This page will be used to record what I learn while taking pictures. I’ll link to whatever tutorial pages I happen to find while adding information here.
My anniversary post lists the things that I learned during the first year of having a DSLR.
Misc.
- Make a checklist of things to remember, including (but not limited to!): battery, card, the “right” lens, flash (if necessary)… etc. etc.
Macro
- It helps to use a tripod and remote shutter control
Night Shots
- Use a tripod
- Use a remote shutter control
- Use a nice slow (4-5 seconds +) shutter speed
Shooting Indoors
- Either check white balance, or shoot in RAW
- For a dark subject with bright background, go with partial metering
- Try to avoid flash… keep the aperture wide open (down to f/2 (or lower?) if possible)
Shooting with Off-camera Flash
- Keep the shutter speed below 200 to allow flash to sync with camera
- Make up for the slower shutter speed by using a smaller (f/22) aperture
- Keep lots of extra batteries on hand!
Hockey Pictures (with help from Mark Buzek and especially Daniel Woolston):
(keeping in mind that my best zoom lens is a 55-250mm f/4-5.6)
- Hockey arenas are dark – use the lowest aperture number (e.g. f/2) possible to let in the most light, and therefore allow the highest shutter speed.
- Use AI-Servo (Canon) or Continuous Focus (Nikon). (Learned: AI Servo is good for moving subjects, One Shot is good for still subjects, AI Focus is for when you can’t decide.)
- Metering mode: use spot (if you have it) or partial (which I used, I don’t have spot). (Learned: spot metering will control the exposure based on what’s in the middle of the frame. I should keep in mind that spot / partial will be best on black dogs.) The Santa picture on 12/2 would have benefited from this knowledge, although I wouldn’t have had enough time to set it anyway – I caught him walking by.
Nice example of the difference between metering modes is here: http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=2666 - Set the camera to continuous shooting mode, especially for the exciting moments
- Set the white balance using the ice, or shoot in RAW to fix it later (although that will slow down your save time). (Good white balance examples here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/white-balance-examples.htm)
- Setting the camera in TV mode works great. Set the shutter speed as high as possible for the lens / zoom combination, and the camera will pick the best aperture.
Shooting in RAW vs. JPG
Shooting in RAW is slower, because it takes longer to save the images to the flash card, but it effectively allows you to change some camera settings after the fact, including:
- white balance
- exposure
- sharpening
- color
I’ve been using the RAW editor in Photoshop, but there’s one in the Digital Photo Professional (DPP) software that came with the camera, too.
