Mar 11 2008
If you just got your new camera. Start Here!
Congratulations on your new digital camera! Now lets get started. I know that this is not what you want to hear, but go get your user manual for the camera, I’ll wait……………………………………………………………………………………The reason that I had you get your manual is no matter what the person who sold you your camera told you, you WILL NOT get spectacular results by just turning the camera on and pressing the shutter button. You have to get familiar with the controls and options that are available to you. For a list of the controls you need to familiarize yourself with…1. The first control I would like you to find and familiarize yourself with is the selector dial. This is usually located on the top of the camera and should have some small icons on it such as: a small green camera or the word “auto”, a little person that appears to be running or jumping, possibly some mountains or the word “scene” and then some letters such as P, A, S, M, AV, TV etc. This dial is where you take some of the decisions away from the camera and put them in your own hands. If you stopped reading here and only used this dial to better decide on some settings you would see a significant improvement in your photos. I will be explaining all of these options in later posts so please check back often.
- The next feature I want you to find is the self timer button. You should be able to choose between shooting a single frame, a burst of frames (if available), a 2-4 second timer, and a 10-12 second timer. I will elaborate on how to use this timer for more than just getting yourself into a picture in a future tutorial.
- Now I want you to find the playback button. And within playback I want you to find the button that will display more information while your photo is on the screen, some of this additional information could be a fraction like 1/60 and your F-stop f-2.8 which is your exposure, and more importantly I want you to find your histogram which is a graph that may or should look like the silhouette of a mountain. All of this information is critical to checking your exposure and I will show you how to use them in an upcoming tutorial.
Please take the time to learn the controls on your new digital camera, it will make everything else you learn on this site as well as any other that much easier to implement. Now when you hear a tip on taking a portrait and they say set your aperture to this or your shutter speed to at least this you won’t have to figure out how to get to that menu or which button to press you’ll just grab your camera and change the setting and start shooting.
Published by: Gene Fetty http://www.freephototutorials.com ©2008
