Home Donate New Search Gallery How-To Books Links Workshops About Contact
D90 User's Guide:
Custom Setting Menu: Bracketing/flash
Want free live phone support? In the USA, call (800) NIKON-UX, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
e1 - e6: Bracketing/flash
How to Get Here
Press MENU, go to the left and select up and down to the pencil icon. You'll then see CUSTOM SETTING MENU on the color LCD. Click down to e BRACKETING/FLASH and click to the right.
What it Does
It sets flash function and completely unrelated bracketing options.
What I Change
I change e3, and leave the rest alone.
e1 Flash Shutter Speed top
This selects the slowest shutter speed used with flash with normal sync in the P and A exposure modes.
1/60 is default. I usually set about 1/30 or 1/15 to let in more ambient light to prevent my backgrounds from blacking-out indoors.
Slower speeds like 1/8 let the backgrounds stay much lighter, but greatly increase the chances of motion blur.
e2 Flash cntrl for built-in flash top
This sets what the built-in flash does.
By default it works like a TTL flash. That's good; it works great.
You set the flash brightness manually. I use this mode if I'm shooting my studio strobes and using the built-in flash to trigger my power pack.
RPT (idiotic repeating strobe mode)
Har har, you can start you own hamster disco with this one.
C (commander mode)
Under this menu you can set two groups of external flashes separately, as well as how much light comes from the built-in flash.
"Comp" is the exposure compensation (brightness) for each of these groups of lights.
You can set lighting ratios of remote flashes, right from the D90!
Trick: You have to set Channel 3, not the default of 1, to get this to work! My SB-600 defaults to channel 3. You can use any channel, but the flash and camera have to match. Different channels are handy if you have a lot of photographers shooting in the same arena. No, I have no idea why the D70 defaults to 3 as does the SB-600, and the D90 defaults to ch. 1.
Leave the rest of it alone. Set your flash for remote operation, and away you go.
e3 Modeling Flash top
Leave this off!
Otherwise you'll go blind, because when turned on it fires a zillion flash shots as a modeling light if you tap the Depth-of-Field preview button.
The D90 is superior to other Nikons because it's the first Nikon to default this setting to off.
e4 Auto BKT Set top
This controls what changes when you bracket exposures.
You can have everything change, or just the flash, or just the ambient light, or have the WB bracket.
I never use these. Bracketing is for the weak. Use your LCD and look at your pictures.
This feature is a left-over from film cameras, and real photographers never used bracketing with film either.
e5 Auto FP top
This lets the D90 play with the trick FP flash sync mode. I've never used this feature in ten years of having other cameras with it.
Auto FP lets you shoot with faster shutter speeds than 1/200 with flash, but with an abysmal loss of flash power as you go to faster speeds.
I never use this.
e6 Bracketing order top
This sets the order in which the various bracketed exposures are made.
My D90 User's Guide continues below.
I support my growing family through this website.
This guide is free to read online, but copyrighted and registered. If you haven't helped yet and would like to save or make a printed copy of this article for your camera bag, please send me $5.00 for each complete or partial copy that you print or save, for personal use only. Others charge $29.99 for crappier information, and with your honesty I can continue to offer these guides online for less.
If you bought your D90 by clicking through my links, then you've saved money and also helped me write this guide. Thank you and please enjoy it. It's great people like you, and those who help me otherwise, who allow me to keep adding to this site for everyone's benefit.
The biggest help is to use these links to Adorama, Amazon, B&H, Ritz and J&R when you get your goodies. It costs you nothing and is a huge help to me. These places have the best prices and service, which is why I've used them since before this website existed. I recommend them all personally.
Thanks for reading!
KNOBS and BUTTONS
f Controls < < NEXT