Know thy Camera Part- II

Now once we know what all features our camera has, second most important thing is to be able to use them efficiently. You don’t want to be busy adjusting the camera settings when the moment is in front of you, do you? For this you should be precisely be able to remember at least a few important settings and how to change them. There is no other shortcut to achieve this than to practice changing those settings on your camera. After you’ve learned about each setting, practice changing them so that you can quickly get the settings you want, and learn where on your camera you can check the current settings.

Here we discuss an algorithm or a protocol that you may follow to quickly set the settings you want. Following a protocol has two advantages; firstly you know exactly what all steps you need to follow and thus you don’t lose any setting that should have been adjusted. Secondly, it’s kind of like a failsafe mechanism to prevent you from accidently adjusting a wrong setting. I shall explain more of it below.

The more features your digital camera has, the more you are likely to find yourself shooting with the wrong settings; that is, unless you know how to read the settings and you’re compulsive about checking them before you shoot. This depends on the model of the camera which you are using but usually the camera setting are displayed in the LCD or the display panel of your camera. At times the settings may be displayed as symbols or at a specific part of the screen may be displaying a particular setting. To know the same, you need to go back to your manual and read it in detail (now you see why I told you that reading the user’s manual was important).

Equally important to changing settings is to be able to restore the phone to the original settings. Since there are n number of settings, if you want to change only one and keep the rest to their default value its much more convenient to reset the camera to its default settings and then just change that one setting rather than resetting each of those multiple settings back to their original. Another advantage of knowing how to reset you camera is, God forbid if you happen to completely mess up the settings so much that all the photos are going kaput and you don’t remember how to set it right, the simplest escape route is to set everything back to factory default. This reset button is usually in the main menu of the camera. Find it where it is and remember it.

Next thing that you should set is the white balance of the photos. When you set the white balance setting to match the light source, white will be white and all other colors will be as they should be. When the white balance setting is not correct, the photos will have an unwanted color cast. Most digital cameras offer an “auto white balance” setting that generally is quite good at minimizing color casts. However, you may find that you get better pictures when you use a specific setting to match the light source in the scene you are shooting. This is especially true if you shoot in a room with fluorescent or tungsten light; in these cases, use a fluorescent or tungsten setting to match the light source. You generally change the white balance through a menu displayed on an LCD monitor that you access with a dial or button. Depending upon the model of your camera and its make, there could be several different white balance options like Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent, Flash, and Custom.

After setting the appropriate white balance, set the correct ISO as per the lighting. ISO is a setting that determines how sensitive the digital camera is to light. The lower the ISO setting (for example, 50 or 100), the longer it takes for the light to be recorded and, even more importantly, there will be less digital noise. The higher the ISO setting (for example, 400 or 800), the quicker the light gets recorded and the more digital noise you will find in the resulting photos. The benefit of using a higher ISO setting is that it allows you to get a properly exposed photo in a low-light-level scene. At higher ISO however the photos will begin to get a lot or graininess (digital noise) which sometime spoils the clarity. At the same time if you wish to retain the clarity but still get good pictures in low light setting, try some other ways of increasing the light entry in your camera by setting the aperture size and shutter speed discussed later.

This brings us to the adjustment of the exposure settings. Exposure settings involve two very important parameters, shutter speed and aperture. These shall be discussed in detail in subsequent section on this blog. Some cameras also offer a couple of pre defined ‘Special Modes, to choose from. Special modes include modes optimized for doing panoramas, movies, night scenes, or other special effects. To select exposure mode, most digital cameras offer an exposure mode dial. This dial is usually mounted on the top of the camera near the shutter release button--

(On an SLR) (On a point and shoot)

Check it out if your camera has one and keep in mind what all features it offers. You never know when you might get lucky to use them.

Now comes the turn of turning the flash on or off depending upon the shooting mode. Besides just turning a flash on and off, your camera may offer many other flash-related features as well. You should also be aware that some automatic exposure modes automatically turn on the flash if extra light is needed to get a proper exposure. If you choose not to use a flash in these situations, you need to learn how to avoid using the flash by turning it off, or by changing to a more appropriate exposure mode.

If you are not in Manual exposure mode, you are quite likely to be using one of the electronic metering modes to determine the proper exposure. Depending on what you are shooting and how you want to expose the image, one metering mode may be preferred over the other. Typical metering modes are evaluative (also called matrix or program mode), center-weighted averaging, center, or spot. Just like changing the exposure setting, metering is a entire big topic in itself which will be discussed again later. For now just know where these setting are located and how to change them.

After fidgeting so much with our cameras, now we are in a position to aim at the subject and bring it in focus. All photos must not necessarily be completely in focus. Some great photographs actually are having parts that are sharply focused and some parts blurred to different degrees. Choosing a focus method and focal points is essential for getting the photos you want. Once again, for now, take a quick look at the documentation that came with your manual and learn how you can control the focus.

Lastly after having done all this just a few last things that you might like to look in your camera:

1. If you are shooting people or portraits and using a flash, switching on Red Eye reduction would be a good idea if your camera has this feature.

2. If there are some other special features and you want to use them, this is the best time to do so (like the panorama mode, timed shutter release etc etc).

Well, having done all this, the expert photographer in you is ready to experiment and have all sorts of fun with the photos. Remember, “Breaking all the rules is a rule in Photography”. Have fun and fear no one. Your pictures are your playground and you are free to do anything with them. Over expose them, blur them, change the color scheme and never stop experimenting. So what are you waiting for; get going friends.

Take home message: If you change the settings to the one you want in less than 20 seconds, you’ll never lose a good shot.

Next few set of posts will be primarily focusing on the details of a few subjects which were left untouched in this one.

Till then, Happy Clicking!!!

The Guild