obtain one day sooner than later... :)


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[arthurking83]

....

I assume you're talking from a full frame perspective? I know ISO 6400 on the 70D is pretty grainy... not really usable for kids, if you want any sort of usable picture quality. I believe it offers far greater results with a full frame camera? Which I dearly hope to obtain one day sooner than later... :)

Both.
6400 on the larger frame is obviously better in many ways, but even the poor old D300 can do OK at 6400.
I prefer better detail at ISO6400, rather than blur at ISO1600.
You can deal with ISO noise using noise reduction, but you can't correct camera shake with decent results.

I just had a peek at 70D ISO6400 noise levels, and they're definitely going to be much better than the D300 at ISO6400(that I can estimate)
What I used to do with the D300 at ISO6400 is to make sure image was slightly brighter than I normally shoot(ie. as an example +0.3Ev higher for a neutral level) which helps mask colour noise.
Note that colour noise is the red, green and blue speckle effect. I'd add very minimal NR painted in on the important areas(eg. faces or any detail you want rendered nice) but zero to very minimal sharpening on that areas.
As an idea on how much, I'd use about 10% - 20% colour noise reduction, and maximum 10% sharpening on those important detail areas.
On the non important backgrounds, periphery type areas where noise is going to look ugly, I'd use up to 100% NR and no sharpening at all.
The problem is that each image needs to be processed by hand, which takes time, so is tedious.

Those 18-200, 18-300 etc, type lenses usually only work on crop cameras ... so:
If you do have future plans to update/upgrade to a full frame camera(and a 6D sounds pretty good from what I've read) .. then I'd suggest updating the lens first.
Something like a 28-300 to get a similar type of lens in that 18-XXX range.

I don't think Sigma makes any, I know Tamron makes one(28-300mm) (and Nikon also makes one, but is useless info for a Canon user :p)
If you contemplate such a lens update first, keep in mind if they're designed for cropped or 135 format cameras.
Sigma use their DC(APS-C) and DG(135) notations and Tamron have their DiII(APS-C) and Di(135) model naming.

I just had a quick peek at the Tamron 28-300 lens and compared it against the Canon 28-300mm lens(so I just discovered that Canon also do a 28-300! :D) both wide open and they both produce pretty crappy IQ at 300mm(as would be expected) .. but I think would be 'usable' for family snaps. But at least the Canon can do nice IQ when stopped down to F/8, where the Tammy is still pretty hazy(ie. crap :p).
The problem at f/8 tho is you're back to pushing ISO higher than you'd really like .. etc, etc!

Alternatively, for a usable focal length range on a 135 format camera, I think 24-105 would be nice.

[Geoff79]

Both.
6400 on the larger frame is obviously better in many ways, but even the poor old D300 can do OK at 6400.
I prefer better detail at ISO6400, rather than blur at ISO1600.
You can deal with ISO noise using noise reduction, but you can't correct camera shake with decent results.

I just had a peek at 70D ISO6400 noise levels, and they're definitely going to be much better than the D300 at ISO6400(that I can estimate)
What I used to do with the D300 at ISO6400 is to make sure image was slightly brighter than I normally shoot(ie. as an example +0.3Ev higher for a neutral level) which helps mask colour noise.
Note that colour noise is the red, green and blue speckle effect. I'd add very minimal NR painted in on the important areas(eg. faces or any detail you want rendered nice) but zero to very minimal sharpening on that areas.
As an idea on how much, I'd use about 10% - 20% colour noise reduction, and maximum 10% sharpening on those important detail areas.
On the non important backgrounds, periphery type areas where noise is going to look ugly, I'd use up to 100% NR and no sharpening at all.
The problem is that each image needs to be processed by hand, which takes time, so is tedious.

Those 18-200, 18-300 etc, type lenses usually only work on crop cameras ... so:
If you do have future plans to update/upgrade to a full frame camera(and a 6D sounds pretty good from what I've read) .. then I'd suggest updating the lens first.
Something like a 28-300 to get a similar type of lens in that 18-XXX range.

I don't think Sigma makes any, I know Tamron makes one(28-300mm) (and Nikon also makes one, but is useless info for a Canon user :p)
If you contemplate such a lens update first, keep in mind if they're designed for cropped or 135 format cameras.
Sigma use their DC(APS-C) and DG(135) notations and Tamron have their DiII(APS-C) and Di(135) model naming.

I just had a quick peek at the Tamron 28-300 lens and compared it against the Canon 28-300mm lens(so I just discovered that Canon also do a 28-300! :D) both wide open and they both produce pretty crappy IQ at 300mm(as would be expected) .. but I think would be 'usable' for family snaps. But at least the Canon can do nice IQ when stopped down to F/8, where the Tammy is still pretty hazy(ie. crap :p).
The problem at f/8 tho is you're back to pushing ISO higher than you'd really like .. etc, etc!

Alternatively, for a usable focal length range on a 135 format camera, I think 24-105 would be nice.

Haha, I love your enthusiasm and wealth of knowledge on the subject.

I'm just finishing up my holiday photo books which is an all in type operation to get them complete before the special ends, but once I'm all done with that project I was going to post a new thread about my desire for a full frame camera and look for some good tips.

I'll go into detail at the time, but in a nutshell, price will probably be the biggest factor. And yeah, it started becoming apparent to me that I'd have to start from scratch in terms of lenses too. That could put a screeching halt to any short term plans. I'll see. A lot of research to be done.

But just on that, as you note, I am a long time and happy user of canon, and ideally I'd like to continue with what I'm familiar with. That said, if in my searches it would become apparent that for whatever reason I could get the equivalent equipment with Nikon for a better price, I'd probably be willing to switch. Anyway, like I said, I'll have more on the subject to ask shortly.

And for the record, you are definitely right about noise being much better than blur in that you can work with noise, to an extent, but can't repair an out of focus shot. [emoji6]




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[ivans75]

I'll make some suggestions(but with the caveat that I have no idea what camera you're using!!)

If you're totally new to photography(and are keen about it) then forget Av and or Tv mode, and manual mode for that matter!

Again I'm basing my recommendation not knowing what lens(es) you use or have access too as well. So I'm going to assume that you're using kit zoom type lenses. 18-55 or 18-135 or something like that.
Because you mention Av and Tv mode, I think it's safe to assume a Canon camera.

So: for kids, stick to Av mode. Set aperture to the lowest number and don't let it move from there.
Set ISO to Auto ISO, but don't just leave it there without further tweaking that setting(if possible). In the Auto ISO settings, you should have an option for an upper limit value. By default I think most if not all cameras will be set to the maximum ISO number possible.
So if it says ISO12800, then change it to 6400. Assuming a modern Canon(eg. 70D or 80D or similar) then ISO6400 won't be an issue unless you need to crop heavily.
Just be sure that there is no exposure compensation set in camera with those settings above. ie. exposure compensation set to 0Ev.

So camera settings will be something like:
Av mode
Auto ISO with a maximum ISO6400
0Ev compensation.

Now not knowing what lenses you have, the longer the focal length, the faster the shutter speed needs to be, with or without IS. IS helps in some situations, and does nothing in other situations.
if you're kids are running around like small twitchy birds, then IS will not help.
If they are moving about, like playing with sand in a sand pit, or down a slide, IS can help.
This depends on the lens being used too tho. At shorter focal lengths(say up to about 70-ish mm, IS doesn't help as much.
If you're lens can do 200-300mm, then IS helps you hold the lens steadier at slower shutter speeds.
So even if the kids are moving about quickly and you need say 1/100s shutter speed, but your lens is set to 300mm, 1/100s may stop motion blur of kids moving, but you're at the very edge of hand holding a lens at 300mm and 1/100s. This is where the IS helps.

The other aspect of AutoISO usage is the minimum shutter speed set. This tells the camera at what speed to start increasing ISO. It's not an easy value to set either. Once again it's dependent on the lens type you're using.
But what this shutter speed value does is that it's the minimum shutter speed where the ISO is increased to maintain that shutter speed.
The important point to note here is very simple: it's far more important to most images to have a sharp point of focus(ie. due to shutter speed) than it is to have the lowest noise grain quality at the risk of focal point blur.
Many people think AutoISO is some kind of evil feature best avoided, but I can tell you it's probably the best feature in this modern age of digital cameras. (note that older age digital cameras had woeful high ISO quality compared to what you have in the modern era!!)
So your options are to set ISO as low as possible and get nice noise-less images of interesting blur .. or slightly grainer images of something interesting and clearly in focus. minimum shutter speed choice is important. longer focal lengths = faster shutter speeds. Don't forget to add iin the IS variable too tho!
So if you lens is a 15-85mm lens, maybe use 1/60s as a minimum shutter speed. If your lens is a 70-300mm, then maybe use 1/100s as a minimum shutter speed. it varies according to lens used.

I don't know how Canons have AutoISo set up, but some cameras have a 1/focal length shutter speed for minimum shutter speed. If your Canon doesn't .. it's a great point to illustrate why you really wanted that Nikon, but didn't know why! ;)
Anyhow, if you can use a 1/focal length value for minimum shutter speed, then awesome, as it doesn't matter what lens you use .. the minimum shutter speed will vary accordingly. so at 50mm it'll automatically set to 1/50, and at 300mm it'll set to 1/300s.
Not only that, but also allows you to factor in IS too(in Nikon speak that's VR). So if you have a 300mm lens with IS(VR) then you can adjust for that, and it'll automatically set to something like 1/150s or 1/80s.

FWIW: I can't remember a time when I've used my cameras handheld when I haven't used Auto ISO. On a tripod, it's silly to use it .. you just don't need it unless you want extra shutter speed there too, but handheld I use it all the time, and even back to the crappy old D70s days where ISO400 looked dreadful!! But like I said earlier .. better a clear image with noise than a mess of mush with super quality grain level at low ISO. I don't pixel peep blurry images, and only inspect my sharper images with the view to keep the better versions.

Hope all that makes sense, because there's more! .. and this may be the more important point to be ware of.
Focus mode and focus point usage.
It's probably more important than any of the above. The above suggestions only help if you can get a clear sharp rendering to begin with.
Many cameras come by default set to auto area focus point mode, and use what's known as Single shot focus mode.
That is, the camera wants to choose which focus point to set, and it only focuses and then allows the exposure to be made. You hear the focus beep and shoot.
BAD!!! .. big bad BAD!!
Use Single point focus mode. And use the central one when chasing kids. If your shooting kids playing in the sand pit(ie. not moving about much) you can vary the focus point to get better framing(framing is not only important, but vital for a pleasant looking image).
And set the camera to use continuous focus mode. I don't know what Canon call it(maybe 'servo') but it's where the camera always focuses and refocuses, and focuses again and refocuses again. That's why it's called continuous focus mode.
In single shot focus mode, it focuses once and then it takes the shot. In the micro second between focus and shot, the subject(or yourself) may have moved enough to be slightly out of focus in a fast paced shooting situation.
In continuous focus mode, it's always re-focusing up until the point of exposure. There's a better chance that if all the other aspects of the setup are OK, then you won't have slightly misfocused at the point of exposure. (actually it's not the operator that will have misfocused, it's actually the camera that does.
if the scene is more static(like the sand pit playing situation) then the difference between continuous and single is less obvious(if at all).

Lastly, for kids moving about a lot and quickly, shoot multiple exposures in rapid shot mode. If you camera does 5fps, then good. if it does 7fps .. better. Use it to advantage.

So the point of all this is .. don't worry too much about one single aspect of the cameras settings. It's more important to figure out a selection of settings that work well as a whole. Yes those single elements make a difference, but if the other settings aren't helping, that one setting that becomes a discussion(or sticking) point may not help at all!

So my suggestion is to set up the camera:(and to recap)
Av mode
AutoISO max ISO6400
Auto ISO min shutter speed(depending on lens focal length)
AF mode: Single point focus mode and Continuous(servo?) mode. (keep the shutter half pressed as you track the subject and always be ready to shoot .. and as side note, you may have an option to use 'back button focusing' which also helps)
high speed frame advance mode .. max it out.

What will this do?(assuming a lens like a 15-85 f/3.5-5.6 or similar)
it could .. if you track the rapidly moving subject, holding the shutter to half way down, it will continuously focus on the subject as you track, You're using single point AF mode and you keep the af point at the subject. You have a 15-85mm lens at set the aperture to f/3.5 at the wide end. Even tho you zoom in to 85mm, the lens will stay wide open at f/5.6. You set the AutoISO to 6400 and 1/60s min shutter speed. Light is good for 1/60s and ISO 200 at f/5.6. Even tho you set AutoISO to 6400, as the light is good, ISO will stay put at 200, as your minimum shutter speed is still only 1/60s. Shoot a set of 5 frame at 5fps as you follow the subject. Now the subject moves into the shadows, and light drops. You have touched nothing on the camera, no fumbling for settings just keep following the subject. Your only concern is following the subject, forget the camera settings now(unless you change lenses to something really different!!). Now light levels are 1/60s ISO1600 at f/5.6 at 85mm. But you change the lens to 50mm as you stepped a bit closer. So aperture changes up to f/5.
Camera knows all this(because you set it all up earlier, and have touched nothing since), so shutter stays put at 1/60s, aperture now moves to f/5, so ISO is set to 1250(not 1600). ISO is set to a minimum value as possible. Because it needed 1600 at f/5.6, you moved the lens to 50mm which set aperture to f/5, so ISO is adjusted to suit(ie. ISO1250).
If you go back out into the light again and say shutter speed is now automatically set to 1/500s as the light is much brighter than before, ISO is set back down to ISO200 automatically again as the shutter speed is way above the 1/60s minimum we set in the camera for AutoISO.

Hope all that made some sense too. :confused013
Wow for some reason I missed this reply...

Thanks so much!!! Printing this now

- - - Updated - - -

Ok now as learning progress, here is what i do now, please advise

I am setting my camera in auto ISO and manual mode and set the speed first on different occasion:
Kids playing: 1/1250 servo focus, high speed continues shots (my 80 d gets to 7fps)
Wildlife/animal: 1/1250-1/2000 (depends on lens, when I used telezoom like 100-400 f4/5.6 with 1.4 extender, i go down to 1/640 to max the apperture compensation (sits at f6-8) due to the extender usage, still got a good sharp result) also servo and high speed shots - this is what i did at the zoo on weekend. I have not tried birding but i will learn that in time.

In still portrait/landscape i adjust my apperture first as it depends on the lighting and times of day and what depth of field I want to achieve, normally i try the largest apperture first (smallest number) and adjust accordingly. Single shot, standard auto focus

Exposure compensation: I try to make it 1 line to the left of 0 as I want my image to appear a tiny bit darker so i can easily adjust it again in processing.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh by the way I set my max auto iso at 6400 as you suggested arthur thanks for that, that helps really well
I did few photo shots today at a local children farm and it did make my life easier

[William W]

I think it is a very good idea to learn and appreciate the differences between the METERING MODES.

If you are using Av, Tv or P Modes then it is the Metering Mode which is driving your initial exposure.

For that matter, if you are in M or B Mode and you take notice of the TTL Meter, then the Metering Mode is driving those initial exposures, too.

WW

[arthurking83]

....

Exposure compensation: I try to make it 1 line to the left of 0 as I want my image to appear a tiny bit darker so i can easily adjust it again in processing.

....

I think it's important to understand the impact this setting has on your images.
If you set exposure compensation to be darker than normal, and the exposure is at high ISO(where noise really starts to impact IQ) you will make it worse having exposed too dark.
I tend to use slightly higher exposure compensation if I think ISO will get into the too noisy region.

eg. I know that at about ISO3200 on my D800, and no cropping, I have no problem with noise at all. I can recover the image a little if I accidentally shoot it too dark, and it doesn't really affect the (entire) image.
Obviously when viewing at 100% pixel zoom level, the noise increases as post process exposure compensation is applied, but when the entire D800 image is viewed at say 1000 pixels or so, basically nothing bad.

At ISO6400 tho, it's different. (ISO6400 is D800 max ISO before you get to the Hi ISO feature). So shooting at ISO6400 and then boosting exposure on the PC is similar to shooting at the uglier high ISO values.
Some image look worse than others, and mainly (from what I remember) .. yellow and red colours seem to take a big hit more than anything else.

If you think that ISO is going to be set in the upper region, and you think you may need to crop the image a little, the best way to shoot at these higher ISO values is a bit brighter, even over exposed just a little(obviously not to much that the highlights can't be recovered).
Then to bring the now bright image level back to normal levels, use exposure compensation in PP. This usually helps to keep noise down to more manageable levels.

Like William wrote too tho .. make sure you understand the metering system really well too tho.
Understand the difference between spot and evaluative, and how that simple switching between the two modes will(usually) make a completely different exposure for many scenes.
Also understand how various colours can be used to 'estimate' an appropriate exposure level for your metering purposes.

eg. I use green(grass/tree leaves/etc) as my 'neutral point' for exposure if doing landscapes. Can't remember who taught me this trick many years ago, but been using it since I can remember.
So for landscapes, I use spot metering, spot meter on some green grass, use that as my 0Ev point and expose for that scene .. usually shoot at about -0.3 or -0.7Ev tho, as I like the richer deeper colours that way too.
But if the grass is yellowed(dried, due to lack of water) or something other(like wheat, or barley or something), then if I used that as my neutral point, because that type of grass is naturally brighter, I don't use negative exposure compensation, sometimes use +0.3Ev to counter the naturally brighter reflection of that colour(compared to green).
Should be noted too .. that above process only works in spot metering mode, as you concentrate the metering area on that specific 'point' or spot. No point trying that in evaluative or matrix mode as the entire image is taken into consideration for metering.

[William W]

From other conversations, I recall that the OP has a Canon EOS 80D (Canon EOS something, anyway):

In this case it is probably worthwhile to mention some specifics re an EOS 80D (applies to other recent EOS models too) - An 80D has FOUR Metering Modes. Typically, the most common used (and the one suggested for common use) is "EVALUATIVE" Metering Mode. (This is akin to Nikon's "MATRIX" Metering Mode and these two were referenced by Arthur, above).

The other three Metering Modes are:

SPOT
PARTIAL
CENTER WEIGHTED AVERAGE

Canon are not forthcoming in disclosing exactly how each Metering Mode works, but after research and testing on many models, it appears consistent that EVALUATIVE and CENTER WEIGHTED AVERAGE have Algorithms which have a noticeable (and predictive) effect, whereas PARTIAL and SPOT seem to consistently 'meter' ONLY the area of the Viewfinder which is designated in the particular Camera's specifications.

That last point is important to note because the area which "SPOT" and "PARTIAL" meter, may change between camera models.

Also notable is that with Canon "SPOT" is not ever 'spot metering' (i.e not 1 degree) - and it can vary quite widely as per the angle that it actually meters.

Another point to note is, "SPOT" and "PARTIAL" meter a part of the scene determined by an Angle of View as seen in the viewfinder, ergo determined by (and changes with) the Focal Length of the lens used. This fact might be critically important for those who use Zoom Lenses; whereupon to get a more "accurate" "SPOT" metering reading, it is best to zoom in for that meter reading.

***

Apropos different colours, etc - I use Green Grass too. It worthwhile to note that one's own SKIN TONE can be used as a Metering Aid (e.g. the back of the hand) - once the relevant EXPOSURE COMPENSATION is calculated for that particular Skin Tone.

Importantly when using Metering Aids, like the back of the hand, one must put the hand in the same light (angle and type of light) as the area of the scene which is being evaluated.

***

Another general point about Metering, Exposure Calculation and Exposure Compensation, is the general value in exposing as far to the right of the histogram without clipping (ETTR). Worthwhile noting that each Canon Camera (at least a batch of closely related models) has a different HEADROOM. An educated guess is that an 80D will have about 1 STOP, perhaps a tad more.

I find that the BLINKIES (once tested and correlated for the particular model camera) are my accurate indication for headroom: when I mention “correlated” I mean that “PICTURE STYLES” are set so that the BLINKIES are my information source for my ETTR limits. This is because the “PICTURE STYLES” settings drive the in-camera post production of the JPEG IMAGE (and the REVIEW IMAGE), and as such drive the HISTOGRAM and the BLINKIES output. Because I presently use five EOS cameras, which span a range of models – the PICTURE STYLES (or equivalent) in each one is set differently to accommodate both a useful JPEG SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera) and also a continuity of a standard reference from the BLINKIES so I can most easily ETTR, when I want to do that.

WW

[achee]

x2 to using auto ISO, particularly in low light. I was shooting for a while before I discovered the joys of auto ISO! Of course, it's dependent on what you're trying to achieve but generally if I'm shooting in low light, no flash, and can't do manual for whatever reason, I'll let the camera choose the ISO. I'll be manually setting the aperture to as big as possible (while getting whatever I need in focus) and the shutter speed to as slow as possible (while avoiding camera shake and motion blur), which leaves the camera to pick the ISO.

[mudman]

if your camera can handle high ISO and/or you have good noise reduction software, try T/AV mode with auto Iso.
i have been playing with this method with my new K1 as i know the camera handles high ISO beautifully.
set the shutter speed an appature you want and let the system choose the ISO. i find it gives me more control and flexibility
cheers

[Steve Axford]

I think it's important to understand the impact this setting has on your images.
If you set exposure compensation to be darker than normal, and the exposure is at high ISO(where noise really starts to impact IQ) you will make it worse having exposed too dark.
I tend to use slightly higher exposure compensation if I think ISO will get into the too noisy region.

eg. I know that at about ISO3200 on my D800, and no cropping, I have no problem with noise at all. I can recover the image a little if I accidentally shoot it too dark, and it doesn't really affect the (entire) image.
Obviously when viewing at 100% pixel zoom level, the noise increases as post process exposure compensation is applied, but when the entire D800 image is viewed at say 1000 pixels or so, basically nothing bad.

At ISO6400 tho, it's different. (ISO6400 is D800 max ISO before you get to the Hi ISO feature). So shooting at ISO6400 and then boosting exposure on the PC is similar to shooting at the uglier high ISO values.
Some image look worse than others, and mainly (from what I remember) .. yellow and red colours seem to take a big hit more than anything else.

If you think that ISO is going to be set in the upper region, and you think you may need to crop the image a little, the best way to shoot at these higher ISO values is a bit brighter, even over exposed just a little(obviously not to much that the highlights can't be recovered).
Then to bring the now bright image level back to normal levels, use exposure compensation in PP. This usually helps to keep noise down to more manageable levels.

Like William wrote too tho .. make sure you understand the metering system really well too tho.
Understand the difference between spot and evaluative, and how that simple switching between the two modes will(usually) make a completely different exposure for many scenes.
Also understand how various colours can be used to 'estimate' an appropriate exposure level for your metering purposes.

eg. I use green(grass/tree leaves/etc) as my 'neutral point' for exposure if doing landscapes. Can't remember who taught me this trick many years ago, but been using it since I can remember.
So for landscapes, I use spot metering, spot meter on some green grass, use that as my 0Ev point and expose for that scene .. usually shoot at about -0.3 or -0.7Ev tho, as I like the richer deeper colours that way too.
But if the grass is yellowed(dried, due to lack of water) or something other(like wheat, or barley or something), then if I used that as my neutral point, because that type of grass is naturally brighter, I don't use negative exposure compensation, sometimes use +0.3Ev to counter the naturally brighter reflection of that colour(compared to green).
Should be noted too .. that above process only works in spot metering mode, as you concentrate the metering area on that specific 'point' or spot. No point trying that in evaluative or matrix mode as the entire image is taken into consideration for metering.

I almost always use -1 for exp compensation. This allows the camera to get the exposure wrong and still be able to fix it. It has the added advantage of using double the shutter speed so less blur and/or lower ISO.

[tandeejay]

I almost always use -1 for exp compensation. This allows the camera to get the exposure wrong and still be able to fix it. It has the added advantage of using double the shutter speed so less blur and/or lower ISO.

I've done that too, even pushing -2 exp compensation. I guess it comes down to whether recovering the shadows at lower iso has more or less noise than higher iso would have had, or if the faster shutter speed enables sharper image capture... all comes down to situation :D ...