Switching from Auto - 5 steps to take control of your camera!
"Where do I Start?" is the obvious first question when stepping up from a compact to a more advanced camera, whether micro four thirds (m4/3), Digital SLR or other interchangeable lens camera system
For those wanting to take control of their cameras and photography there are a daunting array of controls and selections available. This article provides a very simple guide on the basics camera settings that will get you in control of your camera and help you get the best image quality from your photos.
Read the full blog post for more!
1. Switch from Auto to "A" (Aperture Priority):
Aperture priority (Av or A) on the mode dial lets you control how much of the photo is in focus. A smaller number means there is a smaller plane of focus. For example the foreground will be sharp, while the background is blurred. This is handy for portraits, or when you want to draw attention to one part of a photo and make everything else blurred.
A larger number means more of the image is sharp. This is often handy for Landscapes.
Aperture priority works by controlling how big or small the iris of the lens is. A smaller number means more light gets in, while a bigger number means the iris is very small. The camera will automatically select how fast the shutter-speed needs to be to get a properly exposed photo. This means that in this mode, in low-light situations your photos can get blurry if you're not careful. To avoid this, try to keep the shutterspeed high by increasing the ISO or decreasing the aperture number to let in more light. The camera will often give you a warning if this is set too low! (I'll cover shutterspeeds in detail in a later tutorial!)
Some suggested aperture values:
| m4/3 | APS-C DSLR | Full Frame DSLR | |
| Landscapes: | f5.6 | f8 | f11 |
| Portraits: | f2 | f2.8 | f4 |
2. ISO: Keep it Low!
ISO is code for how sensitive the sensor is to light. Think of it like turning up the volume of a stereo. Turn it up a little bit, and you'll have a little bit more noise, turn it up too much and the noise will become awful!
In general, a lower ISO will give the best image quality. In bright light keep this at base ISO - 100 for most cameras, and 200 for some such as Nikon DSLRS.
In low light, increase the ISO if the shutterspeed drops too low to get sharp photos.
3. Half press to Focus!
Most cameras have a variety of focus modes. When you're getting started, its easiest to set the camera to use the center focus point only. Aim the center focus point where you want to focus, half press the shutter to lock the focus point so that that part of the image is sharp, and then re-compose the image so that you have what you want in the frame while your finger is still half-pressed on the shutter. Press all the way to take your photo.
Inaccurate focus is one of the main reasons why photos turn out blurry - so make sure your camera has enough time to locks into focus.
Where to focus? As a general rule, when shooting people and animals, focus on the eyes. When shooting landscapes, find a point of interest to focus on, or failing that focus about 1/3 of the way into the scene.
4. Exposure compensation as needed
Sometimes the camera won't get the correct exposure. The photo ends up either too light or too dark. When shooting bright subjects (the beach, snow or a white building) the photo will often be too dark. Shooting dark or black subjects tends to result in the opposite problem.
This can be fixed by using the exposure compensation - usually represented by a +/- sign. On the GF-1 shown, you adjust this by clicking the back control wheel to toggle between adjusting aperture and exposure compensation. By doing so you bring up a scale that goes from -3 to +3. This means:
| Setting | Adjustment to metered exposure: |
| -3 | 1/8 |
| -2: | 1/4 |
| -1: | 1/2 |
| +1 | 2 times |
| +2: | 4 times |
| +3: | 8 times |
5. Shoot RAW
There seems to be a fear of shooting in RAW format. The big advantage of shooting raw is that it allows you to forget about many camera settings and concentrate only on those things that are critical at the time you shoot: Exposure, composition and focus. Everything else can be easily adjusted later in your raw conversion software.
Some things that you don't have to worry about and can be fully adjusted later from a raw file:
- White Balance
- In-camera sharpening
- Tone Curves (eg. Vibrant, natural, saturated)
- In-camera noise reduction
A RAW file is like a digital negative that maximizes your options for processing later.
More Information?
The above steps are intended as a starting point to give you more control over your camera. One of the best ways to learn is through experimentation and trying new things. Each week I'll be adding another tutorial on this blog covering basic travel photography subjects. This will include expanding on each of the points in this tutorial
If you want to follow this series, subscribe by RSS or email for regular updates using the section at the top right hand side of this page. (Subscribing is totally free, and unsubscribing is as easy as clicking on a link in an email from the google feedburner service).
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I meant to say go to minimum
I meant to say go to minimum aperture (the biggest number) and go back 2 stops. I always get them 2 the wrong way round.
I actually use a Panasonic G2 and nearly always go by that method, which means am usually shooting at around F11. Never really compared it to anything else but maybe I should do some testing.
I actually learnt the method from a landscape photography but he was shooting with a 5D.
Dave
I did the same thing for a
I did the same thing for a long time with my Olympus cameras that share the sensor format with the G2. When I read this article: http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/tech/dof.html I started experimenting with using generally wider apertures. The article is quite technical, but very useful if you can get through it.
In practice the thing you need to remember is that the equivalent focal length and aperture numbers are both half the Full Frame numbers. So: Panasonic m4/3 20mm @ f5.6 = 40mm f11 on Canon Full Frame. The difference with the 2 shots in the same light will be that the m4/3 camera will have 4 times the shutter-speed, unless the ISO is set differently (eg. iso100 to iso 400).
Interesting stuff, cheers for
Interesting stuff, cheers for that.
Read your blog everyday by the way, would love to do what your doing.
Noticed on the last half a dozen of posts, no camera information at the bottom or are you always using the 5D MK II now ? Even if it is 5D, it's always interesting to see what lens.
Cheers,
Dave
I'm mostly using the 5D at
I'm mostly using the 5D at the moment - in the next few weeks I'm planning to use the GF1 more to do some time lapse sequences. I've added camera info back in on recent posts - good to know its useful. Its comments like these that are one of the main reasons I'm still going by the way - I really appreciate it!
The sharpest aperture for
The sharpest aperture for shooting landscapes is generally 2 stops down from maximum aperture. So in A mode take the aperture to the maximum and go back 2 stops.
With most lenses this usually ends up being F11 or F16.
Then focus 3/4 of the way into the picture and you should have good front to back focus.
A tripod, mirror lockup and remote release will also help.
Dave
F11 to 16 can be true for a
F11 to 16 can be true for a full frame camera, but for a smaller sensor format, especially 4/3, going over about f8 with a wide angle lens will get you well into the point where the whole image suffers from diffraction.
An indirect consequence of being able to use a smaller f-stop for the same effective depth of field also means that you can get a faster shutterspeed which makes the need for a tripod and mirror-lock up of minimal additional benefit for daytime shooting.
Modern lens designs for small sensors are also often optimized to be sharper within 1 stop of the maximum aperture - so f2.8 for an f2 lens. In practice some of what is written in textbooks geared around 135mm film cameras, and in turn passed down from larger format cameras, can't be literally translated into the digital world of crop sensors!
With anything in photography there are many variables - and many strongly held schools of belief on both sides of an argument - my aim with this article is to give new users a practical starting point to build from. Thanks for stopping by! :)
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