Camera 101

Over the years I've had many a person joke that they were going to have me show them how to use their camera.  And I always say that I would be happy to do that - and I'm very sincere about that.  It would make me feel great to know that I had helped someone improve their photography. But no one has ever taken me up on it.  I think it's because my friends all know that I can be a bit chatty.  So I suspect that they're probably terrified that once they get me started on a topic I'm so passionate about, I will never stop. *ha* So I thought it was safer for me to write some photography tips. That way, if you get overwhelmed, you can just stop.  Plus, if your life is anything like mine, I'm guessing you don't have a lot of time. So I'll do my best to keep this short.  We'll just tackle one thing at a time...maybe have a weekly assignment.  ??  What do you think?  And you can take one photo or 10 or even 100.  It's totally up to you.  I just want to help you understand your camera better - the more you know about the tools on your camera, the easier it is to get your pictures the way you want them.

I've been trying to think of a good place to start and I think the most logical place is the mode dial.  Most cameras have a fairly similar mode dial. There are usually some letters and some pictures. I think most people start out with "Auto" mode (it's probably the green one).  Auto mode basically just means you're letting the camera make all the decisions.  Fortunately today's cameras are pretty smart so you can get pretty good snapshots this way.  They may not always turn out the way you want, however. So if you want to have more control over the results, you can switch out of Auto mode.  Most cameras have some scene selections - portrait, landscape, babies, sports and macro.  Those all seem fairly intuitive so I'm not going to explain what they do. But the great thing is that once you understand how your camera works, you can accomplish these same results by controlling the aperture and shutter speed yourself.

Let me share a quick story. When I first got my dSLR I put that puppy on Auto and just let it do it's thing.  I marveled at Auto mode because that's something my first SLR certainly didn't have. Another thing my first SLR didn't have was an on-camera flash.  Auto mode and flash made my life so easy. I could take pictures anywhere...and I was perfectly happy with my snapshots.  I was documenting our lives with gusto.  It didn't take long for my husband to start criticizing my "deer-in-the-headlights" flash shots.  I think he was primarily motivated by his dislike for having the blinding light go off in his direction. But in my heart of hearts, I knew he was right. I had a fancy, shmancy dSLR but I was using it exactly how I had used my point-and-shoot camera. I wasn't really taking advantage of my camera's capabilities.

So I switched my camera mode to no flash mode.  (The flash symbol is the one that looks like a little lighting bolt.  Therefore, "no flash mode" is the one that looks like a lightning bold with a line through it.)  When I stopped using the flash, I became a little fanatical and stopped using the flash altogether. Eventually I realized that Program mode (P) gave me a few more options and therefore more control, but the camera would still take care of the aperture and shutter speed for me. 

Now, I'm a sucker for shallow depth of field (which means that I like it when the background is blurry) so I quickly went from Program mode to Aperture Priority (A on Nikons and Av on Canons).  In Aperture Priority mode, I could tell the camera to stay down around f/4 and let it pick the correct shutter speed.  (If your eyes have started to glaze over now that I'm talking about f stops, don't worry, I'll get to that in the next installment.) 

Shallow depth of field

I also love panning so in that case, I would switch to Shutter Priority (S on Nikons and Tv on Canons) and pick the shutter speed, and just let the camera find the correct aperture.

Panning, to capture the motion

Another example of panning

Eventually I decided I wanted even more control over the exposure so I switched to Manual mode (M).  Sometimes I still wander back to one of the other modes.  I'm not as speedy with Manual mode because the exposure is constantly changing.  But in general that's where I shoot.

Okay, that's all we're going to talk about for today.  I just want you to have a basic understanding of the different modes on your camera and what they do.  Eventually we'll get into more details like ISO, and metering and aperture but for now we're keeping it simple.

ASSIGNMENT:
This week's assignment is to switch that camera out of Auto mode and play around with it.  I'd suggest switching to Aperture mode and play around with different apertures and see what a difference it makes.  Compare the background at f/3.5 to the background at f/9 and f/16.