Right before we jump into this video, if you want to get my free 11 days to better photography
mini video course, head on over to froknowsphoto.com/11days to get started right now.
Jared Polin, froknowsphoto.com.
And what I want to do in this video is help you understand the mode dial that you may
find on your camera.
Now, they come in all different shapes and sizes so long as they are round, because you
really won’t find a mode dial that’s square.
So, what is your mode dial?
Well, that’s what you select, whether you want to shoot manual or you want to shoot
in the auto modes and I have a couple of different cameras here to show you how they have their
mode dials from a mirrorless camera to two of these DSLRs, one Nikon, one Canon, and
the mirrorless is a Sony.
So, what I want to do is start with this Nikon right here and you’ll see that it has an
auto mode.
Most of your cameras that you see out there will have a green auto mode.
It says A. It says – it has a square around it.
It’s usually green.
That’s full complete auto.
The camera is going to do all of the work for you and your job is to just go and take
pictures.
Now, have you ever run into a situation where you press the shutter button and your flash
pops up, where you are not supposed to have flash photography, a lot of today’s cameras
have a lightning bolt with a ‘Do not smoke’ sign, you know, the one with the hash through
it.
Now, you put that on there, you are still in full complete auto letting the camera do
everything, but now the flash won’t pop up.
A lot of cameras are going to have different scene modes, anything from portrait to landscape
to this little kid who looks to be happy and cheering to a running man mode is what I call
it, that’s for your sports mode to a flower mode and then to a night portrait mode.
It’s going to vary from camera to camera and manufacturer to manufacturer.
But they’ve picked good icons that you should recognize when you look at them.
When I first started shooting photography as a 13-year-old, I shot a lot of sport.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the running man mode.
What these modes do is they tell the camera that, oh, if I’m going to be shooting sports,
it’s going to make it have a faster shutter speed to hopefully allow you to capture the
motion and it also goes ahead and sets everything else that needs to set inside of the camera.
But if you are like me and you want to take complete control of your camera or more control,
you are going to live in the P, S, A, and M modes.
Certain cameras name them different things but I’ll explain that in just a second.
Let’s start with P. What do you think P stands for?
No, it’s not professional.
It’s program.
It’s in essence full auto but the camera is still doing all the work.
When you are in the P mode, generally speaking you can unlock more things in the menu system
where auto wouldn’t let you do that.
Then you have something called shutter priority.
You set the shutter speed.
The camera is going to go ahead and set everything else to make sure you have the right exposure.
Canon on the other hand calls that the Tv mode.
Now, don’t turn the Tv to watch Tv, but Tv is shutter priority.
And then you go to A.
A is aperture priority where you set the aperture, the camera will do the rest of the work.
And on the Canon side, they call that Av and then finally M. You are going to see cameras
that have M on there and M stands for manual.
You are in complete control of all of your settings.
That’s the mode that I hope that you can get into because once you get there, that
means you’ve kind of made it as a photographer because you are smarter than the camera.
Let’s quickly look at the Canon dial here.
This is more of a professional camera.
It still has an auto mode.
And if you have this professional camera and you are using auto mode, you should probably
not be using this camera.
As you can see, you don’t have any little portrait modes or running man modes when you
get into these higher-end cameras.
You have the P, the Tv, the Av, you have M.
Some cameras may even have a B. B stands for bulb mode and then this one also has C1, C2,
and C3.
Those are custom settings where you can then turn the camera to that area and have a certain
setting that you already did.
So, that’s a quick look at what you will find on your mode dial and if you are like
me, your goal should be to get out of the full auto modes.
I’m all right if you are in aperture priority or shutter priority just to get an understanding
and a feel for your camera.
But you should try and set an ultimate goal of being in complete manual.
And if you are not sure how to do that and you’re scared of how to get into manual,
well, I created a guide called the FROKNOWSPHOTO guide to getting out of auto.
It’s going to teach you in three hours or less quickly and efficiently how to take control
of your camera, so you can get the results that I know you want to get.
To get a free preview of it right now, go to froknowsphoto.com/guide and see if it’s
right for you.
So, go ahead and do that.
I hope this video helped you out and that’s where I’m going to leave it Jared Polin,
froknowsphoto.com.
See you.