Modes on the Camera

Lets just dive in shall we, get it out in the open so we can move on to the things I know you want to hear about and learn.

Dial Modes on a camera.

ZONES-  There are three of them. Full Auto, Basic and Creative

FULL AUTO- Normally a Green Box- The camera will shoot fully auto, picking your ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture.

BASIC ZONE-(Auto presets) all you do is press the shutter for the Image mode you are in. These are represented by small icons.

The small face- Portrait Mode

The Mountain- Landscapes

The Flower- Close up

The Running Man- Sports

The Star by a person- Night Portrait

The bolt marked out in the box- Flash Off

PORTRAIT MODE: This mode is still an auto mode.  This mode will go into evaluative metering of your subject, background and foreground lighting situation and then picking the proper exposure for your subject and blur the background, allowing your camera to set the aperture. A large aperture, meaning a smaller number, it gives a narrow dept of field, keeping your subject the main focus.

Let’s look at the word portrait. Portrait is a painting or drawing of a likeness of someone generally of their face, often taller than wide in its measurements. This means that the subject in a general case is the focus where the background often gets set aside or blurred out as a result. So please, when thinking of a portrait make sure your final images is vertical. This is not always the case it’s just a good thinking rule to apply if you are calling your image a portrait. Having said this, no way am I saying you can never turn your camera horizontal for an actual portrait. All Im saying is, if you are in Portrait mode on your camera your background will soften/blur, so, much of it isn’t needed and the habit of turning your camera to vertical when you have a person in front of you will also put your thinking cap on and you will learn and see the relationship in Portrait mode and help you understand how important composition is to a photographer.

LANDSCAPE: Sets up your aperture giving depth of field based on the fact that you are telling it by putting into this mode that you have a wide scene you want to photograph. Your entire scene has several points of interest that you want to capture. It is preset to take photographs selecting aperture to properly take a landscape shot. Normally a small aperture (big number) Also using the evaluative metering mode, which we ill discuss metering modes at a later time. In a nutshell, it’s calculating your entire scene for proper exposure.

CLOSE UP: Also known as Macro- derived from the word macroscopic- being able to see objects closely with the human eye. Good for flower and insect photography. The narrowing depth of field makes it hard to focus since you are so close. It is best to level yourself and use a tripod to help stable the camera and get a clean shot.

SPORTS: Freeze Action! The camera will track as you move or pan your subject using its auto focus points. Press the shutter and it will continuously focus for continuous shooting. The automatic setting will also push your camera into AI Servo mode. This means it knows you are tracking a moving subject and goes out of the one shot mode to continuous bursts. You can hold the shutter down and rapidly fire shots when the achieved focus of the subject is recognized by the lens from its many focusing points.  

NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY:  Good for the night portrait when you want to flash illuminate your subject while picking up natural available light in the background. The camera goes into one shot and uses a slower shutter speed to sync with your camera’s flash.  So opening up your shutter to capture the scene in the background while allowing your subject proper illumination will create some interesting shots. Its fun. Go play!  Make sure you and your camera/subject are stable you are opening up the shutter so any movement will blur.

FLASH OFF: Easy one, turns off your flash be it built in or external. My camera has this setting, yours man not.

CREATIVE ZONES:

P: Program mode it’s like full auto but the difference is you can set changes like custom functions, Metering, focusing, flash settings and your image recordings, jpeg/raw, etc. You can not do this on Full Auto

TV or S: Shutter speed mode. Lets you select the shutter speed desired while letting your camera set up the aperture.

Why two abbreviations? Manufacturers. S= speed, Tv = time value and as I said in earlier posts. Think of shutter as simply a measurement of time.

AV or A: Aperture Mode/ Aperture Value. Lets you select the aperture while letting you camera set up automatically the proper shutter speed.

M: Manual Mode. Lets you set both shutter and aperture. If you do not own a handheld meter to check your exposure, let’s be honest, not many of you will  not acquire one and if you want one, chances are you will wait to purchase as most of us have to get the basics set ups first and are on limited budgets. Check your exposure level indicator in your view finder; this will help you know how far you are from standard exposure levels. When you press your shutter halfway you will see at the bottom right a few numbers... It will look something like this…

Reading left to right, 125  is your shutter,, 4.0  is your aperture and the -2….-1……` ……+1…….+2….. The icon in the middle is your standard middle level of exposure, the level mark underneath will indicate if your exposure will be under or over depending on which end of the scale it sits.  If you want to move it to another level in any direction, find the dial by your shutter button and begin moving it to the desired direction. This will help but in by no means will it be what you want exactly, it’s not a way to learn proper exposure its simply a suggestion given the shutter and aperture you have selected. The camera has no idea what your vision for the photograph is. It’s a tool, don’t expect it to think for you always and be right ;-)

A DEP: Automatic depth of field. There is a button most likely located on the body. Mine is on the opposite site where I grip the camera by my lens, it’s used for previewing your depth of field. What is depth of field? (DOF)

It’s the amount of distance between the nearest and farthest objects that appear in acceptable sharp focus. Remember you are the creator of your own images. There are not many rules for this, simply how you want to perceive or speak to the viewing audience.

If you have this button on your camera you can press it to view your range of focus.

 Practice, comment and if you want a critique of your work please don’t hesitate to email me.  List your settings if you can so I can have a better knowledge of how the imaged was made. This next coming week I will be diving into a new program to redo my website which needs a MAJOR overhaul and is long over due and urgent! I will post as soon as I can. It may just be a few images on thirds or how its made. I am also going to post my all time favorites and why.  I enjoy stories behind each photo. A peek into the life of a photographer and the things we have to go through to get the shot we want.  Next we will be  using angles applying flash photography and how to pose people. I know i gave a good Zeltsman link earlier in the blog but maybe I can help you even more on the topic. Ok my shutterbug freaks! I love you guys, I appreciate you and always want to hear from you.! I am asking for your input on doing a new idea of Talk Tuesdays via Skype. So if you have not made it to my contacts please do so and let me hear form you. Would you be interested in this idea? Please let me know. Look for me on skype layman.photography-birmingham, Alabama.
Love you guys!