I feel that I really have problem with keep my shoots level. So changes needs to be make in custom settings function. I also took change the my menu priority so that the Auto ISO on/off fuction is now top of the list.
After a few photographic trips with my D700, I have decided to make some changes in the use of the custom settings function. The changes main to make the use of Auto ISO function of the camera more easily. The Auto ISO is a great feature but Nikon does not provide an important control of Auto ISO, namely the minimum shutter speed, a easy way to change. If you need to change the minimum shutter speed, you need to dig thru the camera menu system which would be a pain in the field. To overcome this, I decide to set all 4 shooting banks with identical settings except the minimum shutter speed. The four banks will corresponding to a minimum shutter speed of 1/500 sec (for action), 1/250 (for telephoto), 1/125 (for normal) and 1/60 for wide. So, it would be 2 presses of the info button in the field to call up the change shoot menu bank to select a different minimum shutter speed. Should be cool and I will see if this would work as expected in some future trips.
They all told you that shooting at lowest ISO if you want the best image quality. That is only true if you could hold you camera steady! The rule of safty shutter speed states that you could hand held to shoot at 1/(focal length of your lens used) seconds and still get a blur free picture. The focal length of your lens needs to have the DX factor considered. That is for a 200mm lens on a DX format camera, your safe shutter speed is 1/300 seconds instead of 1/200 seconds.
For the case of the 200mm lens, this is not already possible to keep shutter speed higher than 1/300 seconds. So, the choice is using a higher ISO value or shoot continuously for 3 to 10 shoots (depends on how far you are below the safe shutter speed) and hope that one of them is blur free.
If shooting at higher ISO is your choice and you shoot with a Nikon camera, then you have the Auto ISO as your assistant. When set properly, the camera will adjust the ISO automatically to make sure the shutter speed won’t drop below the minimum shutter speed. For example, if your Auto ISO is off and your exposure is 1/60 sec and F5.6 at ISO100. With Auto ISO turn on and minimum shutter speed set to 1/125 seconds, you camera will set the exposure as 1/125sec and F5.6 at ISO200.
To set up the Nikon Auto ISO function, you need to set:
1. The minimum shutter speed – This is the shutter speed the camera will try to maintain with increasing ISO value.
2. The maximum ISO value - This is the highest ISO value the camera will try to increase to before it stop increase ISO value further to maintain the minimum shutter speed
3. You need to turn on the Auto ISO function. 
Oh! Why the minimum shutter speed for my D60 only at 1/125 seconds only? Nikon thinks that D60 users won’t use any telephoto lens? Or they think their VR technology is good enough when shoot at 1/125 seconds and there is no need to use higher shutter speed?
My suggestion goes with the higher ISO, higher shutter speed to guarantee a blur free picture with more noise. As you could still fix the noisy picture somehow at a later stage to see if you could still keep the photo but a blurry picture always go to the recycle bin.
Basic
Exposure is the combination of shutter speed, apperture and ISO value. The exposure value control how bright or dark you photo will become. There is no absolute correct value of a perfect exposure. The exposure value should be detemined by you as a photographer how your final image should look like.
The exposure lattitude of a film or sensor is the difference of exposure value of the brightest area and darkest area without losing detail in these two extreme areas. In digital camera if your exposure make part(s) of your image out of this range, they will become pure white or pure black and there is nothing you could do after the fact.
If the image you want to take happens to have a high contrast range that either the highlight or shadow or both fall out of this range. The normal choice is to keep the highligt area not over exposured and perform all sorts of post processing adjustment to help impove the situation.
The digital exposure procedure
Preparation:Read you camera’s manual about how to perform exposure compensation.
1. Take the picture.
2. Look at the result at the LCD panel of you camera to review the result (look at the photo and if availabel the histogram).
3. If the photo comes out too dark or to bright of your taste adjust the exposure compensation and shoot again.
4. Repeat step 1 to 3 until you get the result you like.
Live and Relax Copyright gHorse
