Nikon DSLR - Active D-Lighting, Auto ISO etc

Auto ISO & Active D-Lighting in a Nikon

Auto ISO is a feature that most Nikon DSLRs have had for years, but Canon never implemented it.
Lots of professionals disliked it & advocated turning it off.
The same is also for Active D Lighting, thats Nikons version for automatic brightness & contrast correction.

How good are these 2 features, & should Nikon folks really use them?Short answer, YES!! They are freaking awesome!

I think most people who strongly advocate turning both these excellent features off, either do not know how to use them, or have unrealistic expectations, or are just plain in-experienced.
When used correctly, & consciously, Auto ISO & Active D-Lighting are awesome.
I will illustrate here with some examples.

For these pics, I used my biggest aperture lens, a Sigma 30mm F/1.4 fully open at f1.4 for all the photos. The idea is to use these features in challenging conditions, & what better challenge than low-light hand-held photos :) So all the pics are indoors with a small energy efficient fluorescent bulb with a warm colour temperature, to simulate a typical under-lit situation.

And you know my favourite quote "Get it in Camera"
Yes you'll argue Auto correction features are also an image enhancement, but given the fact that these auto features are only giving us the improved performance from our equipment rather than adding 'magic' to the photos, I dont consider them to be image manipulation per say.

Active D-Lighting

The idea is simple, you get a very natural looking extended dynamic range by creating good detail in shadows & not over-exposing your highs.
This is particularly important in low light photos when you want to rely on natural light.
This of it as the midtone correction built-in your camera, so it saves having to post-process things.

Here are some images, left to right, Active D-Lighting is off & then progressively turned on & its level increased.
The extreme settings are artificial, but the impact is noticeable.
I would suggest turning on active D-Lighting & using it on the 'High' setting in your Nikon DSLR

Auto ISO