Camera Labs

Hi all
I´ve been working my way through the manual and lots of other guides for my new D90. There are 2 things I found different views and would like your opinions.

First the active D lighting, one school of thought i came across was to always leave it on auto as it does such a good job. The other was manual setting on normal or high.

2nd was to do with the IS settings, I have the AF-S 70-300MM F/4.5-5.6G IF-ED which has the 2 modes, IS and IS active.
I usually shoot in very bright conditions so have shutter speeds around the 1/1000 mark. Is there much need for active at such fast speeds?
Again I realise a lot of this is down to personal choice but I would like to hear other peoples thoughts.

Below is the 1st semi clear air to air shot I´ve managed so far!
Only editing done was in the in camera quick retouch.

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Nikon D90 + AF-S 18-55mm + AF-S 70-300MM F/4.5-5.6G IF-ED

D light can be turned on afterward in CaptureNX2 if you shoot in RAW so i would just leave it off. You can also use control points in CaptureNX to fix certain contrast/brightness issues.

"Active" VR is if you shoot from a moving car or something like that. Normal VR is for just shooting handheld. So that mode is preferred normally.

If shutterspeed is fast enough you can turn it off. If you use 1/300sec shutterspeed at 300mm you should get sharp photos without VR handheld.
At 1/1000sec just turn VR off no need for it really.

If you use a tripod always turn off the VR.

At high shutter speeds VR will not have anything to say for the final image, but it makes composing a lot easier at higher focal lengths

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Canon DSLRs: 5D Mark III, 7D
Canon lenses: 17-40/4L, 24-105/4L, 24/1.4L II, 50/1.4, 85/1.8, 100/2.8L Macro, 70-200/2.8L IS, 100-400L
Other stuff: Canon 580 EX II, Canon 430EX II, Velbon Sherpa 600R
Apple: MacBook Pro 15", iMac 27", iPad III, iPhone 4S, Apple TV

My deviantART

Blasphemy!

Nikon + IS

VR!

VR off with high shutter speeds is potentially a good idea, as the shutter speed is plenty fast enough.

The acceptable equation is 1/focal length for a minimum shutter speed.

However for best results you should also include the crop factor of the sensor. So in this case 1/1.5 x focal length is a good bet - i.e. 1/450th which doesn't exist so 1/500th second minimum shutter speed for a sharp shot on a D90.

Where the VR may help in this situation is framing the shot. If you're at an airshow and panning the VR can help you keep the subject roughly where you want it in the frame as you're panning. Distant and fast moving subjects may be difficult to focus on with the D90 and 70-300mm combo as I know well. The camera and lens may 'hunt' a fair bit. I can't see the EXIF details for your SqueezyJet shot, but I presume you've had a bit of a focus issue going on here.

It was at f10 with 1/2000 shutter focal 300mm ISO 200 I had being playing around with the settings when I spotted the easy coming it and was a little bumpy at the time too

Thanks for all the advice everyone!

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Nikon D90 + AF-S 18-55mm + AF-S 70-300MM F/4.5-5.6G IF-ED