Become a Better Photographer Part III: The Ultimate Guide To DSLR / Mirrorless Features & Settings

1. Course Introduction: Hi, I'm burning, Raffi. Hopefully your No May already for my other courses. If no, I'm a professional photographer and teacher based in the UK this course is Part three become a better photographer, and the chances are you're watching this, having watched parts one and two of the same course. But then again, maybe you come straight here. Although become a better photographer. Part one and two did have some basic information on camera settings. Those courses mostly demonstrated how to improve your photography, using light on composition and posing in this part three course. The emphasis is on today's DSLR on moonless cameras and their features and settings. It's aimed primarily at beginner and intermediate photographers. If you can't yourself as an advance photographer, you probably know with this stuff already, but you never know. I would say that there's something here for everyone. So as I just mentioned, this course will give you a greater understanding of your cameras, features and settings. And this greater understanding will allow you to get more consistent exposures, better focusing on improved image quality. For example, you're learn how to improve your focusing, using back button, focusing when and how to use continuous, focusing on five great tips for getting Teoh attack sharp images every time loads of information on exposure. You're learn about the various modes, your need on when to use them more versus J Pick, which is better. Best settings for Paul trait and landscapes, plus loads more so Anyway, thanks for watching. I know how you enjoy the course. 2. The Exposure Triangle: In this film I'm going to be talking about the exposure triangle. It's a basic fundamental principle of exposure and a good understanding and use of it will help you to get better exposures and more consistent ones too. Now the exposure triangle is made up of three things:- The aperture the shutter speed and the ISO. So when light comes into the camera first of it all enters through the aperture Then it goes through the shutter and finally it hits the sensor. The sensor is the equivalent of film and gathers light and makes the actual picture. we'll talk about each of those three different things. But first of all let's look at apertures. I tend to think of apertures as being like the pupils of our eyes. They open up to allow more light in and they close down to reduce the amount of light. We're fantastic us humans aren't we? Our eyes do it automatically but with a camera you have to give it a helping hand. So the aperture controls the amount or quantity of light coming into the camera and the aperture is always open to one degree or another. When the aperture is opened up, more light is let in And obviously when the aperture is closed down, less light is let in The next thing on the exposure triangle is the shutter speed. Now unlike apertures which are open all of the time, the shutter opens and closes a little bit like shutters on a window and the shutter opens and closes at different speeds. So it controls the duration of the light. Generally speaking in most photos you take, the shutter opens for just a fraction of a second to reduce the duration of light going through it like this:- But it can also remain open for several seconds like this to increase the amount of light going through. So now let's take a look at the way the aperture and shutter speed work together as a team to balance out the light and to create a photo that is properly exposed. that is, it's not too light, and its not too dark. Lets say we were using a wide aperture so that lots of light was coming in to the camera to balance that out. We would need to use a faster shutter speed to reduce the duration of the light coming in, otherwise the picture will be too bright. Here's an example of a wide aperture and fast shutter speed in action. Watch carefully... blink and you'll miss it. In case you missed it let's do that again. Now let's do the exact opposite. Let's say we have a small aperture. So now less light is going to be coming through the lens. And so to balance that out and to make up for a smaller quantity of light we would need a slower shutter speed which will therefore increase the duration of the light. We can easily achieve this balancing act between apertures and shutter speed by using the automatic mode built right into your camera. Now SLR cameras and the new mirorless cameras and some of the more sophisticated compact cameras have a mode dial on top of the camera. But because compact cameras are so small they don't have room for this mode. So you can usually change your settings via the menus. It's easily done. The first mode we're going to look at is something called Aperture Priority, Canon refer to it as the 'AV' mode... aperture value, Nikon and other cameras on the other hand refer to this mode as the 'A' mode. The way it works is you set the aperture value whether it's a large or small aperture and the camera automatically figures out the corresponding correct shutter speed to give you a properly exposed photo. Now the exact opposite is another mode called shutter priority. Canon call this mode TV which stands for time value, Nikon and other camera's call it the 'S' mode for shutter priority. In this mode. You select the shutter speed that you want and the camera figures out how large or small the lens aperture should be to give you a properly exposed photo. So we've talked about shutter speeds and apertures and how they balance out to give you a good exposure, but what about ISO. How does that work? What does that do? Well ISO controls the sensitivity of the camera. As an analogy, imagine if you went to the cinema and you got there a little bit late, and all the lights were turned down as you walked in. It would be almost pitch black. You'd hardly be able to see a thing. But then after a short while your eyes adjust to the dark theatre and you can start seeing the rows of seats and other people. And then afterwards when you leave the cinema, everything looks a little bit too light doesn't it, especially if the sun is shining, but your eyes soon adjust. So the camera sensor is a little bit like our eyes in that it can be less or more sensitive to light. Higher numbers like thirty two hundred and sixty four hundred make the sensor very sensitive to light allowing you to take photos in low light without a flash just like our eyes in a dark cinema are not Lower ISO numbers like 100 and 200 make the sensor less sensitive, to light which is much better for taking photos outside. So we have three factors at work together to control the exposure, aperture shutter speed and ISO. And they're all important in their own way. So where do you start? Which one should you give priority to. Well as well as making the sensor more or less sensitive to light ISO also has a big impact on image quality especially in regard to noise or grain as it used to be called. There's a whole film dedicated to ISO elsewhere on the site and I recommend you take a look at that. So when it comes to aperture priority or shutter speed priority which one of those should you choose. Well that depends very much on the type of picture you want to take. And this is where you start to get creative. If you want to control the depth of field to control the amount of the image that's in focus from front to back, to maybe blur the background for a portrait or maybe you want to take a landscape photo where everything is in focus, then you should choosee Aperture Priority. There's specific films about lens apertures and depth of field, so I recommend you take a look at those. If you want control movement, say for sport or maybe a toddler who won't stand still for a moment then you can use shutter speed priority to set a fast shutter speed which will then freeze the action. You can also set maybe a slow shutter speed to exaggerate movement or to maybe take a panning photo of some other subject moving across the frame. There's a couple of films coming along. Shutter speed and also on panning. So keep an eye out for those. So to sum up then, the camera does most of the work for you in its various auto modes but it's still very well worth knowing about the exposure triangle as it will stand you in good stead for the future bye for now. 3. Aperture Basics: have you ever looked at somebody's eyeball as they moved from a lie area to a dark area? Not something you want to make a habit of, obviously, but you will have seen how the pupil of the eye that's the black part changes size to let in more light on that I will happens automatically were amazing as humans are way now, cameras have this facility to. But instead of being called the pupil, it's called the aperture on Justus. Our eyes are not actually part of the main torso there in our head, the same with apertures. They're not actually part of the main camera body. Instead, they're in the lens. Now here's an old SLR that I bought around Wall 1977. Yeah, I'm that old. Years ago, cameras used to come with the standard prime lenses. Now they tend to come with zoom lenses. That's progress, I guess. But I'm going to demonstrate our apertures work using this camera and lens. First, I'll take the lens off. They used to just screw in, but now they tend to come with a bayonet type mechanism. So this is an old lens. But the principle is the same for modern campus. The aperture is simply a hole through which why enters into the camera and I can make a large temperature, and I can make a small aperture on varying apertures in between. Different amounts of light let in at the maximum temperature. The maximum amount of light is let in on in the smallest aperture. The smallest amount of light is letting one on SLR camera. Or in fact, any camera has an I O ivy mode. You have complete control over the size of the appetite, using what's called F numbers. The size of the aperture is indicated by a set of seemingly unrelated numbers, perfect by the letter F. Now you would be forgiven for thinking that the smaller the number, the smaller the aperture. But unfortunately, the exact opposite is true. On the smaller the number, the larger the aperture on more lies let in. To be honest, the whole numbering system is quite confusing, especially for beginners. On whoever originally came up with it was probably having maybe a laugh and a joke at our expense. But I think it may be puts off new people and about learning about apertures and how they work. But as you can see in this diagram, the numbers themselves f two F 2.845 point six and so on. Not being a nuclear scientist. I have absolutely no idea where those numbers are set to these values, but they are what they are, and we have to live with it. Each number shown here is known as a stop on. Each stop lets in twice as much light as the previous smaller one. So, for example, at 5.6, that's in twice as much light as their fate. But don't get hung up on the fact when I change Apertura. I never really considered that it might be letting in half or twice as much light just that I might be making the picture lighter or darker. What changing the aptitude creatively. So when people say go up a stop or down to stop, this is what they mean, But you can also go up or down a stop by changing shutter speed. But this is covered in another lecture on this older Lindsay apertures were actually on the barrel of the lens. This harks back to the days when you had to turn the barrel to change the aperture. Most modern lenses don't actually have the aptitude on the lenses anymore as the aperture is set for the camera. So on this particular lens that's have to on that's F 22. But what about all the numbers in between of to have 22? Well, the range of the numbers depends a lot on the type of lens on kit lenses that come with SLRs like this one usually zoom lenses the numbers go from but if 35 or four to about F 22 or more expensive lenses like the ones professional use. And finally, enough on some compact camera lenders, they go from about F to approximately to about 22. This one here has a maximum aperture of F 2.8 lens is that have a maximum aperture of F two point or wider, like this, one are more expensive. They're known as fast lenses, whereas if a lens has a maximum temperature of around, therefore or smaller, it's known as a slowly and as well as controlling the amount of light coming into the camera, the aperture has another primary function. It gives you creative control over what's called the depth of field. That is how much of the scene is in focus from front to back now, although that's a subject for another film, I'll just show you quickly the difference. It could make changing aperture, and it can really change the look of an image. The larger the aperture that is, the smaller numbers, the wider adept, the filters and consequently, more of the image will be in focus now. There's a complete film on this later on in the course, but for the time being, I just wanted she should try a quick experiment. I'll take a couple of pictures alongside these trees using two different apertures on. We'll compare them afterwards. I'll take the first shot, F 11 which is quite a small aperture. Now I'm going to switch to a much larger aperture at four. I focused on the first tree. Now, comparing the two images, you'll see that the trees of the fire end our way out of focus on the Air Force shot, but they're much sharper. F 11. I deliberately have a mention the actual method that you used to change the aperture sentence as I didn't want to confuse the issue to find out how to do that. Watch the film on aperture poverty elsewhere on this course. One other point of interest is that with all modern DSLR, the aperture has held open and it's wider setting until you actually press the shutter button. And then the camera cleverly closes down the aperture to whatever you set it to in the olden days with some earlier sellers, the image in the viewfinder would actually get darker as you close down the aperture because the camera may not have had the mechanism for closing the aperture at the point of taking the picture. Ah, that is what it dies. Why for now? 4. The Basics of Shutter Speed: This is a short lecture just to explain the basics of your camera shutter, how it works and what it does. You can think of the shutter in your camera as a bit like a window shutter. You open up the shutters to let more light in, and you close the shutters to cut out the light when you open and then close the shutters. The room gets brighter for a brief period and then gets darker again. That's quite obvious to anyone over the age of about two, but that's pretty much what a camera does on your SLR. Or maybe this camera. I'll show you in more detail on my old film camera. I just opened it back up so you can see it more detail. You can't do that on a digital camera. Now this is the curtain type fabric, which is the actual shutter. If I shut, set the shutter to stay open for a certain amount of time, slow enough for you to see the movie pops up, which, by the way, gives up familiar clunk sound. The shot opens and then closes toe let in an amount of light for certain duration. Now that was a very slow shutter speed, which in the majority of cases would lead in too much light. The faster the shutter speed, the less like gets in. So I'm going to switch to a typical faster shutter speed, say, 250th of a second. You can hear the much faster speed, but I doubt you could even see the chateau opening and closing. Let's take a look at the actual shutter speed values used for most photos. The shutter speed is a fraction of a second now. Generally speaking in the bright sunlight, it could be anywhere between 125th of a second and several thousands of a second, depending on other camera settings like your aperture or I S O in low light. The shutter speed might be somewhere between, say, 30th of a second on 125th of a second on at night. Taking a night scene or maybe fireworks. A shutter speed could be several seconds, obviously, at night, the shot it needs to be held open for longer to let more light in to give a good exposure. As you go down this chart, you'll notice that the actual speed values are doubling up, So 5/100 of a second is twice as fast as on the 25th of a second on 30th of a second lets in twice as much like 1/60 of a second. Each of these shutter speed is sometimes referred to as a stop, so going up a stop might mean changing the shutter speed from 250th of a second to under 25th of a second to let more light in. But it could also mean changing aperture from F 5.6 to a four a getting to let in more light. And that's all there is to it. Obviously, the shutter speed is used primarily to help control the exposure, but it also has a creative aspect to it. I'm talking about controlling emotion, but I'll be covering that in another lecture. See you then 5. The ISO Setting: hi eso is a particularly important camera setting, but it's quite often overlooked or misunderstood, especially by beginners photographers. Let me tell you back to the days of film, when manufacturers like Kodak and Fuji would print a number on the side of the box. That number was referred to as the I S I and indicated the speed of the film. That is how sensitive the film was too light. The numbers generally tended to start at 100 then double up to 200 then 408 100 someone on . Very importantly, the lower the number, the better the quality of the negatives and consequently, the final plants. The lower number films around 102 100 were known a slow films films higher than that. We're called fast films. Some people mistakenly thought that you had to use a fast film for subjects moving fast like a car or a cyclist and use a slow film for poor traits or something moving very slowly . In fact, it actually referred to the speed at which the film reacted to light on how sensitive the film wants to the light 100 s a film was originally deemed to be the kind of everyday film that most people would use on. Typically, you'd use that for outdoor photos, say, on holiday, for example, 400 S A and higher tended to be used by maybe sports photographers who needed to be able to freeze the action using a far shutter speed or maybe just photographers who wanted to take photos in low light or maybe inside a church or cathedral, for example, The problem waas At least in the early days, the higher the number, the more grainy were the negatives and prints. If you look closely at the prince, they had a kind of texted, sometimes sometimes a lumpy kind of look to them, and this was due to the presence of small particles of metallic silver. Who can forget that was clean E black and white photos taken in cafes and bars years ago? Okay, you youngsters out there. If this was before your time, go and look up, Say old black and white photos of the Beatles. You'll see what I mean and don't ask who were the Beatles anyway. As film technology developed, the problem of grain went away to a large extent. Andi, In fact, 400 s a film is now used in the majority of small disposable cameras that people take on holiday or use at parties or weddings and so on. And then along came digital cameras. And in the digital world, the term essay was replaced by the letters I S O and grain became known as noise In the early days of digital cameras, the noise performance are higher, higher so levels was relatively poor. You couldn't take a photo higher than, say, 200 i eso without it looking like a complete mess due to the presence of so much noise. But now, with the march of technology compact on bridge cameras can easily go toe higher. So 816 100 even and SLR and the new member this cameras can easily get clean images. I s 0 3200 and 6400 and even higher, depending over, Obviously on the camera. The image quality of modern cameras now is absolutely brilliant. It's wonderful to see. Plus, of course, the I s O could be changed on a flame by frame basis, whereas in the days of film, you were locked into a particular essay for the whole roll of the film. But despite the superb High I s O performance of today's modern cameras, it's still best to keep the ice. So at its lowest possible setting for any given lighting condition to be assured of the best possible image quality. One little tip is that even though an image may look a little grainy or noisy when you look at it on a large screen, oh, on a large size, if you print it, you may will get a very pleasant surprise as the noise will not be is noticeable on a print To demonstrate how the eyesight works in practice, I'm going to take a few photos of this beautiful graphite guitar here. Unfortunately, it doesn't belong to May. It belongs to a good friend of mine. So to start off with, I'm gonna put the camera in manual mode. Andi, I've got the aperture set to, let's say, 5.6 on the shutter. Speed is 1/60 of a second on the I S O is 100. Let's see how this looks. You can see that's far too dark. You could just about pick out some of the detail of the guitar. We're not trying. Next is increasing the I s 0 to 400 now because I'm in manual mode, the shutter speed and the aperture will remain exactly as a as they are. Let's see how this looks. So this is by so 400. Okay, it's a little bit better. You can see more detail in the guitar, but it's still far too dark. So what we're going to do now is increasing. I so the other settings will remain the same because we're in manual mode. I think if I went toe I s 0 800 it would still be too dark. So I'm gonna go to eso 1600. Let's see how that's look. This looks now. Okay, Now we're getting somewhere. It looks a lot better now, but it's still too dark, isn't it? So let's increase the I so to 3200. And that looks to be about the correct exposure. Notice that the shutter speed and aperture didn't change throughout, but as I said, I was shooting in manual mode there, and I know most people will shoot in either aperture priority or shutter speed quality. So let's change to happen Speed party and go through the same process again. Offset the aperture of 5.6 and the I s 0 100 same as it was first time around. But because of an aperture mo clarity that come the chooses to shutter speed and it's chosen really slow shutter speed of an eighth of a second. And because of that, I wasn't able to hold the camera. Still, for that length of time on, we got a blurry photo. So I'm going to increase the risotto. 800 still on aperture at 5.6 right now on the 40th of a second, which is a much better shutter speed. Still quite slow, though, So I'm going to go to higher so 1600 and that should be a reason abortion shutter speed. So I've now got a shutter speed of on 18th of a second to get back to where we were before , with the shutter speed of about 160th of a second would need to increase the I. So too 3200 and that's exactly the same settings were before, but we arrived that I was settings in a completely different way. So to sum up, you can really think of the I s O in manual mode as being away, off, lightening or darkening the image. But in aptitude, polity or shutter speed party or program mode, which most of you will be using, you can think of the so as a way of getting to the aperture or shutter speed that you really want for the for your subject on the lighting conditions Bye for now. 6. Exposure Compensation Explained: exposure. Compensation is a camera set. It allows you to lighten or darken a photo just before you're about to take it before explain exactly what it is. This is what it usually looks like on the back of the camera. It's a bar with a plus sign to the Y O on top and a minus on the left or at the bottom, depending on your camera, also does appointed to start off in the middle. Different cameras show in different ways. It looks quite different, even on another nick on camera. There's more on the actual mechanics of changing a setting toward the end of this film. You've probably discovered by now that your camera could make the most appalling mess of your exposures, so that through no fault of your own, you end up with a photo where parts of it at least, are either too dark or too bright. It may be a lovely, bright day, and yet the photo is too dark. Your first goal might be that your camera is 40 but know what you've actually done is forward the cameras monitoring system. Now that can happen because when the cameras figured figuring out the exposure in any of its also modes it brings together the bright areas in the flame on the dark areas on the averages amount to a kind of a mid grey. Now, okay, I realize that sounds a bit daft. I'm not suggesting the camera tries to make the image gray in color. Just that attempts to create an average exposure to give a mid tone image. In many scenes, there were some black areas and some dark areas, and so this averaging out method usually works just fine to give a good exposure. But if you take a photo of something that is predominantly black or predominantly dark, the camera can get it very wrong. So here we have my lovely wife standing in front of some small trees and shrubs here in our garden and the tones of the background of quite dark. The lens on the video camera zoomed in, and she's going to walk across the grass or the camera zooms out to take him off the sky. Now the video cameras set to his also mode, and so will react just like any DSLR camera describe started off white. But now is far more detail in it. And although the image looks correctly exposed for the sky and a small part of the garden, if Jane was the main subject, I think she might be a little bit disappointed. So that's quite typical of how you can for your cameras meter in system. Just by placing your subject in front of a bright sky or other black background, the camera will see that background on. Just make everything slightly darker until your subject is going to be too dog. Let's take that one step further to demonstrate what the camera is actually doing. I'm pointed in. This camera has some black material on guy. Put some white paper over half of the material. Now I'm said. I've set this coming toe Apertura party at 5.6, and it's given me a shutter speed of 125th of the second. So let's take this shop now. As you can see, the material does look quite black on the paper. Quite what? So it's a good, correct exposure. Now I'll move away the white paper and take another shot. The camera has seen that the overall image has now got darker, and so I automatically slowed the shutter speed to 1/20 of a second in order to allow in. More light on the black cloth has now turned gray. But when you think about it, the actual light in that black cloth didn't change, so there was really no need for the camera to adjust anything. Oh, no. Photograph the white paper on its own. The cameras meeting reacted to the light paper and change his shot US P to 640th of a second. Still it a 5.6. And would you believe it? Now? The white paper is turned gray, too. That was quite surprising, wasn't it? Obviously, you'd have to be some kind of madcap artists to go around photographing bits of paper and fabric on their own. That was an extreme example. A more typical example might be, say, a friend on a beach. They have bright sky, sea or sand behind them. You take the photo in, your friend turns out to dark. Also, just think how maney snowy photos you've seen recently that were muddy and gray rather than what the meeting system had been fooled by A with that lovely white snow Well, how about this? You're taking a picture of somebody very handsome against the dark Hedge. But when a person comes into the picture, suddenly their faces a little bit too bright and they don't look quite handsome anymore. Well, in fact, I'm wearing a dark shirt, so that's kind of accentuated the effect. But if we asked, will feed to come into the picture. Because Wolf is wearing a white shirt. The cameras closed the aperture down a little bit to make it to make the whole scene a little bit darker. So you can see now that having predominantly dark or bright areas in the flame affects the exposure and exposure. Compensation is what you would normally use to get around the problem. Why? Well, there's no point in simply adjusting the aperture or shutter speed or eso, because in any auto mode, the camera will simply compensate by adjusting one of the other settings. For example, if the subject is too bright like I was earlier, using a small aperture to allow in less light would do you no good at all, because the camera would automatically choose a slower shutter speed to keep the overall exposure the same. It's like a balancing act with that, with the camera attempting to keep whatever it thinks is the correct exposure. This brings me neatly onto exposure compensation. Nearly all cameras, including compacts, have this setting, and it's used really just a brightened or darkened. The resulting photo. It's very easy to do, but the actual mechanics of changing exposure compensation obviously varies from one camp to the next. First, you usually need to be out of the auto mod in order to be able to use exposure compensation , which, by the way, is another good reason for not using for auto. Typically, there's a button on the top or back of the camera, which has a small plus or minus sign. He pressed the ban on as you saw earlier. Depending on the camera, you turned a dial or will to adjust the exposure Compensation amount. Moving toward the plus side or bright in the image was a minor side will darken it. A good starting point is usually around, plus or minus one. Try taking another picture and adjust the exposure compensation again, if necessary. Don't forget to turn it back to zero again afterwards by the way. There's no real magic involved by the camera When you move the dial, all it's doing is changing aperture or shutter speed. Now, if you're an aperture priority mode, it will change the shutter speed on. If you're in shutter speed party mode, it will change the aperture if you need to get good exposures in some difficult lighting settings. Exposure compensation is very important. So play around with the camera, get to know the controls and then go out and practice with it. Bye for now. 7. Aperture Vs Shutter Speed Priority: there are several what you might call semi automatic exposure most or most DSLR middle is cameras. The aperture priority mode is where you set the aperture. You one on the camera figures are the correct shutter speed. To give you a good exposure, the shutter speed poverty mode works the other way around. You set the shutter speed on the camera, figures out the correct aperture. But how do they work on which of these two most is the best one to use. Most cameras have what is commonly referred to as a P I S M dialed on the top or back of the camera. Although some campers have them within the menu system, Aperture party mode is selected using a or ivy shutter speed. Party mode is set using either S or TV. Where the cameras differ is where you go from there. I'll show you all my rapidly aging Nikon d 300. If you don't know already how to do this, you may have to consult the dreaded manual. Once you've set the party mode, you then set the aperture or shutter speed using a doll or knob on the camera body. If you don't know which told to use either play around with their or again, just consult your manual Asil campus a slightly different first. I'll use aperture priority mode, I said. The PS endo toe a. Now, as I turn this controlled Oh, the aperture F number changes here. It's going from F four to F 5.6 and then on to a fight. The more observant amongst you will notice that the shutter speed is changing, too, but I'm no actually doing that explicitly. Instead, the camera is automatically changing the shutter speed to compensate for me changing aperture. So let's get back to F four. The cameras chosen a shutter speed of 250th of a second. You can see by the exposure doll here that the camera thinks that's a good exposure for the light William. Right now, if it had been a brighter day or a pointed the camera something brighter, the camera would have chosen a faster shutter speed, maybe 5/100 or thousands of a second. But in this case, because of the light levels is chosen 250th of a second. Next I go to F 5.6, which is a small aperture. So to keep the same amount of light hitting the sensor, the camera slows the shutter speed to 125th of a second. Next, I closed the aperture down to her fate on the camera, slows the shutter speed to 1/60 of a second. And finally I set the aperture to F 11 on the camera slows the shutter speed even further to 1/30 of a second. And so these are the settings we just went through. And it's important to understand that all of these settings give exactly the same exposure . Now, you shutter speed property, I said the P I. S M Delta s. I'll choose the shutter speed of 250th of a second. The camera then chooses an aperture of F 425th of a second become the common changes aptitude of 5.6, 1/60 of a second. It chooses FAA, and finally, 1/30 of a second. He chooses F 11 comparing these two sets of camera settings. What do you notice? Of course, the settings are exactly the same for both aperture on shutter speed party, and every one of these settings will give exactly the same exposure. So this shows that when you change the aperture in aptitude poverty most or you change your shutter speed in shutter speed poverty mode as long as the settings are within the limitations of the camera and lens for your subject, as far as the exposure is concerned, in makes absolutely no difference which set into use there that supplies you, hasn't it? The reason for that is simple. Whatever mode or settings you use, the camera compensates every time by changing one of the other settings so that it uses a correct overall exposure. So don't base your choice of mode on whether you want to make the photo lighter or darker in makes absolutely no difference. Typically, in order to change the amount of light coming into the camera and so brighten or darken an image, you would use exposure compensation. See the film one that subject for more information, so that leaves a burning question. If it makes no difference to the exposure, why then choose aperture priority over the shot over shutter speed quality or vice versa? Well, it all comes down to the creativity element of photography as well as controlling exposure . The aperture is used to control depth of field. That is how much of the images in focus, from front to back on the shutter speed is used to control motion. So whether you want to freeze the action or show movement with that in mind for general scenes and landscapes, you probably would use aptitude priority to give you a large depth of filled to ensure everything is in focus for portrait aperture priority again for shallow depth of field to blur the background for sports you shutter speed Party to Freeze movement or aperture Priority. If it's important to separate the sports person from the background in low light situations is probably best to use aperture party and set a large aperture to ensure the maximum amount of light through the lens. But these are only guidelines. There's no real hard and fast rules, is a couple of other relevant tips. First, when using exposure, compensation toe, lighten or darken an image, the camera honors your priority choice. So if you're in aperture party mode, it will change the shutter speed on. Conversely, if you're in shutter speed poverty mode, the camera will change the aperture choosing aperture party moat will, in nearly every case, keep you within the limits of your camera, whereas you may get a warning or under, or overexposure under some circumstances using shutter speed. Poverty. Because, for example, your lens may not be able to open up to a wide enough aperture for your selected shutter speed on Did pervading Like Light See my film on cycling For more info about that one? I'm an aperture priority mode, and I'm setting the aperture to its maximum value for this lens that is F 3.5. What what happens when I just zoom in the lens? Now I'm not changing any settings. I'm just zooming in notice of the aperture is closing down on is now of different value. At 5.6. This is what happens when you use a lens with a variable maximum aperture. This applies to most kid lenses and also to many other lenses. They're called variable aperture lenses. The maximum aperture of these lenses varies depending on the focal length. That is how much the lens is zoomed, you know out. That's why the designation of the maximum aperture on the ballot of the lens will say something like a 3.5 to 5.6 in this case of 3.5 is available with the wide angle end of the lens, but only five at 5.6 when the lenses 40 Zoned in. This doesn't happen on more expensive professional lenses, which the film one lenses. For more information about this, the potential problem is that the camera will automatically compensate for the smaller apertures by slowing down the shutter speed. And as the shutter speed gets slower and slower, the camera gets harder and harder to hand. Hold and keep steady without realizing it on. Without any warnings, you could end up introducing camera, shake or subject movement unless you use a tripod or some kind of support. This is related to the previous tip, but whichever most you use do keep an eye out for the other set in. So, for example, if you chose an aperture party, just be aware of the shutter speed and make sure it's going to be okay for what you're about to shoot. Bye for now, 8. Start Getting Creative: Aperture & Depth Of Field: depth of field is a term used to indicate how much of the image from front to the back is in sharp focus on it can really help to get you more creative images. Now this table where we're gonna pretend the table is the image and this is the front of the image and this is the back of the image and you're standing over here somewhere with the camera now the whole in the middle of the table. That's the subject Now. These polls represent the area of the image that's in sharp focus, and that's called the depth of field. So you can think of it as a kind of block of focus that gets now, ah, wider. Now you can change a setting on the camera to make the depth of field much, much. Noah. So Neil, it's small area in front of the subject is in focus, and a small area behind the subject is in focus. And when you've got a Navajo depth of field like that, it's called a shallow depth of field. You can also change the settings on the camera to give you a much wider block of focus, so everything is in the photo in the photo is sharply and focus on that's called a wire depth of field. Typically, you'd use a shallow depth of field for portrayed. We've all seen those photos where the subjects in focus on the backgrounds out of focus. That's a shallow depth of field. You'll see this in films also, and on TV and in the cinema, sometimes that maybe, say to police colleagues and ones in the front in focus, he's quite he's friend at the back is out of focus. Then they switch focus of the guy at the back is now in focus, says a great creative technique for landscapes. You really want to use a wire depth of field so that everything in the photo is in sharp focus. Let's try a little experiment. I'm going to use an SLR in this film to show you how to camera settings can affect the depth of field. Now I'm going to be using the camera in aperture poverty mode. Okay, we're gonna be shooting alongside this war, and I've set up a Chinese lantern there on the wall, and that's going to be my point of focus. We've got a car in the distance as well, so we should be able to look at his number plate to judge our sharp. It is now the primary control for depth of field. Is the aperture on the wider, the aperture, the shallower, the depth of field. So that's the smaller the number. Now, if you're not sure about apertures, there's a link to a film on this page on, please check that out. So I'm gonna be shooting longer ball when a focus on the on the Chinese lantern and I'm a f 2.8. So that's the widest temperature Right now you can see the Chinese lantern is quite sharp who look at a car in the background. That's completely blood. I also noticed a war just in front of the Chinese lantern is not sharp, either. Slightly blood. Now let's try the same thing but change the aperture to say F eight. So it's a smaller hole, and we should get a wide adept Fulfilled has changed my opportune now okay, again focusing on this Chinese lantern now. Although the car was blood, it's not quite as blue as in the F two point a photo. Also, look at the wall in front of the Chinese lantern. That's a lot sharper now, too. If we compare the two images, so I beside you can see the difference. Let's try. Go into the smallest aperture on this lens, which is F 22. Now you can see the car is quite sharp, but it's no absolutely pin sharp. And that's because the Chinese lantern is quite close to us and so are blocker. Focus doesn't quite reach the car. If instead I was a focus on the white drainpipe, the whole block of focus would move back on. The car would be much, much sharper. Now let's compare all three images, and you can really see the difference. The only changes I've made to the camera settings is the aperture. So as you just saw, the aperture has a huge bearing on the depth of field. Now. I did say earlier this a primary control for the depth of field, and in fact, there's a couple of other things that affected as well. One of them is the focal length of the lens. If you zoom in, you'll get a shallow depth of a shallow depth of field, so If you zoom out and have a wide angle or use a wide angle lens again, you'll have much more in focus. So let's try doing that again. I'm gonna shoot F 2.8, but I'm going to use the very wide focal focal length of the lens. So this first shot is that two point I assume right in on the telephoto end of the lens. The one we've just taken was also F 2.8 presumed out of the white angle end of the lens. Now it's difficult to compare the two images because the wide angle shot looks a lot further way, obviously. So I've just cropped the car just so that you can make the comparison and you could see the car does look sharper in the wide angle shop. So the final thing that affects the depth of field is no, actually a set in its how far you are from the subject. The further away you are, the wider the depth of field becomes. So I'm going to try taking a shot again. But this time I'm going to step back and I'm gonna shoot F 2.8 so we can compare it to the first photo. I'm still focusing on the Chinese Lanson, so you could see now we know the number. Play isn't fantastically sharp is still a lot sharper than in in the first shot. If all that sounds a little bit complicated, are just some of eyes. When you want to control the depth of field, you need to use the A mode or the ivy mode Aperture party on your camera When taking poor trades used. The lowest F number, which is the widest aperture that will give you the shallower steps, have filled Zoom in as well on the lens on may be getting this close as you can. That will give you the best chance of blowing the background. When you want to take a landscape shot or a nice scene, use the highest F number, and that will give you the smallest aperture on the wider step. The Filled also used a wide angle set in on the lens. It also helps if you step back a little bit to one other tip for taking landscapes to make sure everything's in sharp. Focus is to focus in a to about 1/3 a third way into the scene. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the film. That's all for now. 9. Scene Modes & Depth of Field: depth of field is a term used to indicate how much of the image from front to the back is in sharp focus on it can really help to get you more creative images. Now this table where we're gonna pretend the table is the image and this is the front of the image and this is the back of the image and you're standing over here somewhere with the camera now the whole in the middle of the table. That's the subject Now. These polls represent the area of the image that's in sharp focus, and that's called the depth of field. So you can think of it as a kind of block of focus that gets now, ah, wider. Now you can change a setting on the camera to make the depth of field much, much. Noah. So Neil, it's small area in front of the subject is in focus, and a small area behind the subject is in focus. And when you've got a Navajo depth of field like that, it's called a shallow depth of field. You can also change the settings on the camera to give you a much wider block of focus, so everything is in the photo in the photo is sharply and focus on that's called a wire depth of field. Typically, you'd use a shallow depth of field for portrayed. We've all seen those photos where the subjects in focus on the backgrounds out of focus. That's a shallow depth of field. You'll see this in films also, and on TV and in the cinema, sometimes that maybe, say to police colleagues and ones in the front in focus, he's quite he's friend at the back is out of focus. Then they switch Focus of the guy at the back is now in focus, says a great creative technique for landscapes. You really want to use a wire depth of field so that everything in the photo is in sharp focus. Let's try a little experiment. I'm going to try and show you how to control the depth of field using the Compaq Amber. Now it's far more difficult to get a shallow depth of field using a combat camera on DTA. Blow the background, but let's see how we get on the primary control for a change in the death of field is the aperture. We don't really have direct access to the apertures on this camera. So instead we're going to use the scene modes now when we want to shallow depth of field. We want to use the port trait C mode. That's the one with the lady with a hat on. Or sometimes he doesn't wear hat. So I'm going to set the scene mode, Teoh portrayed. Now I'm going to focus on the Chinese lantern, and as you can see, I'm in the pore trait scene mode. Did you see? The Chinese lantern is sharp, but the car is quite blurry. I'm not going to change to the landscape mode. That's the one with the little mountain on it. So this just setting up and remember you don't actually have to take a picture of a mountain when you using that same mode. So I'm focusing again on the in the Chinese lantern. You can now see that the number plate of the car is a little bit sharper. It is not a huge difference. That's because of the limitations of these type of cameras, but you can still see a difference so you can use the C modes to give you a little bit of control over the depth of field on auto C mode. To do really is just change the aperture now that I mentioned earlier on that the aptitude is a primary control for changing the depth of field. There's a couple of other factors to come take. You can take into account the how much you zoom in as well affects it. So when you're zoomed in, you tend to get a shallow adept fulfilled when you zoomed out. So using the wide angle setting, you'll get a much wider that the filled at a much sharper image. The other factor that affects the depth of field is your distance of the subject. The further away you are, the wider that at the field and the closer you are, the shallow added at the field. So if, for example, you're taking a close up of a flower, you'll have a very shallow depth of field on a bloody background. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the film. That's all. For now. 10. Exposure Metering Modes Explained: when people first start taking photos, they expect the camber to see and judge the liar exactly as their own eyes do. But you know, us humans are a lot clever than Katniss. Well, most of us are, anyway, and cameras can't really compete, so we get it right. But sometimes the camera can get it wrong, and occasionally we have to give our cameras some help when it comes to judging the correct exposure, the meters inside our campus see the light is being that's being reflected back by the subject on the camera averages out that light to a kind of mid grey. I don't mean it tries to change color just that the meeting system tries to achieve a mid grey tone, like the one on this on this great car here. Once that's done, the camera sets the aperture and shutter speed accordingly to provide a good exposure. It's easier to imagine if I change the video to black and white. Isn't technology wonderful? Now you can compare the tones on this mid grey card with with some in the video, for example, it's probably slightly darker than my face, a lot darker than Elaine's face on probably quite a similar color to some of the glass. Most cameras these days have three ways of meeting the light on these air, called exposure metering modes. Not to be confused with exposure modes such as aperture and shutter speed party. Some cameras, notably Canon DSLR as have for me two in mode methods. But I'm just going to cover the three main ones as things might start to get a little bit confusion. I'll describe them all in detail in a moment, but very briefly. The D four exposure mode is called evaluative or matrix metering. Not in this mode. The meter considers a light falling within the whole frame. Then we have center weighted where again the camera does consider the whole frame, but instead gives far greater weight to the central area. Then we have spot metering were just a very small areas meted in spot matri mode. Your camera will use a small area, usually within the very center focus area to judge the light. Some more advanced cameras will allow you to move the spot to an off centre area. Now, when you have press the shutter button, the camera will judge the light covered by that small area. Assume it's mid grey and set the aperture or shutter speed accordingly. So it's your job to point in that spot meeting area to something that's mid grey. But that's easier said than done. I'm going to take a couple of pictures of Elaine. The camera is in spot metering mode on its in aperture priority mode and upset the aptitude to F 5.6. I'll tell you a couple of shots, first of all, against the trees because that's kind of a darkest tone on in our switch around and take a picture against the sky now because I'm using spot me too remote. In theory, we should get the same shutter speed for both shots. Let's see what happened. So the 1st 1 against the trees, Tom coming down low to make sure the lanes faces against the sky, putting the focus spot while on a face. The camera gave me the same shutter speed in both photos, but she's a bit too dark in both shots, So why is that? It's because supplies surprise as lovely as the lanes faces. It's definitely not Mid. Grey is much lighter, but the camera didn't know that. So it made the tone of her face darker. Well, I could have done was taken reading off the great card. That would have been a lot more accurate. So let's give that a go. Okay? Taking a reading off the great card, the cameras giving me a shot of speed of 125th of a second. Okay, let's put that down. Now, let's try this again. Okay. And 125th of a second. We've got a perfect exposure. Hopes the more observant amongst you just may have spotted my deliberate mistake when I took the exposure reading off the great card. I didn't lock the exposure, so I just got the same dark photo as before, But I took the photo again after we finished filming. But let's be realistic or that works well. It's a bit of a kerfuffle carrying around a great card on messing around with a messing around with it. An alternative, important to at least, is to realize that one great thing about us humans is that we have a variety of skin tongue colors. Unlike Klingons, for example, who all seem to have the same color faces heavyweight because let because it lane has white skin. I should have used exposure compensation around maybe plus one plus 1.3. For a black person, you might have to under exposed by about one stop, depending on how dark their schooners. Here's a few suggestions. As you can see the paler the skin, the more you need to over expose on the darker the skin, the more you have to under expose as a very rough guide. People with skin tone similar to say how Berry wouldn't require any exposure compensation. Another good technique is simply to spot Mito off your own hand on. Once you've figured out what the exposure conversation is for your own hand, it's not going to change Well, not unless you picked up a town but town by lying in the sun. But you can simply check the exposure like this on dial in the same exposure conversation every time. You just need to make sure that your hand is in the same lighting as a subject on the back of the back of the hand is facing towards a camera position. Simple so spot meeting can be very accurate and as you just saw. It's not influenced by other areas in the flame. It's commonly used to shoot very high contrast scenes, typically, when your portrait subject as a black area or dark area behind them, landscapes and general scenes can also benefit from spot meter in as long as you can identify. And mid grey area grass, by the way, has a roughly mid great own. Another good choice for spot metering might be theater photography, where the brightly lit actors in the spotlight stand before, say, a black or very dark cut spot meeting will only consider the actor's face while ignoring the overall darkness of the scene. Next comes center weighted meter, and this is kind of a cross between spot on metrics. Matron. The meter judges a light towards 60 80% of the central part of the of the flame, still tryingto average exposure to a mid grey, the balances and furthered out towards the edges of the center. Now some cameras will allow the user to adjust the size of the central portion. But obviously many subjects are in essential part of the flame, so it's quite a good one to use in difficult light in situations. Let's try some shots again, one against the trees, another one against the sky so that we can compare it to the spot me to in ones we took earlier. All right, so in center weighted mode against the sky, the camera has given me a shutter speed of the thousands of a second. That's going to be way too dark. Center weighted has done quite a lot better against the trees, but Elaine is still little overexposed in evaluative or matrix metering modes. The camera measures the light intensity several points in the scene and then averages out the result to mid grey to give the correct exposure. It's really very clever because it splits the flame into various zones and then combines those owns, depending on various factors like, for example, what areas are in and out of focus back light in camera to subject distance and so on. Manufacturers off secretive about the algorithms are used, and they vary from one manufacturer to the next. Some cameras now even have a database of many thousands of lighting scenarios restored in the camera to determine what what I actually think is being photographed, so I'll switch to evaluative or metrics mode on, we'll try to same shots again. So against the sky, the cameras given me a shutter speed of 4/100 of a second F 5.6. So again in Lane's face is going to be a little bit too dark. But it's done a better job than center weighted meter in while evaluative mode against the trees has given us the same results of center waited just a little over exposed because the meeting system was influenced by the darker tones of the trees. So after all of that, which is the best system to use, well, there's no real magic bullet. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses. The photos that I took in this video were quite challenging and really regard to the light in, especially the ones against the sky on center weighted didn't do very well, did it? But don't let that put you off. It is generally a pretty good system, especially if your subjects in the middle on the lighting is fairly even across the board. But having said that is still quite an old system and has now been superseded by evaluative or metrics, meter and with it zone system sophisticated algorithms on date, built in database of subjects and lighting scenarios. I tend to use evaluative or metrics meeting most of the time. Even if I'm in manual exposure, most I still like to use evaluative metrics meeting with the dial inside the viewfinder only tend to revert to spot meter. And if I've got a very difficult light in situation, typically if my subject is back with it, so that's about it. I hope you have enjoyed the film and found it useful bye for now. 11. The Difference Between Full Auto and the P Mode: many begin of photographers with the new DSLR or Millis camera start off by using their cameras for all time mode. Let's face it, cameras are getting better and better now all of the time, and chances are they'll get very good results in that mode. The great thing about the auto setting is that the camera does absolutely everything for you. They're not. So great thing about full auto mode is that the camera does absolutely everything for you. What I mean by that is that there are good things about it, but also not such good things. In full auto, the camera chooses the aperture, the shutter speed, the ire. So the white balance on makes all of decisions regarding camera settings. So although the chances are the photos will be well exposed and in focus, the final images will in all likelihood be just kind of snapshots, really simply recording a scene without any real creativity. Okay, I admit it. That is a bother sweeping generalization. If you want some of my other films, you'll find lots of different ways to get more creative or dramatic images without actually changing. Any settings may be using different composition or lighting, but you can get even more creative by coming out of the four auto setting. So the cameras now in the auto mode and I'm pointing out into my garden, you can see this chosen an aperture of F 5.6 shutter speed 320th of a second on. Although that gives a good exposure, there's nothing I can do now to change those settings. So if, for example, I was taking some sports photos, I wouldn't be able to switch to a faster shutter speed, say, 500 or thousands of a second. If I wanted to freeze a movement that come on just won't let me do it. So, generally speaking, the full time mode is designed for fairly new photographers. But even if you were one of those people would prefer not to mess around too much with settings on, like to just use the camera in the auto mode. A much better bet is to use the P mode. You can think of the P mode as being almost like for the auto. The camera chooses the aperture and shutter speed, but not usually the I. So, depending on the camera but more on that in a moment. The main differences in the P mode. You can override the campus choice of aperture shutter speeds and I so plus you can change other settings like, for example, white balance or exposure metering modes and so on. The options are there if you need them or just want to experiment a little and find out what happens when you change settings. Let me show you what I mean. I've said the camera to the green full auto mode. I've gone into the menu and notice a few of the settings like I s O sensitivity on white balance are no longer available there. Great out and disabled now not shown here. But a very important one is exposure compensation. So if say, I took a photo on it was too dark, I wouldn't be able to use exposure, compensation and take the photo again with an improved exposure would be pretty much stuck . Oh, no change to the P mode on bring up the same menu. You can see that all of the settings are now available to May and I could if I wanted to use exposure compensation pointing the camera out to my garden again, you can see that the camera has given May more or less the same settings as we had before when I was in the full time mode. Only now I can turn the dial on the back of the camera and changes settings. I could use a slower or faster shutter speed, or maybe a smaller or larger aperture, which I couldn't do before. If you're inside or in low light and at the flash turned off, you may will get different settings as four also also takes control of the eye. So whereas on most cameras, the ESO is under your control in the P mode. If you wanted to automate the P mode a little more, you could set the auto I so setting on and then the camera would give very similar settings to full auto, both inside and out. The actual allowable settings that could be changing the P mode will very, quite considerably from camera to camera. So if you're interested in this mode, then it's something you have to play around with going to your own menu settings and see the difference between full auto and pay on my Niccum DSLR, for example. I can change I so setting, even in Fort Auto. But you can't on many other cameras. So which is better full auto or the P program all time mode? I would say the P mode is a clear winner from discussions I've had with other photographers and working on photography Internet forums. It seems that quite a few photographers do use the P program also setting, so it's more popular than you might think it might be worth giving it a try by for now. 12. Manual Exposure Mode: Easy And Useful - Don't Be Scared!: Most people tend to shy away from using the manual exposure mode, probably because I think it might be too complicated or just plain unnecessary. I want to start by sharing a short story. After I downloaded the images from one of my first weddings, I loaded up the screen with about 50 of the small image thumbnails of the couple inside the church. I didn't have sat back and looked at the whole screen, taking in order the thumbnails together. What I noticed was that most of the exposures okay, but there were some images, a little to light or a little bit too dark. Nothing I couldn't fix in photo shop, But it did get me wondering why that happened on what I could do to improve the exposures and then had a kind of eureka moment on a little light went off in my head. I've been using aperture priority mode all the time, which meant every single time I press the shutter button to take a photo, the camera was working out the exposure. Now, most of the time, they got it right. But every now and again, the meeting system was being fooled by maybe a to light area in the in the flame, or maybe a two dark Eva in the fame. But and here's a big question. Why was I asking the camera to figure out the exposure from May? Every shop after the light wasn't changing in the church. Nobody was going around switching the lights on enough, so there was no real need to meet of the scene for every single shot within the same scenario. So that's what I started considering the manual mode. More seriously. That's the M setting on the dial. My first SLR was a Russian maze Ennis three m, which I bought way back in the sixties. He had no built in light meter. You had to use an exposure meter and then transfer the aperture and shutter speed settings to the camera. I mention this because there was no that was a true manual mode. So although today's DSLR do have a manual mode, it's really a bit of a Miss Noma because we still have the exposure meter guides in the inside the viewfinder. You know, the little bar with the plus and minus is so it's not as if we work in blind that exposure meter. A guide within the viewfinder makes life a whole lot easier. The concept of Manu is pretty simple. You have complete control over the aperture, the shutter speed and the I. So on when you change any of those settings, the camera doesn't try to compensate by changing any of the other settings. Admittedly, it sounds a little laborious, but in fact, once you get used to it, it's very quick. The big advantage of using the manual mode comes when you're taking several photos of the same thing or in the same lighting scenario. So that could be a set of photos for a landscape or maybe a football match, or maybe sports or even a syriza portrait. The light isn't changing. All you have to do is get a good exposure to start off with and then just keep it there. Maybe just check the exposure every few minutes, just to be sure. I would say, though, that manual mode isn't suitable for every type of photography. Few street photography is a good example of constantly changing conditions where you have to be quick as well. So I was sick to one of the semi auto modes for street photography. On the other hand, you may have plenty of time taking landscapes, for example, so manual mode can work really well when you're taking things a little slower. Okay, we're going to try a little experiment. Now I'm going to take a Siris of photos of my lovely wife Jane. On the come is in appetite quality mode have set the aptitude F 5.6. Andre. I'll probably change the focal length as well for a couple of shots. Let's see what happens. First of all, let's start off with the nice little close up. Now I'm going to go higher shooting Appear slow, Small Giant. Come on, Another one. Now I'm gonna show upwards. So I get more sky in the shop coming towards me, Gang, have a wall. Now try one against the dark roof of the bandstand. She's looking gorgeous for the first photo to camera gave me aperture F 5.6 2/50 of a second toe. I so 100 which, although it looks about right change face is slightly too dark, I think. For the next shot against the grass, the shutter speed slowed to 125th of a second, so a four stop slower, and that means her face is a bit lighter. Looks about right now. This next shot has a sky in the background, so the camera increase the shutter speed by 24 stops to a thousands of a second to make the image darker. And you see Jane's face is far too dark, although described, looks pretty good in the next shot incorporated Dark Bandstand roof, so the camera slowed the shutter speed. Teoh 125th. So that's a full one. Stop lighter, and that means James faces a little bit lighter in that one. So there's quite a large variation in the exposures isn't there when you think about it? The light on James Face didn't change for any of those photos is not like she moved or the sun came out and went back in again. By the way, I was using metrics meeting mode there. I could have minimized that variation by switching to a different meter remote, but that's a subject for another film. Now I'm going to try that again. This time I'm in manual mode. Andi, I've got the aperture set to a 5.6 shutter speed of 125th of a second, which is a speed that just gave me the best exposures. I'm going to try the same sequence of photos, so it is the first close up. Try a couple more. What do we do next year? Then we came up here. Show against the glass. China's got eyes, clouds looking at May of life Now another one against the sky looking lean toward me, Jang looking down. And that, finally, against the bandstand roof lintels were looking down. You could see the overall. The exposure is far more consistent. Obviously, that's what you'd expect, considering the exposure didn't change on ordered the Light. Comparing the first set of aptitude property photos with the second set of manual mo photos , you can see that the manual ones do look more consistent. I use manual exposure most of the time, only reverting to aperture party. If I don't that's a center line. I use manual exposure most of the time, only reverted to appetite party if I need to shoot quickly or the light is changing constantly. For example, if the sun is going in and out from behind the clouds. Here's how I tend to use a manual mode. I normally start off just by guessing the exposure and changing the settings accordingly on . It's amazing how good you can get this guessing game after using manual for a while anyway . So I've now got a rough exposure by pointing the camera at the subject on. I use exposure dial to refine the exposure, usually changing, just changing the shutter speed I. So then I take the shop and then look at the image on the back of the camera on sometimes Instagram. If the exposure is off, I'll change one of the settings again, usually the shutter speed or the I. So there's no messing around with exposure. Compensation it? No, it's no longer relevant so that setting becomes redundant. I might have to repeat the process two or three times, but you know, once I'm happy with exposure, that's it. Whole state. I'll start taking pictures happy in the knowledge that each image is going to be spot on on . If there no, they certainly won't be out, but very much so easily fixed on the computer. So if you're taking a set of images of the same subject in the same light. In scenario, considered using manual. Sure, it takes in practice, But I guarantee you it will pay off in the end. Bye for now. 13. Manual and Auto ISO: A Third Exposure Mode: when it comes to camera settings. One of the best known little secret is a setting called Auto I. Also, when this setting is turned on, the camera will automatically adjust the I so to give you correct exposure, whatever the light conditions. So it's just one other thing you don't have to worry about. Plus, it works in all of the various exposure modes, like aperture or shutter speed. Poverty. It's such a, for example, in aperture party mode. Normally you select the aperture on the I S O. And then the camera figures out the shutter speed. But in all toe, I also mode. You would only have to set the aperture on the camera, would choose just know only the shutter speed, but also the I S O. Actually using Alter I So is a little bit of a contentious issue. Some photographers won't go near it. Others love it, so it's down to personal preference. I would say that using it, along with aperture or shutter speed party or program mode, is something that's maybe is best suited for beginner photographers. I'll probably start getting hate mail now for saying that because it is a bit of a sweeping generalization, and I do know that some professional photographers who do use it all the time. But that's just my opinion. However, all toe I so can also be used with the manual mode, and I believe this is where it's at its most useful. Just imagine if there was exposure mode that would enable you to set both the aperture on the shutter speed, and then the camera would automatically change 1/3 variable to adjust the exposure. This would be like having simultaneous aperture and shutter speed priority. So combining manual exposure mode with auto I so can almost be thought offers a kind of third exposure mode alongside aperture and shutter speed. Priority. Take a look at my film on using manual mode. You're learn that on its own you have complete control over the aperture to shutter speed on the ice, so but the camera won't compensate for any change in the light. This can be a big problem in rapidly changing conditions, since you may not have enough time to adjust, the set is, you know, backwards and forth to compensate. So combining the manual mode with auto I so does make a lot of sense. Let's see how it works. But before I start, I should say that unfortunately high eso is one particular setting that does very a fair bit from camera to camera, so you'll have to refer to your manual. First, Let's look at the mechanics of changing the actual setting on my own Nick on DSLR to start off where they'll turn on the altar. I so set in now on this particular camera, I can specify that I don't want the Ike. So to exceed a certain value, if you have a newest camera, you can probably set this value to I s 0 3200 or even 6400. Depending on our averse, you are to seeing noise in your images. This particular camera, Nikon D 7 100 is very good when it comes to noise at highest higher I atos. So I said it to 6400. If yours is an older model or you hate the thought of any noise in your images, try 800. Having said that, if you have an old model camera, it may not even apple tell I. So it is quite a new feature on this camera. I can also set the slowest shutter speed that I'm prepared to accept. But that's most useful when using aperture priority mode with Auto I. So, in order to reduce camera shake or subject movement, it's not really relevant at the moment because I'm going to be using manual mode on. So I'll be setting the aperture and shutter speed myself or my nick on V one. Mueller's camera. I can also use Auto I. So the settings are slightly different. No to my DSLR for some unknown reason. There's no altar. I so 1600. So I said, It's a 32 100 photos from this little camera look fine. I s 0 3200 So that's no problem. Notice, by the way, that it doesn't give me the option of specifying a slow a shutter speed like my dear sell our did. Each camera has its own way of doing things. Now that that's I put the camera into manual mode on, I'm going to take some pictures of Wolfie in different lighting scenarios. I'm using a nick on 50 mil F 1.4 lenses, a great lengths for poor traits on upset the aperture to therefore on the shutter speed to 5/100 of a second that will minimise in any camera shake. So we should see how great auto Ice Island Manual come work together now. So this is quite a dark environment. We've got some overhanging leaves, so this is to start off with. This is a slightly darker lighting, said Army. So let's think Come back a bit. Uh, looking good will freeze about to give me one of his little cheeky smiles. That's really nice. And a 500 seconds. Therefore the cameras given May I s 0 400 We've come out from under the trees. The sons are so we'll try another shot. I've still got the shutter speed set to 5/100 of a second. Therefore, well, let's see what the I so does now. I want to try and back light will for you. See, the sun is behind him and you got this lovely light on his hair. The problem is, if I back light him against a sky, it won't look so good. So I'm going to ask him to crouch down a little bit to get a darker background behind his hair. Come on. A phone here that we might as well take a nice photo while we're at it. That was great. Another settings The 500 of a second therefore, but But this time I s 0 100 Oh, and by the way, here's why I didn't want to shoot against the sky. I much prefer to shoot backlit portrays against darker backgrounds to accentuate the lighting on the hair. Plus the sky tends to go white, which I'm not keen on. Now we're standing inside this old workshop on Although it's a lot darker, We've actually got some really lovely light coming in from her open door on. We should get a completely different type of short. So let's try again. Well, he's got his face turned more towards the open door. That looks really nice. Not for a little smile. One more. We've not got completely different type of light on with his face, but it looks great aperture for 5/100 of a second. But the I so has now changed toe. 1000 on the camera did that on its own. I didn't change any other settings going through the images. You can see that the aperture and shutter speed remain the same. But the camera did a good job in changing the I. So to keep a good exposure so manual with Walter, I so can be very useful. As I said earlier, you could almost think of it as 1/3 exposure mode. So instead of just said in one of the three variables of the exposure triangle, you can now set two of them see my other film on the exposure triangle. If you're not sure what I made, your camera will use the shutter speed and the aperture settings that you selected until the light won't allow those settings to provide an accurate exposure. Only then will the camera changi, so to keep the same overall exposure. Now, just like any of the semi auto modes, you may need to use exposure compensation if the photo is too dark or too light. No, unfortunately, some cameras won't allow you to use exposure compensation when daughter I so is set on, so check it on your foot on your own camera first before you need it. But if the camera does allow it using exposure, compensation on most Cambers will increase or lower the ire so and leave the aperture and shutter speed alone. Another thing to be aware of is that on some canvas, the auto I so setting only increases are so upwards from the sensitivity it's set to manually sounds a bit complicated. But what I mean is, for example, if your actual I so is set to say 800 the camera will not use a nice so less than 100 so I would always set the I so to its lowest value before even started. Very mind that manual and alter, I so is quite a different mode from four manual as with Auto I. So the camera is still using its built in metering system to determine the correct exposure and to set the I. So whereas in full manual, you are doing everything, so we're not you're using settings. Well, I would have a good time would be when you you know the aperture and shutter speed that you want to use. But when you're trying to shoot, maybe quite fast in an environment where the light might be changing, for example, you may be photographing, christening or wedding inside a church and then you may have to rush out and go outside. And then the sun keeps going in and out from behind the clouds. That is most annoying, I can tell you, generally speaking, now it comes down to personal preference. But personally speaking, I probably wouldn't recommend leaving the auto ice on for the whole time. Use it only when you really need to get the short under any circumstances. Having said that, if you're unsure of how to use, the eyesight was set in because you only maybe just getting started. Don't be afraid to experiment with this mode at the very worst, or you might get are noisier than normal images, even if you think you might only use it from time to time to learn how to use it. For those occasional times experiment, have a have a play with it. It's fun, and it can be useful, and it might just become your favorite exposure mode. Bye for now, 14. How Histograms Can Help You Take Better Photos: the LCD screens on the back of these cameras nowadays. A fantastic aren't we kind of take them for granted. But of course, in the old film days, that feature never existed. So you said to have to wait a few days for the photos to come back to see how well they turned out well, so my dad used to tell me anyway. But nowadays, of course, you can just look at the back of the camera on and see the photos and see how good they look. The trouble is, sometimes, when you outside, maybe in bright sunlight or even on the beach on holiday or out in the snow. The LCD screen is quite hard to see, and you can't tell how world of photos will come out. Sometimes you think you might have taken some great photos only to fight when you get back and look at them on the computer that have turned out too light or too dark. So if you can't see the LCD screen very well, how can you be 100% sure? Especially for important photos? How can you be sure that there really were exposed well ordered modern cameras these days have something called a hist a gram, and it shows up on the LCD screen for each individual photo. Here's how the ist hissed. A gram looks. Wait. Don't switch off the video. Honestly, it's not that complicated. It can really tell you that the photo is too dark or too light, and it might just be a good idea to take another photo while you still can. So, first of all, how do you actually display to test a gram on your camera? Well, all the cameras a difference. So you may just have to consult Emanuel to find out. You remember that little white book that is now gathering dust in a drawer somewhere that came with the camera. The first of all. Generally speaking, you have to play, go into the play or to review mode of the of the camera to see the photo. And then there's usually some kind of display. But, um, where you go through a series of displays for that one particular photo, so you may press a button and then see, for example, the photo on its own. Then you press a button again to see the photo, maybe with some of the settings. Then you press about again to see the photo alongside of history Graham A society you might have to consult your manual. So how does the history homework? So here's an example. Photo on. This is how the photo looks with it, hissed a gram on the back of the screen, the history grams air glass of the tones in your images, from black on the left to white on the light. Now I'll repeat that in case your eyes glaze over. When the hissed a gram appeared, the left side of the history Graham represents the darker areas of the photo. I either shadowy side the right side of the history. Graham represents the brighter area, the photos I the highlights. Sometimes when people see a history Graham for the first time and they try to make sense of it, they think the left side of the history Graham represents the left side of the photo on the right side of the history. Graham, Ever since the right side of the photo. That's quite laughable when you think about it, but it's quite logical. Guess if you've never seen Instagram before the history, Graham is showing you the actual pick cells in the photo on the position of each big sell various, depending on on how black or dark Inter's. So when the graph is higher, any given point, more pixels of that tone are present in the image. Now here's a photo taken in the snow and here's the same photo alongside it hissed. A gram noticed that there were many of the pixels over to the right of the history Graham tape represent the snow, which is obviously quite bright. There are some pixels over to the left of the instagram on these represent the tones of the trees in the photo. Here's another example. This photo was taken in a dark bar in Edinburgh on his the History Graham for alongside the photo. Now the photo is no, actually under exposed. It was just a very dark bar on the photo represents how the bar looked. In this case. Most of the pixels are why, over to the left of the history, Graham notice there are some over to the right as well, and these represent the tones of the lights in the photo. Here's another example on Here's the photo alongside its history. Graham. This is a typical outdoor seen some light areas, some dark areas, and you can see that the pixels a nicely spread over the whole photo, confirming that we've got a good exposure. So to sum up, when you have a photo with lots of dark areas in the scene, the history Graham will have the pick cells or skewed to the left on a photo with lots of bright areas that history, Graham will have pixel skewed to the right, so that's all very well and good. But how can you tell whether the photo is under or overexposed by you? Just using the history Graham his of photos and daffodils on? Here's the photo alongside its history. Graham. Now in the next show, I've deliberately overexposed it. And so the photo is way too black compared to the correctly exposed Instagram. You can see the pixels have moved over to the right and some of them now, but up to the edge of the display, that is, we've lost pixels on the right. This is called highlight clipping, and you can see in the photo that some area areas of the image are so white that I don't have any detail in them at all. Even if you were to work on his photo in photo shop or any other editing program on your computer to make the photo darker, the detail will not cut, will not come back. It's been lost forever. All that will happen is the brighter with areas will just go a little bit darker. But you would have lost the detail in them. By the way, some cameras have a display mode called blinking highlights, where these areas no known as blown highlights, blink on and off in the display. Here's a slightly overexposed photo of a little known in my garden on you can see that little blinking highlight here. By the way, the blinking highlights display is completely separate to the history Graham. So watch out for hissed a grams that have dramatic spikes on one end or the other because they indicate that if you've got pure black or pure white areas in the scene on those areas will have hardly any detail in them. That actually may be. What you want in most cases is a good indication that you've over exposed what I'm to expose the photo. In fact, there's no such thing as, ah normal or perfect hissed a gram, because it kind of depends on your subject on your photographic style. For example, if you take in a photo of a silhouette, you'll have very dark areas and very light areas in the scene. And so you have peaks of the left and peaks on the right on very little in between again, as you've seen in a snow, the history Graham will be skewed over to go to the right hand side. Talking of Snow. If you've seen the film night that I showed you on taking better photos in the snow, you'd have seen that I overexposed most of the photos. So let's look at the history Graham. For those images, this is the first photo title, which was too dull on dark on his A photo alongside its history. Graham. That big spike of pixels just to the right of center is represents a snow, and they have only just past the middle of the history. Graham on the right. Well, Snow is quite why bright stuff, isn't it so, really, that spike should be more over to the right. So just by looking at the history Graham, you can tell that the snow has come out a bit gray instead of white. So here's the next photo. After I'd used exposure, compensation and you see its a lot brighter. Here's the photo. A lot alongside its history. Graham. Now I think I used about one stop at one of the third stops, too overexposed. And here's the result. You can see that a spike has now moved for voter to the right, which tells us that the snow is now a lot whiter as of course it should be. So do you get into the habit of checking the history? Graham. It's good practice, and it will serve you well for those not occasioned when it's really important to get a good exposure anywhere. How this film has been useful for you. Bye for now. 15. Exposure Bracketing, Difficult Lighting Conditions and HDR: Have you ever taken a photo in sunlight or in fact, any bright situation, and then notice that you've lost some detail in either the darkest or the lightest parts of the picture, or maybe even both. In fact, it's one of the most common photography problems at your encounter. But it's not necessarily because you made a mistake with the exposure on. It's not really a problem with your camera, either. No, it's because the difference between the brightest and the darkest areas was so great that there isn't a single exposure that can capture them both. That difference between the bright areas and the dark areas is known as dynamic range on cameras on as good as our own eyes in capturing the tonal values of a wide dynamic range. Seen on this is one area where cameras with largest sensors such as DSLR score over cameras with smaller senses such as compact cameras and smartphones. Now I'm in my garden is a lovely sunny day, and I'm in the shade and you can see that hopefully amusingly we're exposed. But the background is not too bright. We've got lovely blue skies today, but I'm willing to bet the sky now looks quite white in this clip just to provide a comparison. This is what it looks like if I exposed a video camera for the background rather than for myself, and you see I'm not too dark, but we have got much more color in the sky. I'm back in our house now, and the sun is coming through the window into our shiny new kitchen. Huh? I'll be quite dark in this clip because I'm facing into the room. So please ignore that for the moment when we look around the kitchen, I concede the shadow areas around the cocoa and shadow is under the table, plus, so I can also clearly see the detail on the top of the white table where the sun is shining . But in this video, I'm guessing that the area on the table with a site where it's caught the sun will have no detail that it will just be pure black white. If I took a still photo using the same exposure settings as the video camera, it would just look the same now about how I try to darken that door area in photo shop. The detail would have been lost forever. And yet I can clearly see the detail on the table top. And I'd love to be able to say that it's just may with supersonic eyesight, But no, we can all do it. Isa, capable of capturing a very wide dynamic range on auto technology, is improving all of the time. Camera sensors just can't compete with the human eye. Digital camera sensors can capture a wide range of blackness values, but there is a limit. So if your face with a scene that has a wider dynamic range than the cameras capable of recording, you may well have a problem in this video all over. Some advice for overcoming this problem. First of all, how can you recognize the problem at the time have taken a photo? Well, one way is to check the hissed a gram for the individual image that you just captured. If the hissed a gram is chopped off, or to use the proper terminology clipped at the left hand, the end of the scale, it means that some of the darkest parts of the picture under exposed so they haven't recalled it, and they'll just appear as assorted black area. If the history graham is clipped at the right hand and it means the bright as part of the picture overexposed on will reproduce as solid white, like the tabletop here some campus could display. These clipped by areas is blinking highlights like you see here I find that to be a very useful feature on these. Blinking highlights are usually, but not always, a visible warning that the exposure needs to be checked on that you might want to adjust the settings on retake the shop, sometimes over the areas that are blinking like in this case, Onda sky outside, they're speculum highlights, maybe the sun reflecting off a chrome or other reflective surface or actual light sources. So in cases like that already over, exposed area is not so important to the image. You just have to accept it where you have over or under exposed. Quite often, you can adjust the exposure reshoot on the problem is solved, but scenes with a very wide brightness range also produced a very wide hissed, a gram, and sometimes the history. Graham is so wide that is clipped at one end of the other or the other. No matter how you adjust the exposure. Looking at the history Graham of the shot, you can see that a pig cells over on the right hand side, but right up against the edge, which tells us that we've lost detail in the highlights of the photo. Now, if we were to compare that to a history Graham oven image, which has more even tones, you can see what I mean about the clipping on. It wouldn't have mattered. What exposure metering mode I use for the kitchen photo, My dear Sell our, which some might say is a top of the range crop sensor camera, just couldn't cope with it. Possibly a more expensive fourth line camera would have done a better job. I've left the house to get to a local lake, and I've just snapped another scene, which can give rise to problems. That is when you have shaded areas and harsh sunshine in the image like you see here. Quite often, the area lit by the sun is blown out, but even if it's no, it could still spoil the image, as in this case also, if you're not careful, you can lose the detail in white buildings or structures when they're lit by harsh sunlight . So watch our and try to avoid that. Also, landscape scenes such as this one quite often have mid tone four grounds, but bright skies on only one or the other can actually be correctly exposed. Either you get a great looking sky, but the foreground is too dark. That's hopefully in this shop, for you get a perfectly exposed foreground. But now the sky is too black. Are just in just my settings, letting more life and looking at those two shots, Neither one is perfect. In the second shot, I just raised the I so slightly and slowed the shutter speed to let in more light. So what's the answer to this dilemma? Well, there were several solutions for landscape photography. Many photographers use a graduated neutral density filters to darken the sky there, pretty much indispensable for serious landscape. Work down something else that helps is to shoot in the war mode. Now there's a complete video about war versus J pig elsewhere in these videos, but very briefly, war falls capture extra shadow and highlight detail that you can extract and pull back later in post processing you won't see any sign of the of this on the camera, hissed a gram? No, because your camera will display a process. J. Peg Preview of your image for display on the LCD even if you shot in the war former. It still helps to get the exposure right, even if you should go. But the slight extra leeway might be all you need to capture extra extremely dark on bright tones in the image. Sometimes even shooting in war mode won't be enough. And this is where you enter the world of high dynamic range photography common in owners. HDR. The general idea is that you take several shots of the same thing, using different exposures and then in post processing. You use software to merge the images together. I'll come back to that in a moment. But first, let's start by taking a look at exposure bracketing. This is a setting that nearly all DS ill dear said ours have on many of the more sophisticated Compaq's on most miracles. Cameras, too. Exposure bracketing allows you to take successive pictures while gradually changing the amount of exposure compensation. Using exposure bracketing, you can shoot several pictures as desired. simply by keeping the shutter button pressed, just like many other camera settings. The actual mechanics of setting the exposure compensation or the experts, or the exposure bracketing fairies from camera to camera from one Nick on D 7100. There's a special button called BK T, which stands for bracketing. He pressed that and then turn adult to specify the number of shots on the order they're taken, so to give it simple, I'll choose three shots starting under exposure. Then I'll use another dial to choose the bracketing increment. That is the variation in the exposures, so I'll choose the one stop increments. So, having said that off the next three photos I take, the 1st 1 will be under exposed by one stop. The next one will be just right on. The 3rd 1 will be overexposed, but one more stop. Let's give this a try, and here you can see the variation in the three images. Typically, you would change the continuous mode so that the three shots all composed the same. That's what I just did. Be careful, though not to leave the camera in the bracketing mode afterwards. Otherwise, you'll get wildly very exposures on your wonder why Right away, you may be wondering what settings the camera users to change the exposure when bracketing . Well, it usually on is the mo joy. So if, for example, you're an aperture priority mode, it just a shutter speed for his shop. And if you're in shutter speed party mode in just the aperture food shop, so once you have the several images through for that one scene, each with a different exposure, what do you do with them? How do you merge them into one photo? Well, sorry to say that the mechanics is beyond the scope of this video. There are quite a few software packages that will do the work for you summer free or low cost. If you do a Web search for HDR software, you'll see quite a few. Generally speaking, the software work by bringing the under exposed, the properly exposed on the overexposed images. Together, it lines them up and then merges, um to create one image with all areas exposed properly. From what I've seen, they worked very well, finally, is were saying that exposure bracketing can also be quite handy for any difficult or tricky lighting scene where you're not really confident of getting a good exposure because it gives you a degree of safety. Here's a few examples. If you're shooting into the sun or any other bright light source, the side of the subject facing the cut camera will be in shadow. There'll be a huge brightness difference between your subject in the background, as I've explained. Overexposed Scare, Sky's sports landscape Photos On overcast days, a sky can be many stops brighter than the senior. Photographing a graduated filter will bring the sky within the camera's dynamic range. The difference between a windowless interior on a daylight seen outside will almost certainly be too great for a single exposure. To show any diesel through the windows, you need to use a CR techniques. If you include light sources within the actual flame for light, source will generally be too bright to record an exposure, which renders the rest of the sea normally just accept that this area will be overexposed. Spot Let states shows school plays etcetera. Quite often you can under expose using exposure conversation, but if you want to be on the safe side, exposure bracketing can help here. But that's about it on exposure, bracketing. If it's something that interests you, look it up in your camera's manual to learn what knobs and dials to use and then go out and practice it Bye for now. 16. 5 Tips for Sharp Focusing On Stationary Objects: in this film, I'm going to show you how you can improve your focusing skills to ensure you get tax sharp photos. These five tips are primarily aimed digital SLR users, but compact camera users should keep watching that some of it is relevant to you. If you're new to SLR photography, what maybe you just upgraded from a combat camera. Then you may be making a mistake of letting your camera choose the focus point for you on some cameras if you leave the camera and is fully automatic mode. What you're effectively doing is allowing the camera to make almost every decision for you , including where to focus, and sometimes it will get it wrong. For example, you may get a sharp background with your foreground subjects out of focus. Or maybe you have a couple of objects in the foreground, but a few feet apart, and the less important object is in focus. While the other one is not a sharp as you'd like, the image in your viewfinder may look something like this. Each of those squares is what's called a focus point or focus area. Here, you can see that several areas in the flame are selected rather than just the one you really want. So which part of the image will be in focus? Well, who knows? Well, actually, it's usually the one closest to the camera, but you get my point. What you need to do is take the camera out of the auto mode so that you could manually, manually select your own focus point. To do that. Just use one of the other creative modes, for example, aperture priority Shutter Speed Party program mode. It's such a or four manual. Even any of those modes will allow you to choose your own focus point. The actual mechanics have moving the focus point voters from camera to camera. So rather than showing you how it's done with this particular camera, it's best if you refer to your manual to see how to do it. For your specific camera is usually just a doll or button on the back of the camera. It's quite easy. You can see how it looks when you move the focus area through through the View Finder of my Neck on SLR. Apologies for the poor quality, But shooting through the View finder was the only way I could think of showing you that, showing you this, you can see the effect of manually moving the focus point first on this plant to the right , then over to the center, one onto the little gnome and now on to the plant to the left. So what I'm doing here is simply moving the focus area around around to focus on exactly the object I want and then half pressing the shutter button to look in the focus. Right away. The focus point remains where you left it, even after switching the camera often on again. So don't forget to put it back in the middle again afterwards. Now that you know how to manually set the focus point, it has to be said that it can be a bit fiddly, and sometimes you just don't have the time, or maybe the inclination to use that technique. If that's the case, and just use the center focus where which is generally more sensitive anyway. Obviously, obviously, if your subject is smack bang in the middle of the flame on behind that center focus square , then focusing is dead easy. But well, if you don't want to put your main subject in the center of the flame, for example, you may want to compose using the rule of thirds to put the subject on one side. So what do you do? Well, you use the focus on recomposed trick. Here's how it works. You simply place the center focus point on your subject. Then you half press the shutter, which will lock the focus. You then move the camera angle slightly to recompose and then take the picture all the time . While you have your finger are pressed on the shutter, the focus will remain locked, by the way, with some more sophisticated SLR. You can designate a button on the back of water back of the camera to lock the focus, but that's a topic for another day. Most experience photographers use this technique a lot more so than using the previous technique of moving the focus square around in the flame. So why not their news? The center focus point. Just focus on recompose every single time. Well, that's because under certain circumstances it can foul or it just doesn't work so well. Typically, it can foul when you're taking a photo with a very shallow depth of field, maybe a close up portrait with a wide aperture, say F 2.8. Only a very small part of the image will be in sharp focus. So let's say you focus on your subject's eyes and half press the shutter. Then when you recompose, the camera may just have moved back or forward very slightly. And so your subject size may not now be in sharp focus one easy way around. This is instead of swiving of the camera, from scientist side or up and down. It's actually move the camera along the same plane like this. But to be honest, if the depth of the debt the field is that shallow, there's still a risk that you might accidentally move the camera off of the plane of Focus so hard recommend sticking to the first tip. I mentioned a news, one of the other focus points. Instead, another problem with focus and recomposed is it could start start to get a bit tiresome. If you're taking a serious of shots of a stationary subject or moving very slowly, you find yourself doing this. Focus may compose focus on recompose focus on recompose. So in that case, I suggest you just focus using one of the other focus points that allows you to keep the camera in the same position on. Then you can just then go bang, bang, bang, keeping the camera fairly still to ensure good focus. But generally speaking, apart from those odd occasions I've just mentioned, if you're anything like me, you'll end up using the focus and recompose method. Most of the time, If you point your camera at the sky at a blank wall and try to take a photo, the chances are you'll hear the lens moving in and out trying to grab the focus, which, by the way, is called hunting. This happened because today's cameras need contrast ing areas to focus on. So when you have two objects together, one lighter than the other is the line between them that the camera tries to focus on. So if there's no contrast between the two areas and no edge, the camera won't be able to lock the focus. Let's give it a try. You see, when I try to focus on the plant pot, you can hear the lens hunting trying to lock the focus. If now I just moved the center point over to an edge than the camera quickly grabs the focus. In today's consumer SLR cameras, the center focus area is more powerful than the outside ones. That's because it has across type focus point so it can detect by vertical and horizontal edges. Usually the other focus areas only have vertical focus points, so they can only detect horizontal wedges. The difference is especially noticeable in lower light. If you're having trouble locking focus, we want one of the outside focus squares. Try switching to the center one and see if that works better these days. Most people rely on auto focus, which normally works just fine. But sometimes where you have fast moving subjects. For example, when taking sports or action photos, maybe wildlife or even Children running around, you need to be ready with the camera with your finger hard pressed on the shutter, already all set to snap, you don't always have time to manually focus, and you can always rely on the auto focus to be fast enough. So in those cases where you know where the subject is going to bay, but not when. Here's a couple of things you can do. You could manually focus on the spot where the subject will be, but more of that in a moment. Or you can auto focus on that spot and then take the lens out of the auto focus mode. There's usually a button on the side of the lens that will do that. Now the focus is locked on that very spot. So when your subject reaches that place, you don't have to worry about focusing. You can then concentrate on getting your timing on the composition like So let's say you want to take a photo of some Children running or coming toward you, something I love doing. Get them to stand in that spot where you're going to take, take them and put a twig or stone or piece of tape down auto focus on them and then take the lens out of the auto focus mode. So now the lens is focused on that very spot. Get them to run toward you, and then when they hit that spot, take the shop. Remember, though not to have to shallow depth of field, just in case of timing is a little out. Also, don't forget to Switzerland's back to auto focus afterwards, despite all the obvious advantages of auto focus, sometimes it is better to use manual focus. The problem is, it can be then be a little difficult to get the focus absolutely spot on. And that's especially true if you're using a shallow depth of field. Or the subject doesn't have a clearly defined pattern. Or maybe like may you just don't see as well as you used to. Well, here's a great tip to help you get tax sharp. Manual Focus. Most modern SLR that something called Live You. That's a special mode where the image appears on the LCD screen on the back of the camera instead of in the viewfinder, just like on a compact camera. So if you have a fairly modern SLR that has a live view mode and most of them do these days , then set the lens to manual focus on, then go into a live view mode like you see here, then zoom in on the LCD screen. I don't mean zoom the lens. Just make the view screen image larger by using the relevant button or control on the back of the camera. Now use the lens focus ring until the subjects look, the subject looks nice and sharp. Then just soon back out and come out of live view mode and you're ready to go. I use this trick for getting myself in focus. When shooting this video. He works great. 17. Continuous Focusing: Keep Moving Subjects In Focus: in this film, I'm going to show you how to keep moving subjects in focus using something called continuous, focusing on your DSLR or move this camera. I've kept this film separate from the other focus in tips because there's a bit more to it , and I feel it deserved a video all of its own. All of the focus and tips in the previous film were for taking photos of a stationary object, and they will use what is generally called single area. Also focus, to be specific. Nick on Calder's focus mode, a FS. And in the canon world, it's called one Shaw I. F. They're the default mode for shooting stationary subjects. But what if you want to take a sports photo, a world life or a bird in flight, or just a child running around and playing? Although in some cases you complete focus on a certain spot, as described in the previous video, it's generally best sir. Better to use continuous focusing. Nicole called his focus mode A F C, and can refer to is II servo. In this mode, you press the shutter halfway down on the camera. Auto focus also, focus system will try the subject while it's moving around whilst in the flame. Let's give it a try. Using highly is going to run towards me. I set the camera toe FC on. I'm keeping my finger half first on the shots at what he runs, and I'm also using burst mode to say several shots in a short space of time. Oh, by the way, I'm using that 72 202.8 lens. It's a fixed aperture lens, which is why Who is white? So big. But I'm going to shoot F four to blow the background and keep a fast shutter speed. So this is young Harley, and he's a really fast banner on your passes. One. You in your class. You want to go back to those trees and run towards Miss fast as you can. Okay, Yeah, way. Hang on. One the kind of three 123 go. As you can see, the continuous focus system handled that really well on Harley is night and sharpened. Focus. I'm going to try again this time as well as coming towards May. He's not going to remain in the center. He's going to jump onto the grass and run towards me that way. Also, I'm not going to move the camera to try and track him. I'm just going to keep the same static kind of composition with tree, the either side ready to go, Hardly a couple of steps them on towards me on the grass. Okay, goes the first shot was okay, but oh, no assume is he moved over to the side. He went out of focus. So what happened there? Well, as things that currently said, it's a center focused of the flame that he's being used by the camera in a continuous focusing mode. As soon as Harley ran over to one side away from the center focus, the camera agree, focused on the back wall. Hopes. Had I tracked him by moving the camera as he ran to the side, I would have had a much better chance of keeping him and focus as a continuous focusing did its work. The trouble is being the little terror, that is, he might have been too quick for me on man out of the center focus area. Think, for example, birds in flight or tennis players moving around on the court practically impossible to keep any one particular focus area over the subject. But of course, with today sophisticated also focus systems, a solution isn't is at hand. There's another mode, which solves the problem. I know yet another mode to think about Nick on Call it dynamic area and can call it F point expansion. Now, in this mode, you start off in the same way as for single shot, focusing by choosing one of the focused focus owes generally the sent 10 to 1, but it could be one of the others. If you want your subject off center now, when you have pressed the shutter, the camera will initially grab the focus in that particular focus area, just like it normally does. But here's the difference. If your subject moves out, moved moved out of that focus area, the camera will utilize the surrounding focus areas t track subject movement and keep focused on your subject. So the surrounding focus over is kind of assist the ones that you started off with now almost higher end cameras. The number of surrounding focus areas that make up the dynamic area is selectable on the more focus areas, there are the wider the area that is covered on this my Nick on d 7000 The nine area dynamic mode looks like looks like this on the 21 area dynamic mode Looks like this, and here's the maximum number of 39 being use. So why not just use the maximum number of focus areas all the time? Well, the reason is that the few of the focus areas, the less work the camera has to do. And so we'll focus slightly quicker. If you're only using, say, nine focus areas than the subject moves a bit too quick for you moves out of that food of those focus areas, you've then lost the focus. In that case, you should try using a larger, dynamic area with a really fast moving subject. You may need to use the maximum number of focus areas in my case, 39. Typically when taking moving subjects, you want to track them by painting the camera to track their movement to make sure that the subject states fairly close to the initially selected focus point on within the selected dynamic area. So let's try again. This time. I'm going to select one of the other focus points as my initial area to keep. Hardly on 1/3 offset the camera to nine point dynamic area and also paying the camera as him as he comes towards me. So I am. I end up with a different composition. Are you ready? Hardly two steps and then on this glass here. But a steady goes, uh, that were great again. The camera kept him in. Focus on Got a couple of great shots. Finally, many of the more than Nick on dear settlers have something called three D tracking mode, where you initially picked the I. F. Point on the camera will automatically activate, as many focus point is needed to track subject movement. Now the unique thing about the three D tracking mode is that it uses a special scene recognition system that actually reads colors that will track your subject automatically letting you compose your shot while the subject is moving around. For example, if you're photographing ah, white bird amongst blackbirds or, say, a tennis player wearing white on a green call or dog playing on a green lawn, the three D tracking system will ultimately focus on and track the subject letting you easily compose your shop. Unlike the other modes, you can actually see the focus area darting around within the viewfinder about great success with the three D tracking mode. But I don't think it is quite as quickly as using the dynamic area method, especially compared to using a smaller number of focus points. Plus, of course, it's not available on all canvas. The best way of getting to grips with all of this is to get out there in practice. There's no substitute for you may have to consult your camera manual to work out of settings for your particular camera, but that's all part of the fun. Why, for now? 18. Back Button Focusing: A Better Way of Managing Focus? : in this film, I'm going to show you a completely new wear focusing that maybe you haven't heard about or haven't tried before. And although it's explained in your camera manual, that's not much good. When the man you were sitting at the bottom of a drawer somewhere gathering dust Ah yeah, I could see I've hit a nerve there. So let me explain. Typically, when focusing, you set the focus by pressing the shutter halfway down, holding it there and then maybe re composing if necessary and then pressing the shot of the whole way down to take the shot. I'm sure that sound familiar, but there's an alternative where focus in that you might prefer on it does have several advantages. It's called back button focusing, and the fundamental difference between back button and standard focusing is that once you have it all set up, which, by the way, is very easy. Pressing the shutter button. No longer auto focus is instead, when you want to set the focus, you use one of the buttons on the back on the back of the camera, that is, it's probably best I repeat that the shutter button no longer focuses now, I appreciate that. The thought of having to press another button to focus might seem a bit weird at first. What I have to press another button to focus. No way am I doing that. Switch this ridiculous film off. But bear with me because many photographers, including myself, believe it's a better way of focusing. Plus, it's easy to do. Let's take a quick look at the actual focus button on the back of the camera. Some deer sellers like this do 300 of a specific button precisely for this purpose. Other cameras have a button that can be configured to do various things, while the menus some others might have a button with a L F l or asterisk is not difficult to identify the button. So this method of focusing separate or to use, the posh word it d couples of focusing from the shutter release button on your generally speaking, it gives you more control over the auto. Focus could make also focus easier to manage before I start showing you the practical advantages of back button focusing. Let's quickly change the settings on a few cambers as always, the actual mechanics of setting back button focus varies from camera to camera, even from different, even different models from the same manufacturer. Who knows one day to manufactures may standardize the way settings have changed on. If you believe that, you'll believe anything. It's generally pretty easy to change your setting on my now aging Nick on Day 300 because it already has a back button specifically for focusing, which actually works tray out of the box or we have to do is find the setting that prevents the shutter button from focusing. If I go into them and you, I know that it's a special custom setting called a F activation. I just go into that setting and make sure it sets a F on only rather than the default of Shutter. And I have on, like many dear. So last The Nick on D 71 100 doesn't have a specific a button on the back of the cama for focusing. Instead, there's a button in this case marked i E l I f L, which you can configure to do the various to do various things you configure the button oozing. Funnily enough, the sign I e l. I f L. But on menu, there's several things you can do, but the only option we're concerned with in this video is the focus. E. So I said it toe I a form, and that's dumb. On some captures. It may be a two step operation. Want to configure the back button on the other to reconfigure the shutter button so that it doesn't focus anymore? But on the nick on D 7100 it's a one step observation. I think Cannon would've first manufacturers to implement back button focusing around 1989. So, of course, you can do it on just about every canon DSLR using various custom menus. Again, consult your manuals for the exact method of changing the settings. If I showed them all in, this video would be here all day, and you'll probably start losing the will to live now. Once you've made these setting changes on the camera, the shutter release. But er no longer focuses instead for stationary subjects. Just one press of the back button will set the focus, and then you can release it on for moving subjects. Keeping your finger on the back button will continually focus. That's assuming you have the camera set up to do so, which I'll come back to later. The shutter is still fired with the same four purse of the shutter button. Okay, that that sound all well and good. But what are the real practical advantages of back? But I'm focusing. I hear you ask avoiding finger troubles. Sometimes using the shadow halfway down method of focusing can be quite frustrated. Sure, you can lock in focus but holding the shallow halfway down so that the focus will stay locked as long as you hold the shudder in limbo. But then you'll have to hold your finger there. If you really think about it, it sounds a bit impractical because if you let go or accidentally lift your finger just a little bit, the camera will be focused. As soon as you press the shutter down again or and you probably done this yourself, you press the shutter a little too hard and you take a picture before you or the subject is ready. Now, with the old method, you'd have to refocus on the subject with each shot. That's how you can end up with throw away shots where you accidentally focus on something else in the flame rather than on your intended subject. It's easier when using focus of me. Compose. If you like to lock, focus on recompose. Your find back button Auto focus. Very helpful. And that's because once you once your focus is set, you can then recompose a camera and take a many shots as you like without the auto focus trying to refocus on what now in the center of your picture. And this is especially true when using a tripod may be taking a landscape photo. Focus on me composing when using a tripod is cumbersome and not really very practical. So now you can just place the center focus area over the part of the image you want to focus on. Press the back button on. We compose just once. You don't have to adjust the camera position on the tripod again. Also, when focus on me composing, the exposure might be different between the two flame ings. So if you're using one of the semi auto exposure modes like aperture or shutter speed poverty, you could end up with the wrong exposure simply because you've exposed for the wrong part of the flame. Now. This won't happen with back button focusing because the exposure isn't set until you press the shutter button times when it's hard to achieve focus every now and again, it can be difficult to achieve. Unlock the focus through no fault of your own, of course. For example, you might be shooting in low light. Or maybe the lens you're using is a little slow to focus, and you're getting that kind of hunting sound from the lens. Or how about this? You go to the zoo or safari park on the animal or bird is behind some fencing, which sometimes the camera locks onto. In all of those situations, back button focus in would be better because, although it might initially be difficult to achieve the focus once you have achieved to focus, you then don't have to do it again. Well, I'm not know unless you or your subject have moved. Obviously, all of the examples and situations are mentioned cover stationary subjects. They're not moving, and neither of you before I continue with how back button focusing can help with moving subjects. It's worth a quick recap on the various focusing modes. I f s or F single shop. Now, regardless of whether you're using the back button or the shutter button with cannon, single shot focus or Nickens i f. S, the focus remains locked on the initial subject for as long as you keep your finger on the button. Of course, that's perfect if your subject is moving, but if they do move, there'll be a high risk of them going out of focus. A. F, C and I servo those modes air purely for continuous focusing. By the way, don't confuse continuous focusing with continuous flame advanced or burst mode, as it's sometimes called, where the shutter continues to fire. As your finger remains on a shutter release button. They are two completely different things anyway. Again, regardless of whether you're using the back button or the shutter button with the continuous focusing method, as long as you've got your finger on the focus button, the camera will continue to focus on your moving subject. It's really the only way to go for sports action. Children running and playing world life on birds in flight and solemn Hey, FAA or AI. Focus has can call it. This is the automatic auto focus mode on. It's a relatively new feature. Noel cameras have it, but it can be quite useful in this mode. The cameras focusing jumps back and forth between single and continuous modes, depending on the situation. It's sometimes a default auto focus mode in the full auto mode, and it can be great for subject with, um, put unpredictable movements. Personally, I don't use it as I prefer to have control over the focusing mode. So now we've covered the basics. Let's look up back button focusing on a moving subject just as we've using the shutter release to focus, the camera will continually focus while your fingers on the button. But here's the difference. You can continue to take photos, even if somebody or some object gets between you and the main subject. For example, let's say you're taking photos of a football match focusing on a player running with the ball. You've got your finger on the back button to continually focus on that player, but then another player comes across the flame in the foreground. Now, if you were using the old we're focusing, you'd have to take your finger off the shutter release button so you wouldn't be able to take another shot, but with that button focus in you just take your finger off that button and continue to shoot. But that reason apart, one of the main reasons many photographers now use the back button focusing is that they no longer have to switch between single shop on continuous focusing. Yeah, I realize that sounds a bit weird, but this is how it works. Regardless of whether the subject is stationary or moving, you keep the focus mode in a F, C or AI servo or whatever your continuous mode is called. Now, if the subject s stationary, you simply press and release the back button to get the focus, either by focusing me composing if necessary, or using one of the off center focus er's you're then also, once you've taken your finger off the back button, the focus is in effect locked until you press the button again. So if you do focus and recompose, the sequence would be place the center focus square on your subject. Press the back button to achieve focus, released the back button, then recompose. Now, if the subject is moving, you just press and hold the back button while keeping the focus area on the subject. This all works great. And just as I said, it means you don't have to choose between the single and continuous focus modes. Just keep it in continuous all the time. A couple of things You need to be a well, though first when taking a stationary subject using a focus every every composed mode. Come forget to release the shutter button before before we composing. Otherwise, a camera will refocus as you recompose. One small of aunt Distance disadvantage, I should say, is that at least on Nikon cameras, you don't get that. We're showing little beep when the camera locks. Focus in the continue in the continuous mode, but that is a shame, but it's a small price to pay. It's certainly worth giving this focusing method to try, but it must be said that it can be a bit awkward at first. Some people try it and give up what I just can't get on with it. But now that I've got used to it, like most people, I wouldn't go back to using a shot of at least button. So do persevere with it. It will pay you dividends in the long run boffin l 19. Get Sharper Photos: Choosing The Right Shutter Speeds: I'm just taking a picture of these flowers here on the table to me. Nice and close. Look at that. Lovely. Okay, Not exactly the most interesting photos ever taken, but this this when exposed and in focus. Oh, hang on. It's actually not in focus is a bit blurry. I did not happen. If you take a closer look at this photo, you'll see that although it's quite blurry, it's not really out of focus. You can generally tell when the shots out of focus, because although the subject is generally blurry, some parts of the image are actually in focus. But not in this case. Most people, when I see a blurry photo like this, automatically think that the picture is out of focus. But more than not, it's caused by camera. Shake on camera Shake is made worse when you zoom in the lens, I'll demonstrate this with my special tool. There's absolutely no expense being spared in bringing you these high production value films. Here we have my high tech, solar powered camera shake simulator Peyton applied for. I'm calling it the I shake. I'm expecting a call from Apple sometime soon. When I moved to branched up and down. Just say about an inch where my hand is the leaves at the end to go up and down a lot, about 67 inches. So the movement is being magnified because of the length of the branch. So, similarly, when you zoom the lens and increase, the focal length is much more difficult to keep the camera steady. By the way, I'm not suggesting that has anything to do with the fact that the lenses now extended its purely the longer focal length and greater distances between Cameron subject that causes a problem. So if you're taking a picture of a subject way off in the distance and you zoom right in, the chances are they they're going to be joking about a little bit on that movement is going to cause camera shake. Let's try a little experiment now, by taking the video camera off the tripod on, we'll see how this looks through the lens of the camera, so the video cameras now office tripod and offset the lens to its wider set in. Just focusing on his flowers and see it looks quite steady now. I've moved right back and zoomed in to about 2 50 mil and you see the flowers and now jiggling around, and I swear I'm not doing this on purpose. I really am trying to hold the camera steady as possible. So it's that movement that causes camera shake. But there are some easy ways around it. You could put the camera on a tripod, or perhaps on a wall or table. But the easiest way of doing it is to change the settings on the camera to increase the shutter speed, which will then freeze the action. If you have a compact camera and you don't like to mess around with the settings too much, the easiest way to do it is to put the camera into the sports scene mode, and that will automatically increase the shutter speed, which would then freeze the action. Now, if you're in SLR use, or perhaps you've got one of the new minimalist type of cameras, or maybe even a sophisticated compact camera, you're then have more control over the shutter speeds. On the slower the shutter speed, the more likely you are to introduce camera shake, but there is a simple law which will help you to work out. What is the safer slowest shutter speed If you are focal length of, say, 50 mil, then unless you're using a tripod, you shouldn't really go any slower than about 50 years of a second. If you're 135 mil, then about 125th of a second is about the slowest 200 mil 2/100 of a second. So that's the general rule. But of course, some people were capable of holding a camera a lot steady it and others. So it's really just a rough guide. Now I'm going to take a picture of these flowers now. My common settings are F 16 a 60th of a second, which is a very slow shutter speed for hand holding because I'm going to zoom in to 200 mil on the lens. The flowers are quite nicely backlit, so this would look quite good. The problem now is, as you can see, the flowers are a little bit blurry because I was shooting 1/60 of a second when my focal length was 200 mil. So I'm now going to change your settings to increase the shutter speed, and that's going to freeze any movement that I make with the camera, but in actual fact, because of the flowers are flying around. That was also helped to freeze a bit of movement in the flowers. So, as you see once I start increasing the shutter speed because I'm in shutter poverty mode, the camera will automatically compensate by changing the aperture. So I'm now a 250 of the second at F 5.6. Let's try this again. Yeah, that's a much improved picture. Lovely and sharp. Let's zoom in on it to make sure perfect the problem of camera shaken. Be exasperated when it starts getting a little darker because you already at the widest aperture on the camera just won't let you change to a faster shutter speed. Because there's just simply not enough light. I can demonstrate this by points in the camera, something dark on. We can get over the problem by changing the ice so setting. So let's see how dot com work. So the Lindsay zoomed into 200 mil on the settings are Ice I 100 aperture at 5.6 on 125th of a second. The shot of speed is really too slow for that focal length. I could try taking a picture, but the risk of camera shake is just too high. The problem is, the aperture is already at its wider settings, and I just cannot get the shutter speed any higher. So the solution to this tile Emma is simply to keep the aperture as it is on just increase the I. So to say, about 400 maybe 800 if it is quite dark once you've increased the I. So in this case 400 you can then simply increase the shutter speed on the camera will automatically compensate by opening up the aperture topping the I so will increase the noise or grain in a photo. But it's really much better to ever sharp, maybe slightly noisy or grainy photo than it is to have a very clean image, which is all blurry. That's something you just cannot fix afterwards. If you're in a low light situation and you just don't want to start messing around with the settings on the camera, the other thing you can try. It's a lean against a wall or post type of pictured steady yourself against a wall a pack of movie help. The other thing that could make a big difference is that why you hold the camera? If you use a combat camera and you're just holding out like this, well, you're asking for trouble. It's much better to keep your arms, your your elbows talk. Then, if you have an SLR, the extra pressure of putting it against your eye helps to steady the camera. But you also need to tuck your elbows in as well. That should make a much better stadia stance. One other thing to continue is your breathing. What helps me is to take the photo just a zai excel, or sometimes in between breathing out and breathing in. Apparently, that's what the Olympics shooters do. One final thing that I forgot to mention is that many of the newer cameras now have something called vibration reduction or image stabilization. And that's the technology that helps to reduce camera shake. Sometimes the technologies in the lens, and sometimes it's in the body. It depends on the manufacture, but that community help now. If you have that on your camera, you can safely use slightly shower sport shutter speeds. Anyway, that's about it. Hope this film is going to help you to take sharper photos. Bye for now, 20. The Cyclist: as you saw in a previous ville to shut the speed on your camera is used alongside the aperture to control exposure. But you can also make use of the shutter speed to take a bit of control, creative control of emotion. And if you get it right, you can. That's a move, drama to your images. To demonstrate how the shutter speed countries motion, I'm going to take a picture of my young one friend will fee. As this cycle was across by this wall, I'm going to pan the camera a little as he cycles to freeze the action. I need a far shutter speed. Now. I'm already in shutter speed poverty mode, so I'm going to choose a shutter speed of about 8/100 of a second. That should be plenty to freeze a cyclist. I'm just going to take a quick photo. Just see what exposure the camera gives me. Now I can see that is showing the world low in the display. Just where the aperture should bay. Despite that warning is still allowed me to take a picture. But it is under exposed and too dark. The reason for the low message Hello is that because I've set such a Farshad disobeys, obviously reducing the amount of light coming into the camera. It wants to use a wider aperture than the lenses capable off. I think this is a nick on only message. Canon and other cameras may display a different message or none at all. It's only a warning. So, apart from giving up and going home, what can I do about it? If you watch the film on Exposure Triangle, you'll know that three variables work together to control the exposure. They are shutter speed. I s O on aperture. Well, I noticed shutter speed I want already, and that's 1/100 of a second. I want to keep that as it is. Also know that the camera wants a lens aperture beyond its maximum, and that's why I'm getting this low display in the viewfinder. So that only leaves the I. So what I can do is bump up the eye, so to increase the camera sensitivity to light, and that will make the lower disappear. So I'll increase the I. So from 100 which is what is currently said to to say 400 then I'll try again Okay, so let's try another shop now. I've got the following settings on 1/100 of a second shutter speed aperture F 5.6 higher. So 400. Okay, here he comes. Here he comes. Looking good. Well, as you just heard, the camera was in a burst mode. So I was able to take a few shots as he went past, plus a had continuous focusing set. And you'll notice I Panizzi when as he went past, the pictures come out pretty well. Will Frias, nice and sharp on with a sharp background. The problem with all that sharpness is it doesn't really convey the motion is he cycled across the scene. It would look better if he was fairly sharp against the blurry background to give the impression of movement. To do that, I'm going to slow the shutter speed right down to about 1/50 of a second, which will allow more of the movement to show in the image. However, it will also allow mawr lighted. But as I'm in a shutter speed party mode, the camera will automatically closed down the aperture to keep a good exposure. Uh, now come up against a similar problem to last time, but only the other way around. This time, the aptitude, the appetite value on the LCD is now showing his hire a child. The camera can't close down the lens far enough to balance out the so it's a slow shutter speed. It's allowed me to take a photo, but its way overexposed. And so it's too bright now. That's mainly due to the fact that my eyesight was still set to 800 from the last shot. So, Odo that down to 100 try again Now I've got the following settings 1/50 of a second shutter speed aperture F 11 I s 0 100 I'm ready to try again. I know. 5th 50th of a second is about right, because I've just tried to shop a dozen times while we weren't filming. Okay, so I cheated a little, but not really. You do have to practice and try things out until you get it right. Okay. Will free. I'm ready for you. As you see Will fear still sharp. And that's because I panned the camera at the same speed as he was cycling. But the background the war is now blurry, giving the impression of speed on movement. I think you'll agree it looks more exciting that way, so that gives you an idea how you can play around with shutter speed to control motion. 21. Running Water: following on from my previous blockbuster film, Starving, my young friend will free on his bike. Here's another great way of getting a lovely creative shop with careful use of the shutter speed. Fast moving water could not great with careful use of your shutter speed. Here's a small babbling brook alongside the Grand Union Canal in light and buzzer. But I want to demonstrate how you can completely change the look of the water just by changing the shutter speed. First of all, I'm going to use a far shutter speed cameras set to five hundreds of a second aperture F 5.6 for I s O 200. Let's give that a try. You can see that Although the water was for the fast moving, it's still pretty sharp on, although it looks quite nice, it doesn't really convey the movement of the water, so I'm not going to take another shot. But this time I'm going to slow the shutter speed to a night of a second. And that should show the movement emotion of the water. So my settings are eighth of a second aperture F 22 I s 0 100 Now I don't have a tripod with me. So I'm going to have to take my arms and hold the camera. Really? Study Comparing the two photos. You can really see the difference slowing down the shot it has made you get this nice kind of creamy cotton candy effect on the water with such slow shutter speeds. In this case, an eighth of a second. Even a very small apertures say around F 22 on Low I S O numbers around 100. Chances are the images still going to be too bright trying to be overexposed? You might even get a warning on your camera. Now that's going to be worse on a very quiet day. I was quite lucky here because this book is surrounded by trees on the light levels are quite low. But what can you do about that? Well, first of all, you can come back when it's a little bit darker, maybe a dusk or when you've got some good cloud cover. Thea. Other thing you can do is use something called a neutral density filters. Things gets placed over the lens, usually just screwing in and simply makes everything go darker. You're then have far more control over the exposure. This film isn't about neutral density filters, but if you're interested in doing this type of shot, then just do a quick Web search your find loads of information about them. They're very useful. In fact, they're the only type of filter that I use. 22. Camera and Lens Settings For Portraits: well, we're here again at the Leighton Buzzard narrow Gauge railway. It just so happens that John Travolta was making a film a few days ago nearby, and he paid a visit with his son and took him on the train. How about that? It's a shame I wasn't making this film when he was here. Maybe he could have had played a starring role in it. Anyway, In this video, I'm going to be talking about the camera settings I use for Paul Traits. Now, when taking photos of people, many factors come into play. So although this film is primarily about the camera settings I use on which I think the best, I'll also be talking about other aspects of portraiture. It almost goes without saying that the light is probably the most important factor in portraiture, along with the background on Do you know your subjects expression? So I will touch or no subjects a little bit. But really, I want to concentrate on the camera and the lens settings, my own personal preference for poor traitors to get that great subject isolation by blowing the background. If you get it right, it can really make the subject pop out of the image and focus of viewers. Eye on the subject. On the other hand, you might be on holiday site. I want to show your subject near the famous background, So in that case, you don't want the background to be a blow of patent colors. You wanted to be recognizable as a famous building or landmark in this film. Now I'm going to ignore that type of scene in favor of standard type portraiture. If you've watched my other films, you'll know that to blur the background, you do need a large aperture that is a small F number. So to start off with, I'm going to set the camera to aperture priority F 2.8 on the lens. If your lens doesn't have such a wide aperture, just use the largest one you have that that is the small, you know, the widest aperture. If I'm taking photos of a couple and I was quite close up, I wouldn't use such a large aperture switch to about F four to make sure both of them were in focus for three or more people on to close down the aperture even further to a 5.6, or FAA, depending on how many people in the photo for a really big groups such as All the guests at a wedding are Jews F 11 and Focus about 1/3 or half way into the group. Today I'm using an 85 mil F 1.8 Nick Orleans great for portraiture as it allows me to stand further back and still get in a fairly close up short by using a longer focal length and standing further back for portrait, the perspective or better on, I'll get Mawr. Flattering photos. I've said it before, and I'll say again, we all want to look good in our photos, so you should avoid getting in too close, especially for those head and shoulders time shots. As the face can become distorted, I'm going to be taken some portrait of Sophia here. We're already in some lovely light because it's a cloudy, overcast A, and we've got these branches covering us, and so that will give us, um, some top shade when it comes to the light. I'm not prefer to use natural lion with open shade or top shade, but if if I'm just out in the open, and I don't have any anything covering. Subtracting the light from above. I'll tend to use a reflector on if I don't have a reflector, are used feel flash. So that's my mess. My preferences top shade on, then reflector and then fill flash. So what about the Mitre mode? Well, usually I'm in evaluative or metrics major mode. That's more. That's what I tend to use most of the time. But in this case, I think I'll go to spot me, too, because I talked about spot metering on another film on. We'll give that a try to see if it works. Actually, I've just had a thought. Instead of using my fast 85 mil lens to start off with, I'm going to use this 18 to 200 Nikon lens on this is a variable aperture. Linse, similar to lenses that come with most cameras these days, are going to set it to 35 mil focal length on the aptitude it's given May it is F 4.2, so lots of the short with this lens, and then we'll compare it to the one with the 85 mil, right? I'm having to get in a bit closer now because of the focal length. That looks reasonable, but I think we'll see a big difference when compared to the next shot. Have now switched to the 85 mil lens, which is a prime lens. Obviously on. I've set the appetite to F 2.8, not when shooting at these very wide apertures. You have to be very careful about focusing. Not normally. I use the focus and recomposed method, but when you taking portrait this close and that such wide apertures, I find personally it's best to use one of the off center focus points on focus on the eyes . That's the most important thing, because when you look at a portrait, the first thing you notice is a person's eyes, so it's best to get the eyes in focus. Just give this a try that I might have to move out of the shop as I don't want to be too close. Actually, no, it's fine about it with a smile. Look past me now. Yeah, this is a much better portray. The blurred background really helps toe isolate Sophie from the background on as a viewer, your eyes are drawn in towards ERM or also if we compare the photo side beside her face looks slightly slimmer, partly because I'm standing further back and so have a different perspective, but also because she's turned a face like away from me. But look at her upper arm that also look slimmer, doesn't it? When here's a shot, why are Sophie to look away from the camera? She is looking rather pensive, but a lovely photo nonetheless. Why not try something slightly different in the way opposing? We've still got some nice light with the overhanging branches, but this time it's going to be a full rent shop. So if it's sitting against a tree, nice, relaxed pose. No, she's got one leg up on the one leg up on the grass. The other ones, slightly further down, always makes a nice kind of pose. Let's give this a try. Have to come quite a long way back. There's a full and shop. Come back even further. Okay, Looking good. Hezb lying about a little bit in the wind mind does that occasionally as well. Oh, now look past me so and I looked down at the grass. He's turned out pretty well. I like sideways seated poses and also like it sometimes if the subject doesn't actually look at the camera, notice both the blood foreground and background giving us given to us by an aperture of F two. You can actually see the depth of field running through the image right away. I like sometimes to get out of focus highlights in the background, which you can see here between the trees. I want to make use of this glassy slope here, and I put Sophie lower down and I'll take a photo from higher up that is going to be a very close up shop. Now I've set the aperture to its maximum of F 1.8, and that's going to give me a very shallow depth fulfilled. So I certainly won't be using focus of recompose. I'll just use one of the outside focus areas. The other problem is sometimes in these very shallow depth of field, you get one eye and focus on one. I slightly blurred. So what you want to do is focus on the nearest I. I just changed my focus point. This gives us a lovely portrait. He probably can't see on your screen, but her hair and the far shoulder has gone very soft, as has the actual shoulder itself. And that's because of the shallow depth of field. By the way, I do prefer landscape orientation images with lots of negative space. There'll be a film about negative space one day on my other course, but here's what the image looks like in a portrait orientation while leaving to you to decide which you prefer. Notice, by the way, that I've dropped off part of her head to give that short a little more impact. Now when you do that, be bold. Don't just chop off the top of the head, Really go for it. So far I've been using some clean, fairly uncut of backgrounds. But in this show I'm going to use that far wall with this brickwork, Andi, because I'm using ah, wide aperture, he should make a kind of pattern, a pattern background. Now we don't have the benefit of top shades, and in fact, I think I'll take three shots a straight a straight photo, then one using reflector, And then I put the flash on the camera and you some fill flash now this reflect about away is a kind of a semi silver in a semi gold on other Jews is our uses generally on a cloudy day. When the sun comes out to Bryant, you're blind, your subject. So I normally use a white reflective for that. In fact, the sun is going in and out, so we have to be quick. But let's start off with a straight shot that's nice in the wind. Bit of light on the back. Beautiful. There's a few elements and make this a lovely photo. First, the wide aperture has thrown the brick work completely out of focus so that we can't help but look at Sophia's face. Secondly, most of the light is behind her, giving us some nice room lighting round her hair, which is blowing in the wind. And finally, she has a lovely natural expression. Now we try one with a reflect with the reflector. Yes, this is going to be more of a close up shot because I'm gonna be I don't have an assistant . How did? That's a lovely light on the face, so I to get in close. I probably should have used a 50 mil lens instead of the 85 to try and keep the same perspective so that we could compare it more easily with the other two shots. But you can see that she has lovely lie on a face with more color and otherwise. Now put the flash on, and it's in the TT A L B L mode, which is a specific nickel mode. If you don't have that, then just use Teoh on. I've got the power dial down to minus 1.7 because we don't want it to look to to kind of over flashed. Let's give this a try, see how it looks the fuel flash or has turned that world a lovely light on her face and catch light in her eyes, comparing the three photos together. Assuming in on these two, they look pretty good. I prefer the light know best in the reflector shop. It's kind of crisper on a lot more natural looking than the one we fill. Flash notice, by the way that I tried to keep Sophie engaged to during the shoot. She's not a model, just a friend, so no, she's not used to doing this, but I kept chatting to her throughout on. That helped to keep her relaxed and to get some lovely, nice expressions. So that gives you an idea about the setting I use for poor traits. I tend to use mostly manual exposure mode, but with the help of the exposure meter dial inside the viewfinder, you know, on top of on the LCD panel on the back LCD. I took some of the shots earlier using spot spot meeting with a little over exposure. But normally I just used the evaluative or metrics meter mode. If you're not that comfortable using manual exposure mode, I'd recommend aperture priority for Portrait's so that you can easily choose wide lens apertures now. Obviously, many of you won't have fast prime lenses, so just set your lens to the widest temperature for individual portrayed, not forgetting to close down the aperture by stop or two for groups, as I mentioned earlier when taking Mawr kind of environmental photos with, say, a famous landmark in the background just choose a smaller aperture. So that's about it. Probably enjoy the film 23. Church Interiors: The Best Settings To Use: This is a perennial favor, isn't it? There are many beautiful churches and cathedrals around the world. This is just one of them All Saints Church in Leighton Buzzard, UK. My daughter was married here in 2000 and nine, and I photo after a few weddings here, too, as well as beautiful architecture. There's a quite often lovely light inside churches, and that's important to capture. If you want to avoid your photos looking like simple snapshots for the first few shots, I want to photograph the whole church interior, or at least as much of it as I can. First of all, I'm going to make sure the flashes is off. Many churches don't even allow flash, but in any case, the flash one reach very far. Plus, you wouldn't want to try and like the church with this small light, especially if you want to retain the nice ambient light. Like many churches, the light levels in here are quite low, so that problem is going to be getting enough light to get a good exposure to start off with. Then I'm going to set the camera to aperture priority and choose the largest aperture possible that is the smallest number. If I had the benefit of a faster lens, I'll probably set the aperture to buy F two or F 2.8. But knowing that many of you out there use the kit lens that came with your camera, I'll use the similar lens. The maximum aperture on this on most kit lenses is at 3.5, so that's what I'll be using. Usually, when photographing a large scene like this, it's best to close the aperture down to maybe F 11 or F 16 to make sure you have a wire depth of field and everything is in sharp focus. But because of the low lying I don't really have that luxury on. We'll have to use a large temperature. It's not too much of a problem for the first set of shots, because I'm going to zoom the lens zoom lens out to the wider setting on when lenses air used at the wide angle end, you get a far larger debt, fulfilled sodium. It should be. Images should be quite sharp. If you're confused. What's the film's about lenses and also depth of field? So that's the appetizer, the less I was set to its minimum of 100 but will come back to that in a moment. Let's see what happens when I take some photos, drop out of life. You can hear that the shutter speed is really slow. Aperture F 3.5 A nice. So 100. The camera set the shutter speed to an eighth of a second, which is too long to hold the camera steady. And so I got blurry photos. Jews to camera shake. I really need to shutter speed of at least a 60 of a second. I'm getting old and shakey now, so I know my limitations on 1/60 of a second is about to slow a shutter speed I feel confident with before I introduce some camera shake you youngsters out there might be okay at 30 of the second or even slumber. Remember, I'm in aperture priority mode, so I don't have any direct control over the shutter speed that is, I can't use any dial's or bottoms to change the shutter speed, but what I can do is increase the I S o. I'll set it to 3200 and the camera will automatically compensate by using a faster shutter speed if you're confused by the relationship between aperture shutter speed and I. So what's the film on the exposure triangle? So I'm gonna just change your eye so to 3200 Let's try 1600 CR Get on now. My settings are a 3.5 higher, so 1600 around 60th 1/100 of a second. Now these photos look a lot better. Sure, they're a little bit more grainy, But you know, the cameras are getting so good nowadays that it's not something that bothers me anymore. Plus, I know that if I print the photos, it's good. They're going to look great. So to summarize, when taking a wine shop inside the church, turn your flash off, use the largest aperture and set the I so to around 1632 100 depending on light levels, you might even have to shoot 1/3 30th of a second, in which case keep the camera really steady and press the shutter a smoothly as possible in one smooth motion. What about close ups of a wedding or christening if you're taking photos inside a church at a wedding or christening you'll almost certainly want to zoom in on the action. And if you're using a kit lens, that's kind of make life more difficult for you. The reason is that the aperture will automatically close down as you zoom in so you may start off. It's a of 3.5 when the lenders at its most wide angle, but by the time the lens has reached its maximum focal length, the aperture will have changed to a 5.6. That's because the maximum aperture many kit lenses when they're zoomed in is generally about 5.6. This means that to automatically compensate, the camera is going to slow the shutter speed, and you may end up trying to shoot on eighth or 15th of a second without even realizing it too slow to safely handhold. So what can you do about that? Well, first of all, consider investing in better equipment, and I mean a faster lens. Maybe a prime lands many prime lenses if one point I or faster. Alternatively, there were many zoom lens it, which have fixed maximum apertures of F 2.8, but they're a bit more expensive there, definitely worth having though, see my film about lenses for more information. But let's assume you're in one of the pews that wedding couples are about to exchange their vows, and there just isn't time to rush out to the shops and buy new legs, assuming the same light levels as we had before. You've now zoomed in the lens and you have the following settings at 5.6 15th of a second I s 0 3200 1/15 of a second is just too slow to safely take a photo without camera shake, especially as you're now zoomed in, which would accentuate any camera shake. Plus, you might get some subject movement to adding to the general blurriness. The only real option left for you is to increase the I so to 6400 or even higher, not too much of a problem. If you have a fantastic new DSLR camera, which is excellent with high, I suppose that will give you a shutter speed of, say, 30th of a second or 60th. Alternatively, you could zoom out slightly to allow a maximum aperture of about 4.5. You just have to crop the image on the computers or made the subject larger. If you do have a faster lens with a maximum aperture of F two point I a wider, there's set the letters to after you 2.0.8 any wider, and you may run into trouble with two shallow depth fulfilled. You're then have set in something like of two point 825th of a second eso 3200 or 6400 giving you a lot more safety regarding camera, shake or subject movement. So to sum of eyes, when taking a wedding or baptism inside a church, you'll get better photos with a fast climb or fixed aperture zoom lens. Not necessarily because of them improved image quality, but simply because them capable of letting more light in. And you are in a low light environment. Turn off the flush used a maximum aperture. That's a smaller Steph number that your lenses capable off increasing I so to around 3200 or 6400. Try not to let the shutter speed dropped below 60th of a 2nd 125th is better if you're zoomed in to avoid camera, shake right away. Don't forget to turn the higher so back to 100 or 200 when you go back outside. Bye. For now, 24. RAW Vs JPG Image Formats: most year, Solares and Miller's campus cannot put the photos to the memory card in at least two different formats. Law on J. Peg. When you actually take the photo, the sensor in the camera gathers all of the data coming in and then saves all the information either in the Lord data, former or J Peg former. Depending on your camera settings, the J pig image files a very convenient. They're easier to work with on their smaller, so you can get lots more of them on your memory card. And also they don't take up so much space on your computer's hard drive. One problem with J Pegs is that they are what's called lossy. So if you were to say, work on an image to say, make it darker or lighter, or to make it more contrast, E. And you did that say, five or 10 times in different editing sessions, the image far would lose information, and so the photo quality would deteriorate. But probably the most important aspect of J. Peg files is that all of the picture options you've specified in the camera setting menus I'll applied within the camera and saved to the J. Peg, for example, you may have told the camera that you want vivid or very sharp photos. Or maybe you've applied, say, a white balance preset for a cloudy day, or possibly even used a black and white picture setting. Which, by the way, I wouldn't advise whatever picture options you said will have been applied and saved as a finished J pig image already to be viewed on the screen or printed or email to someone more . Farmers, on the other hand, are completely different. I'm going to use a quick and energy to help explain it. I have here, Mr Potato Head, Remember him. Let's pretend for a minute that all of the little pieces are the settings for your camera that we can apply to an image on that Mr Potato Head represents a your file. As an artist, I'm going to get my creative juices flowing and make a great fun potato head our speed up the film so it doesn't take too long. I put my lovely hat given some hands and nose and moustache there. I finished, but you know I'm not that happy with it. I think I'll try a different hat and moustache combination on goes the hat and moustache. How about some glasses? Yes, that's it. Perfect. You know, I'm sure I've seen him before somewhere, Maybe in a film. Yeah, of course. It's the toy story. Potato Head. I think he won an Oscar for that film. You can think of war files as being a bit like Mr Potato Head. You can chop and change his head, gear his eyes and ears and glasses for as long as you like. And yet the original potato remains intact so you can start again. It's the same with law falls. You can keep adjusting exposure, white balance contrast, sharpening as many times and for as long as you want on any time you can get back to the original raw file. Because photo editing suites never overwrite the war fall. Whereas if you can imagine for a moment that all the pieces are stuck on with glue and won't come out easily, this would represent R J pic file. All of the head gear has been applied, and this is our finished product. Sure, I can fiddle with it. I might be able to put off his hat and put a different one on, but I might damage him in the process. On the more changes I make to his poor little face, the more damage to obey. Even though you can work on a J pig in photo shop or whatever editing software you use, you're far more limited in what you could do safely compared with the glory file. Okay, now that I've finished showing that if you know anybody who wants an ever so slightly used Mr Potato Head, please let me know when you take a photo. The data is taken from the sensor on the camera uses the common settings to determine whether it's to create a law or J pic image fall. If you've told the camera you'd like Ajay pig, all of the various settings, such as contrast, saturation, white balance and so on are then applied before the images saved to the card is compressed according to the options you've specified in the menus, the options are usually something like basic normal. Fine or super fine are you recommend keeping the compression to a minimum on using and using the best settings fine or super fine. Whatever it's called on your camera sometimes heavy compression cammiso in artifacts or blocking in the photo, or kind of banding between transitions of colors a bit like in this heavily compressed studio photo, where you can see the artifacts on the left. Plus, there is a smooth radium between the light and dark colors where the arrow is pointed. You can them work on the J Pic photo in your editing software, but that's an optional step. Many people don't even bother. They just use the photo exactly as it comes out of the camera. When you do show in more mode, you would need to process the boar photo on your computer, at which time you can apply all of the various camera settings that you want when you're done and completely finished editing, you saved the photos a. J peg in another format, such as tiff or PNG. If you want the original law far whatever never gets saved over or over written before a shark comparison of the editing of law and J pick flowers on my PC, it's worth mentioning that the other big advantage of law over J Pig is that they hold a lot more image data. That's not to say there necessarily better quality, or at least not so as you'd notice, just that there are much easier to work on. Manipulate J Pic files eight bit so two to the power of a is 2 56 more files a 12 bit so two to the power of 12 it was 4096 or four K. This means that J pigs have 256 different lightness levels between the darker shadow on the lighters highlight, whereas law falls have over 4000 lightness levels between those two points, giving far more latitude when fixing problems in post production. For example, with a law image, you may well be able to pull back the information and say overexposed on burnt up white clouds with the J pic file. If there's no detail in a particular area of an image darker in, it would only make it go on Muddy Grey. You won't be able to pull back any of the detail that was originally there in the in the scene or not so much of it. I've just been out to take this photo in the local park, and I set the camera to take both war and J pic photos. So it's the same photo in two formats. I've imported the pictures into adobe like them, but you could use photo shop or aperture or any other software that recognises the floor format. Here's a guy pick, and this is the goal. As you can see, the sky doesn't have much detail in it. When I person is buttered on the hissed a gram, areas that don't have any detail in them are shown in red, and you can see that even before we start. The J Peg image has a slightly larger area of blown highlights than the law. Over on the right are the controls and button sliders for changing settings. Liben has a handy highlight slider, which brings back areas of the photo that overexposed and not showing much detail like the sky in this shop. When I move the slider to reduce the highlights on the door fall, you can see the detail in the clouds coming back notice the rest of the photo has stayed the same. The slider has just affected the highlights in the sky. Now do the same to the J pig. It has bought detail back to the sky. But when we compare just a sky of the two images you can see that's far more detail in the clouds in the Gore fall. I haven't done anything else to the photos other than adjust the highlights. So no cheating involved. Here's another example this time a studio shot again. It's the same image in both formats. You can see the white balance is completely wrong. If I move the white balance slider for the raw file, you can see just how easy it is to correct the mistake. Just a ziff. I was setting the white balance before taking the actual picture there. That looks pretty good when I try the same thing. No on the J. Peg have really struggled to get good flesh tones. I could probably do it if I spent a long enough, but probably at the expense of the White Wall, which would end up with a color caste. But even so, it that I could get as good a flesh tone as in a simple adjustment in the your file. So after all of that, you may be asking yourself, Should I shoot in law? Orange a pig, which is best. J pegs up fast to use their great quality now editing software needed. It's a universal, far format, so they'll display everywhere on the image. Files themselves are smaller, however. Editing functionality is limited, especially if you make mistakes when you take the photos. More farmers, on the other hand, give you total post production control, plus a good degree of insurance if you've made exposure or white balance mistakes. By the way, if you have made a focus in mistake, too bad you're on your own with that one. That's one thing that can't be fixed after the fact more far was a large and not suitable for e mailing or social networking use. Unless you post process than first, The former itself is not a universal standard. And so the files on manufacturer and camera specific. So it's possible you won't even be able to see your photos without some type of image editing software. In a nutshell. There's no absolute best only what is best for you. That particular subject, your shooting style on whether you like to post process your photos for quick fire photos of family and friends or holidays and for quickly mating the images or for social networking or, in fact, anything where you don't intend doing much postproduction. Stick to J pegs If you're shooting subjects where you know you'll want to do a fair amount of post processing, maybe fine are off a competition or for customers or for something special, like a bridal portrait or great landscape. You're probably best shooting more so you can get the maximum quality form each image. Some cameras, in fact, that you shoot Law and Jay picked at the same time. They'd like to falls to the memory cards, So if you're not sure, you can give that a try. In fact, I do that myself quite often. I hope that answers any questions you had about Law and J pigs. So from both myself and Mr Toy Story Potato Head, bye for now, 25. Understand White Balance, Get Better Colors : throughout the day, the light changes as decided, moves across the sky. It may be appeared to be read off in Jell O or even white, depending on its position in the sky. And so the color of our surroundings change with it. Indirect sunlight. Everything is slightly yellow, especially around sunrise and sunset. But when we have cloud cover, everything then looks a little bit bluer because the sun is shining through blue grey clouds and went indoors. In the tungsten bulbs, the room looks quite yellow. These shifting colors are measured in Degrees Kelvin, named after William Thompson Calvin, who in the 19th century proposed an absolute skull of color temperature now known as the Kelvin scalp. Indirect sunlight, even even though the light is slightly yellow, this reflector probably looks quite white, and that's because the cameras white banner setting is set to the sunny preset more that in a moment now that I'm in the shade. This white reflector has a very slight blue cast, but when I look at it now, I see it as being completely white. That's because in the flesh we always see why objects is being what our eyes and brains automatically color correct. So regardless of what kind of light we're in, white objects always look white. The problem is, cameras are not as clever as us. And so when taking photos, you can't always trust your eyes when it comes to getting accurate colors. I'm in my living room and I've closed the blinds and turned on all of the lights. My wife loves light, so there's a few of them. Normally, I'd look quite yellow, but the video cameras white balance is set to tungsten. Which color corrects the light for this environment. If you've ever taken photos indoors with the lights on, but without using the flash, chances are the photos looked a bit yellow. That's because domestic bulbs air, usually tungsten and tungsten bulbs give off a yellow light often refer to as a warm light . With all these lights on in here, this room is very yellow, so this video may still have a slight yellow color caste. But the reason I don't know to yellow hopefully is because the tungsten white balance setting on the video camera adds a touch of blue and so counter vax the yellow color cost. But what would happen if I moved outside, let's give that a try. But we've taken the video camera off the tripod so things could start getting a little bit shaky. So they're with me. What? So we're getting up out of the living room, As you see immediately, the light has changed the blue, even though we've got some tungsten light lights on the still bit of natural light coming into this hallway as I got through the living room. Remember that the white ban, It is still, sir, to tongue stone. So things are getting blue on blue, as we got as we move outside on by now, I should be looking very, very blue, completely ruining my devastating good looks back in my living room now. And I've reset the video cameras white buns to the sunny setting Now outside. That's arguably the most neutral setting. But now I look quite jaundiced. In fact, everything in this room has a strong yellow or allgengy cast. Ah, that feels better. I'm the right color. We're getting out. All dear said Lars have a white balance setting usually indicated by small icons on the LCD . Now, on this camera, I just pressed the WB Button I and use the scroll will, but the actual method of changing the set in various from camera to camera. It's very simple, but you might have to consult your manual. If you're not sure how to do it, I'll go through the main white balance settings. They're generally known as presets. There's a sunny set in for when the subject is in direct sunlight. By the way, it doesn't matter where you're standing. You may be in the shade. It's where the subject is this important. There's a cloudy setting for when it's overcast, a shade setting for when your subject is in the shade. Tungsten set in, sometimes called incandescent fluorescent setting on a flash setting on some cameras like this one, you can set an actual Kelvin value. That's a kind of do it yourself choice. Using the Kelvin setting, you confined your in the colors to what you believe are accurate colors or even skew the colors to reflect your choice of the scene's mood and feeling. I find it very useful when I'm shooting an unknown environment, for example, like like a studio when I usually said it to around 5600 or maybe 5800. If I want a slightly warmer image when you use many of these white balance presets, you can be sure of getting consistent results. This is very important if you're shooting J pigs, bother the law because it's much more difficult to correct a J pig afterwards on the computer. If the colors along watch my film on law versus J peg for more information, many cameras also allow you to create a special bespoke white balance pre sir for the current lighting conditions, or cover that at the end of the film. Now we come to the automatic settings, which I know many people use. It's set using the icon, sometimes known as a W B, which stands for all toe white banners. This preset tells the camera to try and work out the color balance itself. Now, in the early days of DSLR, the auto white balance was a bit of a disaster and quite often got it wrong. Modern cameras are much better now and do a pretty good job, but they can still be fooled to pain, depending on the color of your subject, that light on the background color, etcetera So when shooting J pick, I would always use one of the other more specific presets. I'm going to take a shot of these white flowers here. They look very nice, opposition them so they will be against the dark background. The sun's just come out and they're going to be kind of backlit now offset the white banners preset to the sunny setting. Let's see how this looks. By the way, I've got an 85 mil lens on here on upset. The appetite to F 2.8 aperture Priority I s I 100. The sun is just going in again. It's coming out. Let's give this a try. That's a lovely little photo on. The colors look good, but actually intended to move these flowers into the shade. But fortunately, the clouds have just come over so I can take the shot in exactly the same position. I've still got the white balance setting set to the sunny presets. Let's try this Still F two point I aperture party Very slight Coldfield to the image. You may not even notice this until we compare it to another shot with the correct setting. We've still got cloud cover. So that's great. Changes it. White banners preset now to the cloudy setting, so I'll take another short on. We'll compare them. Comparing these two images, both taken under cloud cover. You can see that the one with the cloudy white banners preset looks better. There's a little bit more warmth to the white flowers, giving a much more pleasing image. Many modern cameras also allow you to set a custom white balance. Now Nick on Call it PR short for preset manual cannon just called it custom white balance, with its option selected. You hold or get somebody to hold up a white or gray card in front of you, and then you press the shutter. The camera will read and lock in the color temperature of the light reflected from that card. And that locked in white banner sited now becomes a standard for the cameras. White balance setting whenever P R E or the custom white balance setting is selected, it's an ideal way to handle the scene that has mixed lighting. For example, fluorescent lights in the ceiling and day light streaming through a window because it takes into it into account the actual lion forming on your subject. I'm not going to go into every single detail about making and custom white balance. Otherwise, this video will be too long. You might start losing the will to live. I'll make a separate video about that for those who are interested, by the way, other alternatives we're making a custom white balance are commercial products, such as an expo disk or color light. But rather than spend anywhere between 50 and $100 on these, you can quite easily make your own. Here's one D I. Y option. Made out of white coffee filter paper and a lens filter. You just place it on the lens, but you must take the reading shooting towards the light source. No at the subject. The technical term for that is an incident speeding where you position yourself in the same place as your subject and take the reading towards the camera position. By the way, one last thing to bear in mind is that having an accurate, neutral white balance is not quite the same as having a pleasing white balance. This is especially true for poor traits where you may want to warm up the colors in a subtle way in order to make a more natural looking image. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this film. Bye for now. 26. The Myth Of Megapixels: Image Resolution And Quality: never mind the quality filled the width. Have you ever heard that saying it's an old expression used to describe the dubious selling methods of some of London's mawr, unscrupulous tailors and years gone by? Sometimes I think of that saying, When I see adverts for new digital cameras for claiming huge numbers of pixels. How important is the number of pixels on his one camera necessarily better than another one ? Just because it does have more megapixels? Most images these days are viewed on your monitor or your screen. At the time of making this video in 2011 most people apparently are using monitors with a resolution of 1024 by 768 So that's 1024 pixels on the long edge. But more up to date screens now have 12 80 or 1920 pixels on the longer these figures are known, a screen resolutions, and they do have a direct bearing on the resolution of your photo images. If your camera produces images that are, say, 4000 pixels wide tip because of a 12 megapixel camera, then showing them on 1000 24 picks, a widescreen means that the image has to be reduced in size, and so the extra picks cells just wasted. All of the images that you've seen on this website, plus the majority of images you see on the Web, have been reduced in size from when they first came out the camera. The images on this site are 1400 on the long edge on approximately 920 give or take on the shore edge. You can calculate the total number of megapixels by multiplying the two numbers together. And so the sides of each of my photos is under 1.3 megapixels. The images actually started off a 9 10 or 12 megapixels, or whatever decides the camera produces. But those are very large images because I know for a fact you're going to be viewing them on your screen or TV. I've reduced the size to a more manageable one of the bit megapixels. So if all the images on this side are less than 1.5 megapixels and they look fine, don't know why do you need a camera that has 10 12 or 14 megapixels? Well, the first reason is when you come to print the photo. Printing a photo requires a much higher resolution and just showing the photo on a screen or even on a TV. This chart has the paper size in inches on the top, into the left on be quiet number of megapixels to get a great print inside the chart going diagonally. As you see from this chart, even a five or six megapixel image is perfect for making a 10 by a print. You need about 12 megapixels to make a decent 14 inch plant. Secondly, if you only want to show a smaller portion of the image known as cropping than the extra megapixels do come in handy because they allow you to crop the photo without losing hardly anything in the way of quality. Obviously, if you just clock just a very small portion of the image, it will become pixelated on. The quality will be awful, but many people don't print their photos, and I don't crop them either. So, to them, the number of pixels is largely irrelevant. The big question, though, especially if you're about to purchase the new digital camera, is do more megapixels mean better quality. Well, let's say you've now down your camera choices to three cameras, one as 10 1 as 12 on another one That's 14 megapixels. Should you automatically assume that a 14 megapixel camera is the best quality? Well, in my opinion, the answer is a resounding no. And here's why the device inside the camera that picks up the lion on because the photo is called a Sensor or C. C. D. This is the part off the camera that's equivalent to film. This sensor is where the images initially recorded on this is where the pixels reside on the sensor. Take a look at these two images. The colored squares represent the pig cells that I want the sensor now the too sensitive for the same size. So it stands to reason that due to the lower physics and the universe, if you place more pixels on the sensor, obviously the guy, the pixels are going to be smaller. That's only common sense, isn't it? But this is important. But generally speaking, the smaller the pixels, the worst, the quality of the image. And that means that all other things being equal more mega pixels in the camera mean worse image quality not better, especially in love a lion. And that's the exact opposite of what camera manufacturers would have you believe. But there's always a but isn't there. And I did say all other things being equal and they never really are, are they? So don't worry if you just bought a camera with the huge number of megapixels. The reality is digital cameras are getting better and better order time. So though camera may have more megapixels, the chances are it's got a more up to date sensor, maybe a better lens. Better image processing, more features. Maybe so. The image quality may well be better for those reasons, just to illustrate the point better, Here's a few digital cameras for the purposes of making a proper comparison, we're just going to look at one manufacturers. Cameras. That's canon. The green excess has 12 megapixels. The black S 95 compact cameras, 10 megapixels, 1100 DSLR, 12 megapixels. Now, in terms of cost and quality, DSLR is the most expensive and will provide the best image quality of the three cameras. Second, in terms of image quality is the cannon s 95 enthusiasts, compact camera and last but not least is the green excess, which is all about the cheapest of the three, So there really is no correlation between number of megapixels on the image quality. So to sum up, then please don't base your next camera, purchase a decision on the number of megapixels. It's largely irrelevant. But if you can't use a number of pixels, how can you know which camera or which type of camera will give you the best image quality to find out what's really exciting and eagerly awaited second part off this film Bye for now. 27. Which Camera Provides The Best Image Quality? : The chances are that sometime in the future you're going to buy a new camera, and the problem is that there are now so many cameras on the market before you can even begin to put your money down on a particular camera, you have to decide which kind of camera to buy. So before you now down your choices toe one or two camera models, you need to know about the different types or categories of cameras now on the market. In this video, I'm not even going to attempt to cover all of the specific models on the market. If I did, not only would we be here all day that six months, six months down the line, the information would be out of date. So instead, I want to try and rationalize the seeming the endless variations in cameras and then group them together. It's now June 2014. Any specific cameras? I mentioned our current models, so but a time you watch this, that may not no longer be the case. All sorts of factors come into play when choosing a new camera. Do you want the camera to be pocketable and simple to use Or do you want the absolute best image quality you can afford? How about a viewfinder? Some people won't buy a camera without one. Or maybe you need a powerful zoom lens for wildlife or would like to be able to change lenses to give you more flexibility. Although I'll be touching on most of these subjects, I'm going to categorise the cameras in terms of image quality. So if you want the absolute best image quality you can afford, maybe because you like to make prince or photo books or you just want to get some of those creative juices flowing, then this film should help you to decide which types of cameras were so you best. Now, hopefully, you have watched the previous film I made, in which I make it fairly plain that the number of megapixels is not much of a guide to image quality, so don't base your choice of camera on megapixels. Instead, you need to understand a little bit about sensor sizes, but you may be thinking to yourself, Well, how on earth do I measure to censor? I can't even see the thing when I'm looking at the camera. Well, you can group cameras into various categories on each category has its own sensor size or range of sensor sizes. For example, combat cameras are in one category on dear sell ours in another, and they have totally different sensor sizes. I think it's reasonable to say that all things being equal, the larger the sensor, that better the image quality, especially if you're taking photos in low light without a flash. Images from cameras with smaller sensors. Or generally show more noise in low light photos than cameras with larger sensors, plus the range of shadow and highlight that could be captured in a single exposure known as dynamic range is better with larger sensors. Also, you probably seen photos were one part of the images in Focus on other parts are blurry. Typical examples are portrayed where the subject is nicely in focus in the foreground, but with a blurred background. That's complete videos on this subject elsewhere on the course, but very briefly, this is selective. Focusing the effect is crazy, created using a shallow depth of field. Think of it as a block of focus from front to back of the image. Now, the reason I mention this is that it's a great technique, but much more difficult to do. Small sensor cameras. That's why many photos you see from smartphones and compact cameras generally have everything pretty much in focus. More or less, consumer video camcorders also use the small sensors, which is why most of the footage you see taken with these cameras the whole scene is always in focus again, more or less. So in this video, I'm going to group the cameras by sensor size, which in in turn, that will group them by image quality and the ability to do selective focusing. I'll start with smartphones. They have the smaller sensor sizes. But of course, the big advances that we can carry them around with us on that person most of the time. The quality is getting so good now that they're actually hurting cells of compact campus on . Although they have a large number of pixels crammed into their tiny sensors, I would guess most people don't print out their smartphone images. They usually just end up being viewed on the computer tablets or on social networking sites , etcetera. So for most people, the number of megapixels is a little irrelevant because the screens that we use for viewing images only between about one and three megapixels. Also, because of the small centre size, trying to get a shallow depth of field is almost impossible unless you're very close to the subject. So in most smartphone photos, all of the images, all of the images reasonably sharp, no, always what you want. By the way, one manufacturer least, HTC, has just brought out a former good pick pick cellphone on because the sensor is the same size as other phones, the pixels a little bit larger. This, in turn, means that the low light image quality without flash is superior to photos with more megapixels. Next, we have compact and bridge cameras. You can see from this chart the relative sizes of the sensors. After smartphones, they have the smaller sensor sizes. Image quality is improving all the time on these cameras, but low light performance isn't that great, relatively speaking, but again, it's improving all the time. The big drawback is the lack of control over depth of field, so it's difficult to do selective focusing unless you're taking macro type photos in which case of background usually goes blurry anyway. because the camera is so close to the subject. Bridge cameras looked like many DSLR, so I wonder whether some people buy them thinking they'll get the quality and flexibility of a deer salah. But in fact, in terms of image quality, food cameras are more akin to compacts because they have the same sensor size. Now where bridge cameras do score is in their legs focal dangers. Many of these cameras come with very powerful zoom lenses. Also, the controls are usually more readily available with knobs and dials on the camera rather than tucked away inside menus. Finally, they have view finders so you can claim your short. But bring the camera up to your. This is very important to many. People will complain that I can't see the LCD screen on the back of their cameras in the sunshine. Although bridge campers air styled like DSLR there might smaller, but they're still not pocketable like combat cambers. We'll know unless you've got really quite large pockets. There's another type of more expensive compact camera which have won over 1.7 inch sensor, the size show in dark down at the bottom of the chart, the sensor is slightly larger than your average combat camera, and so the image quality is generally better. These cameras usually have superior lenses and more features as well, so they're a great choice if you want the best image, quality and features in a tiny package. Here's a few of the current crop of this type of enthusiast combat camera, but of course, but a time you watch this, these particular camera Martin models may have been superseded. Let's now take a look at mirror Less cameras, sometimes referred to as compact systems, can cameras as they have interchangeable lenses, so you can build up a system by purchasing additional lenses at a later date. Now they've only been around a relatively short time, but they're fast becoming more and more popular. The main advantages they don't have a pen tip is a mechanism and move. That s a lot of so that they can be made smaller. And because there's no mirrored in the way of the sensor, the focusing on these type of cameras could be made to work very fast from faster than SLR is in the same price range, even by the way, this also makes them a great choice for videoing because their larger sensors give you improved quality over consumer video cameras on. Unlike most consumers, DSLR they're able to track food, focus on moving subjects while videoing No, having mirrors means that that hardly any of these cameras have optical viewfinders. Now, when I say optical, I mean the night, a night piece that you look through to flame and focus your subject in conjunction with a simple optical system that zooms at the same time as the mainland's. Now, obviously, viewfinders are very important to many photographers, including myself. So for those of you, like may not, having a view finder is quite a serious drawback. Many cameras now have Elektronik viewfinders. These are known as E V efs, and when you look through them, they appear to be many TV screens. They usually great quality on can also overlay camera settings on top of the image. Plus, you can review Defoe toes afterwards, using the DVF rather than having to do that using the LCD. There are currently four few finder options for moving this campus. No viewfinder at all. You just blame and composer photo using the L C D screen usually at arm's length, just like you would do with a combat camera. No bill in viewfinder, but an option to attach an electric viewfinder. Elektronik viewfinder. I should say this has the advantage of keeping the camera smaller. We're not using the VF, but then again, you have to mess about keeping a separate item with you and attaching it when, when required. So it's a bit of a compromise these externally VSO optional, so they're an additional cost. But be careful. They're not particularly cheap. Some cameras have the E v F bill in. This is arguably the best option on sometimes. I include a proximity sensor. So as you bring your face up to the camera, the LCD switches off their back on again when you put away. The first from Sonny is a pop up E V F built into the new Rx 100 a great idea to keep the camera body a smallest possible yet not having to carry around an attachable Avia. My guess is that we'll see more more bill in our pop up TVs in the future. Now the sensors in Miller's cameras very inside. But due to the laws of physics. Larger sensors require larger lenses. So although the march of technology has allowed smaller and smaller camera bodies, the lenses have to match up to the relevant sensor size. And so there's a physical limit to how small they can be made. Bear that in mind as we move up in sensor sizes. Nicole have opted for a one inch sensor size in their V one range of Marylise cameras on Samsung just introduced their mini camera with a one inch sensor. As you can see from the brown area on the chart, the one inch sensor is quite a jump in size from that used in compact campus. The quality is better than compacts, especially in low life. Depth of field control is also much better than with compact cameras. So with careful use, it's possible to do selective focusing, although the effect is not as pronounced as with a DSLR. Although this size of cam camera sensor means the lenses can be kept small, the cameras are not really what you would call pocketable. An exception to this is the new Sony Rx 100 which is incredibly uses this sensor size but is in fact a pocketable combat camera. So a great choice if you want terrific quality and depth of field control in a very small package. But it's still a combat camera, so you can't change lenses. As I'm preparing this video, I've just spotted the Panasonic have announced a super Zoom bridge type camera with a one inch set, one inch sensor. It's called Alu Mix D M C F. Said 1000. So the jointed choices are getting wider and wider now. Next, we have the micro 4/3 cameras. This sensor size shown in green is another step up in size from the one inch sensor on. It provides a little more control over depth of field. The micro 4/3 system was a joint venture between Olympus and Panasonic, and poorly speaking, the cameras come in two distinct flavors. There's a range finder kind of style shown here with the Olympus Pen and Panasonic Blue Mix , DSC GM seven. And then there's a DSLR style shown here. The Olympics. Alan D. E. M. One on the Panasonic DMC GH four. All of these cameras have the same size of sensor. Another plus point of micro +44 4/3 is it is now quite a mature system, and so have a large selection of lenses to choose from. That's a big plus. You can expect the excellent image quality with the 4/3 Miller's canvas, but maybe not quite up to SLR quality, because the sensor still is a little smaller. Moving up again in sensor size cannon have a large sensor size compact camera called the G one X, shown in orange. On the chart, you can see it's a 1.5 inch sensor. We should be great quality in a smaller than DSLR size package on a Suarez. I know this is the only camera that incorporates a sensor of this size. The A B SC sensor size showing in Dark blue is used in most pro Sumer DSLR cameras, so called because they're used by consumers and professionals. The quality of these sensors and cameras is wonderful on improving all of the time, and you have great control over depth of field. So it's quite easy to get creative and t do selective focusing. When I made a video on the subject a couple of years ago, I think I'm correct in saying that other than the newly announced Saudi Next cameras. A PSC sensors were only available in DSLR. Since that time, several other other types of cameras have been announced with a PSC size sensors, and they come in several flavors. We've got the mirror this DSLR styles such as the Sunny A Seven than the Fuji X T one, the range Finder style interchangeable lens cameras like the Sunny A 6000 and also some fixed lens compact campers, notably the food Yes 100 Nikon, Coolpix I and Canon E O S M. The final type of cameras are the DSLR, aimed at professional photographers. The sensor size in these cameras showing a scion on the chart, are generally known as Fourth flame because they're of a similar size to the old 35 mil negatives. There's still a difference in image quality between fourth Flame and a PSC sensors, but probably probably not as much as they used to. Bay pro cameras also have the advantage of fast operation bulletproof build, quality and where the ceiling etcetera. So there you have it. Those are the main types of cameras currently on the market on, although I've concentrated on sensor size other factors, like lenses, sensor quality, image processing, number of megapixels also influence the quality. But the sensor size is a good starting point. We're making up your mind and after all of that, which is the best type of camera? Well, needless to site, there isn't one only the best type of camera for you. And once you define what you want from a camera, it becomes much easier to make a confident purchasing decision. Anyway. I hope this film has helped to narrow down the choices for you on, even though the specific models will change the categories these cameras fall into. Whoa, they better know otherwise, I'll have to remake the film anyway, that's all for now. 28. Course Conclusion: well, you've reached the end of the course. I do hope you enjoyed it. Together. We covered a lot of ground, and it's now up to you to decide which features and settings you like and to put them into practice. Remember, though no older settings I told here are for everyone. For example, as I personally take more Portrait's, I prefer to use aptitude, priority or manual exposure modes most of the time really using shutter speed poverty, if you like taking, say, motor sports or cycling photos or Children running around etcetera, they knew, might prefer to you shutter speed priority to control the movement. Back button. Focusing is another feature that is not to everyone's taste. Some people just can't get used to it. So it's up to you to decide which features and settings work best for you and your own style of photography and in practice them until they become second nature. So good luck in your photography and bye for now,