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Lesson Info

Camera Settings

Final section, which is the operation of the camera and in here we've been talking about all the individual functions of the camera we've really been broke breaking it down to the very fine nuance points and some people kind of want the bigger picture on this camera this is where we kind of go back and talk about the whole cameras a hole so when I take a camera like this out to shoot with first thing I want to make sure is I gotta charge battery and I got the battery in the camera second thing is that I have a memory card and I probably want to have that memory card formatted before I head out so it's nice, clean, fresh and ready to go I will often go in and check to make sure that I have my settings on raw or large j pig or whatever it is that I'm choosing to set it on it's something that we change from time to time is very important and it's a very bad feeling when you want to be shooting ramage is and you have it set on medium sized j pegs, for instance, go through the menu as we ha...

ve here just real quickly just kind of buzz through think if there's anything that you've been changing or working within there on a recent basis that you need to go in there in a just because you want to make sure that you get your camera set properly and then finally, if you are taking a big trip or you got a big assignment that you're using this for, you want to make sure that that sensor is clean. One of the ways that you can do that is shoot a white piece of paper. A white wall at f sixteen or f twenty two shooted a little overexposed look at that photograph. Zoom in on playback, look in the corner, see if there's dust on your image. If there is clean it up before you get to a major shoot. Now, when you get into the actual working of the camera out in the field, I think there's probably about ten major controls for shooting still images out in the field, and they're mostly going to involve exposure. A number of them were going to deal with focus and then there's a few others. So if I was going to set this camera up in what I consider a super simple mode and not using the little aye automatic mode, the intelligent automotive, how would I set the camera? Well, I normally don't shoot in program, but if I wanted to leave it very, very simple, I could set it there that way the camera is choosing center speeds and apertures. I could set my eyes soto auto so that my camera automatically figures it out for you now a second reasonable choice under eye so is I isil, where the camera is looking for information about how you are shooting to set the ice so information both of those would be pretty good. I would want to make sure that my exposure compensation is at zero unless I'm specifically needing to adjust it for an individual shot for me during multiple metering is going to be the safest and easiest system to work with, and auto white balance does a very good job you can adjust as necessary, but a w is a good place to start for the focusing system. A f s will do a great job because it will focus on a subject and it will stay locked in so you, khun recompose and doesn't really move around on you at that point for the focus area, it depends a little bit on how you're shooting, but to keep things really, really simple, the twenty three area will look over a wide variety of the screen trying to figure out what's the easiest best thing to focus on and it will go very quickly and focus on that the drive mode while I just leave it in single so that when I pressed down on the shutter release, it just takes one picture at a time so let's, try some actual real world photography so how would I set this camera if I was going to shoot a landscape? Some of the things that I'm thinking about when I should've landscape is I often want lots of depth of field, so in both of these examples you have objects in the foreground objects in the background and I want both in focus I am hopefully on a tripod or at least holding the camera very steady and there's nothing moving, moving so I'm not too concerned about shutter speed focusing and depth of field is critical here, though, so let's take a look at how I would set it up in these cases, I do like manual exposure because I have a little bit of time to work with, and I want to be very specific about my shutter speeds and apertures the first and most important setting after that would be setting the lowest eyes so possible and in that in this case it is two hundred that's, the native sensitivity, the best sensitivity or not so the best sensitivity but the best quality of image off the sensor. If we have a good amount to like to work with next up, I'm going to want a lot of depth of field, how much will it depends on the lens in the scenario f eight eleven, sixteen twenty two it depends on a number of things, but f sixteen would definitely give me lots of depth of field. The shutter speed really doesn't matter if I'm on a tripod so I could set it anywhere I want and it's likely to be fairly slow if I am setting something like ice, so two hundred and an aperture of f sixteen we don't use exposure compensation because we're in the manual mode and if we want to do exposure compensation, we simply adjust our shutter speeds apertures or I sell I'm fine with in multimedia ring I think it does an excellent job. I'm fine with auto white balance if it doesn't look right, I will adjust it from there, focusing since there's nothing moving, I'm going to be in the s for single and for focus area, I'm going to go with the pinpoint focus normally don't use this, but this is where you sometimes want to be very critical about what you are focusing on and in the dr mode I might use single if I have the cable release hooked up to the camera or if I don't have a cable release, I might be using that to second self timer that's convenient because you don't need that extra little cable device at all, so that's my landscape set up and let's go to the next one, which is portrait photography. In this case, you are no longer on a tripod and you are concerned about getting the focus correct. You often want shallow depth of field, so that which is in the background is rendered out of focus, and you do need a shutter speed that is fast enough to stop your handheld holding of the lens and camera, as well as the subject that's in the photograph. So in a case like this, I usually like to try to get several shots and I will be in manual and I like to get my setting set up ahead of time. First setting I like to set is the depth of field at a very shallow depth of field. If I have a lens that goes down to one point four, I'll often want to use it there, but anything to eight or faster is pretty good after that, I'm going to want to make sure that I have a shutter speed fast enough to stop the action of my subject, which in many cases will be one hundred twenty fifth of a second or faster and of course, with the eye. So the lowest setting is the best unless you need something higher because you need a faster shutter speed, so ideally I would be at two hundred. I'm going to go ahead and just keep the media ring at multiple I'm going to keep the white balance at auto and as long as my subject is stationary and not moving towards me or away from me I'm going to use the f s melt so I could focus on the subject I can leave my finger halfway down on the shutter release in aiken recompose ah second option here might be the f f mode that might work pretty good as well, but if you do recompose your subject, the camera will refocus for focusing area the pin point is a little too small to work with I think in many cases so I prefer the one area which is a single box that you can control the size of and you can control the location of and then for the drive mode I would prefer to be in continuous and probably the sixth or maybe four frames per second in this particular case because people's facial expressions change very quickly, their gestures change and when things were right you want to be able to reel off a number of shots to make sure you get the exact right moment next up let's, try some action photography a couple of important things here number one a fast shutter speed to stop the subjects and number two a focusing system focusing system that tracks the subject of the movement of that all right, so first off, I would like to be in manual I specifically want to set my shutter speed and aperture what's important here is a fast shutter speed depends on the subject, but five hundredth of a second or faster for most human motion faster for other things, though next up, I'm going to want to let in a lot of light in order for me to have that very fast shutter speed. And also a lot of these subjects look good when our background is out of focus because it's a portrait in some ways and of course I would ideally like to be a two hundred eyes, so but the reality of the world is that you're probably going to need a higher s o four hundred eight hundred sixteen hundred if you're shooting indoor sports very possibly thirty two or sixty, four hundred, I'm gonna go ahead and just keep the multiple meteor and it's very versatile works well, auto white balance unless I specifically I'm not getting good color, I would change it. The important change here is I would be in the continuous mode with some types of action, the f f mode might work, but if it's moving very quickly towards you and away from you at a fairly steady pace than I would go with the continuous mt for focusing area there's a couple of good options the twenty three area would work well if you can fill your frame with your subject if it's smaller and frame you can give the tracking system to try a zay say it's a little hit and miss you can see if it works with what you are shooting and then finally in the drive mode of course I would be in the continuous probably in the six frames per second that way I could shoot raw or large jpeg images if I really want to know track something that's moving super fast and might try the twenty frames per second but remember that is only small j pegs the maximum sharpness is very related to the landscape setting very very similar in this case we don't have a subject that's moving it's just stationary this could be an art object of painting on the wall how would you set your camera manual exposure? You want the lowest I so for the cleanest information off the sensor the aperture setting you want is somewhere in the middle not maximum depth of field because that is not maximum sharpness the maximum sharpness is often in many cases on these lens is going to be around five six or f eight hopefully you were on a tripod shooting this where shutter speed doesn't matter and you can choose any shutter speed possible because your subject is not moving we're gonna go ahead and leave the meeting in multiple white balance in auto and a f s single, so camera focuses and stops focusing, and this is definitely where pinpoint focusing with that magnified view will allow you to be very critical in the way that you focus and then in the dr mode you could choose single and use the cable release or use the ten or two second self timer finally basic photography. So you're going to throw the camera in your bag and just start walking the streets? Maybe we're going on vacation, you're going to be going down to the park and you don't know what your next picture is going to be, here's how had set the camera up for that type of scenario, and I will actually use a little automation here. I really like the aperture priority mode because you could make very quick adjustments by keeping your eye on the shutter speed and aperture, I'd set a reasonably wide open aperture like five point six I generally like to leave the ice so at the lowest possible setting, and so that if I ever do need to make a change, I'm consciously thinking about changing it up to for eight sixteen or whatever is necessary, and often times it will be a little bit more on my mind to turn it back down when I leave that situation you want to check and make sure that your exposure compensation to start with is at zero and adjust as need be as you shoud. Multimedia ring, as I said many times before, works. Well, as does white balance. Most of the time, f s would be a good mode. A good second choice here would be the a f f option, where it just focus if your subject is moving on you. And then the one area focusing is really nice, because once again, you can change the size and the location of it very easy with the controls on the back of the camera or the touch screen, and then just putting it in single shots so that you take one picture with each press of a button. So with that, I can say, congratulations. If you've made it all the way through this class, you were now a panasonic gh three expert.