Camera's have got loads of buttons and knobs haven't they, they're pretty much like a car
I mean just look at this lot in here, had i possibly hoped to turn letft
use the indicators wash the windscreen or anything else if I didn't know what
these knobs and buttons did.
So don't go into panic mode for this, there are some things on your camera you
do need to know about
in order to control it, but don't have to know every last thing
particularly not in the menus which seem to stretch off into forever,
I most certainly don't so the first thing i wanna talk to you about
is the command button,
so cameras, with all their knobs and their buttons,
the command dial, I'm gonna put that one back in there for a minute.
it sits on the top of the camera, i'm using Lorna's little D70 here to
demonstrate what we have an where it is, when you're usin the icon
of the green camera with auto written over the top,
you're telling your DSLR camera that you've spent all this money on that you cna change
the lenses, it's so versatile.
You're telling it to behave like a compact camera, it's doing everything for you,
you're just not gonna get the best out of it by doing that, step on one further,
you've got the silver highlit ones, the first one on there is P for
program, program mode is giving you a little bit of control back,
its gonna set the exposure for you it's going to choose the shutter, aperture
combination to get the correct exposure
but it's gonna give you control of the white balance
and the ISO, I S O is the sensitivity of the chip, it's
how much light is needed to effect and create an image.
White balance is the colour, you know, it's kind of like
yellow in the living room when the flash doesn't go off or on a cloudy
dull day, this look a bit awful, so you kind of warm them up with a bit of gold,
that's what white balance is. Go to the S,
shutter priority or on some cameras, time value.
What you're doing here is telling the camera which shutter speed you want to
use,
you're saying this is the most important thing in the world, go and find me an
aperture
that will work with that shutter speed to give me the correct exposure
why would you want to do that? occasionally a fast shutter speed is great
forfreezing motion or a slow one for blurring
it. The next one on the dial is A,
aperture-priority that's also called Av on some canons and other makes.
but it's the same thing when you're in aperture-priority
you're telling the camera that the aperture is the most important thing
and you want the camera to go off and find you a shutter speed to work with it,
and you still have control of the ISO and the white balance.
You may want to use your aperture, and I use it alot
because you can do lot's of creative things with apertures but i'm not going
there right this minute,
that something for a bit later on all you need to know is you're setting the
aperture
and the cameras finding the shutter speed to work with it.
M, fully manual, now you are choosing both shutter speed
and aperture and white balance and ISO, why would you want to do that yourself
if the camera will do if for you?
well there are times when the camera can get confused, and you may need to step in
and take complete control of it.
Working with full manual as well is heretive if you're using flash in a studio
or even more complex things with synchronized flash on the top of the
camera,
but you can't run before you can walk I strongly recommend have a fiddle about
with aperture and shutter priority before you start getting into
full manual mode, while you're doing it in shutetr and aperture
you can always have a look and see what settings the shutter speed and aperture
combinations that the camera is setting,
there on the top here on this little LCD there are also
alongside the silver highlight ones, one or two other pre-programmed modes
which you could use,
we've got lady in a hat, that's for photographinh women with big hats,
i'm lying it's not, actually it's for portraits, so head and shoulders.
it will choose a shutter aperture combination which is best for portraits
usually a wide aperture because it gives you a fuzzier background,
there's a picture of some mountains, and that will give you the aperture, shutter
combination which is best for landscapes
usually for landscapes you don't want a fuzzy background you want it sharp all the
way through
and it will choose an aperture which will give you more sharpness.
Picture of a flower close-up mode, macro this is for when you wanna get really
really close to something, caterpillars eating your cabbage all that kind of stuff.
Now the same things is, it's just gonna set shutetr and aperture combinations
to do that the best it can. Man running,
that's sport mode, things that are moving quickly. It'll choose faster shutter speeds to
try and freeze the action.
Picture of the moon, that's a night mode, cameras can often brighten up the night
and what you're doing by choosing that mode is telling it this is night time I
actually want the shot to be a little bit darker.
backlit mode it's a picture with a litle man with light behind,
the reason you might use that is it will choose a shutter aperture combination to
compensate
from all the light thats coming from behind.
Now why would I not use those settings and do some of this myself?
it's because the camera can get so easily confused
you're not gonna get professional level photographs if you continuosly rely on
these automated modes,
theres one or two other buttons here like access to the menus and playing with your
pictures
but that's your command dial and that's how most of it happens.