Seeking skilled or knowledgeable photographer to help me dial in my camera for best cham settings

JoshOfTheJungle

JoshOfTheJungle

Member
I have a Nikon D7500
It’s a pretty complicated cam and I have yet been able to find good settings to default to when shooting my chameleons. Either the exposure is always high or the shutter speed is too slow.
Any recommendations on what I should tune the settings to in order to get the best brightness and most true color without being over saturated and not looking real would be helpful!
 
Overexposed photos are usually the result of a shutter speed too slow or an aperture/f-stop too wide (or both).

Generally, for well-lit environments, you need to adjust shutter speed and aperture inversely to zero in on your preferred exposure. Fast shutter speed (lets in less light) with wider aperture (lets in more light) or slow shutter speed (more light) with smaller aperture (less light). ISO is another thing you can adjust for brightness, but the higher it is the grainier your photo will be. Finding the exact settings you need just takes practice and experimenting!

Another note about aperture- it also determines your depth of field. It may not make much difference if the background of your photo is close to your chameleon, but it's something to think about if you don't like the level of detail in a smaller aperture shot!

For color, avoid auto white balance. Find a setting that matches your environment and captures the colors most accurately. Some cameras have filter settings, so make sure yours isn't set on something funky. There may also be saturation settings somewhere, too. There's a lot to tinker with!

I haven't done much DSLR photography in the last 5 years, otherwise I could probably do a better job recommending where to start :p I'd opt for a wider aperture and fast shutter speed, though!
 
Here's a photo I just took & the metadata for it:

example.jpg

12.JPG
12 2.jpg


I used just a regular 18-55mm kit lens. Your lighting situation will be different than mine so these values probably won't work for you, but I hope it at least gives you an idea of where to start :)
edit: I should also add that I used the Daylight white balance setting!
 
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