Lesson Info
19. Camera Operation
Lessons
Class Introduction
05:39 2Welcome to Leica
15:06 3Basic Controls
05:27 4ISO
05:58 5Shutter Speeds and Apertures
08:45 6Accessory Shoe
08:45 7Back Side Controls
37:00 8Bottom Controls
07:07Front Controls
06:39 10M Lenses
18:53 11Menu Functions & Lens Detection Menu
25:05 12JPG Settings Menu
03:44 13Capture Assistants Menu
07:27 14EVF/Display & User Profiles Menus
03:54 15Customize Control Menu
04:57 16WLAN & GPS Menus
09:02 17Date & Time & Language Menus
03:29 18Sensor Cleaning & Camera Info Menus
04:18 19Camera Operation
08:26Lesson Info
Camera Operation
The last little section on this camera is camera operation. So we've learned about all the individual components on this camera, let's talk about what you'd want to check before you go on a big trip or on an important professional or important personal shoot. Obviously you wanna have a charged battery, and probably have a spare battery as well. Make sure that you've got your memory card in there, probably have it formatted in most cases. You might wanna take a look through the menu system, see if there's anything that you've been playing with that you wanna get back adjusted to your normal settings. And then shoot a test photo of a white wall or a white piece of paper and see if there's any dust on the sensor, cause you wanna get that cleaned off at home before you get yourself into an environment that may not be so good for cleaning it out. And so that's the things I wanna check before I go on a trip. And then I wanna think about my key settings on the camera. So obviously there are g...
onna be things dealing with the exposure, and with this camera, that's super easy cause it's all visible, it's all available to you, whether the camera's on or off. ISO, shutter speeds and apertures. If you have that back dial with the exposure compensation automatically set in there it's very easy to work with. And a few other controls that you might need to get to are gonna be in the menu system. The motor drive and the white mount system, which can be just in there with just one press if it's in your favorites, like it should be. All right, so when you get out to shooting, these key settings are gonna look a little like this when you get to the full options. Shutter speed, aperture, ISO, exposure compensation, white balance, and drive. All right, let's talk about a super simple set up. So if you wanted to make this as easy as possible for shooting simple photographs, you can set your shutter speeds to A, which is essentially aperture priority. You get to choose an aperture. Aperture 5.6 kinda middle of the range is good for general purpose stuff. You're gonna wanna go up and down depending on your needs of what you're shooting from there. You can set your ISO to A and it will automatically adjust the ISO according to your needs. With the ISO at auto and the shutter speed at auto, you're gonna have a wide latitude of different light environments that you can go into, from very bright situations to very, very dark situations. You can play around with the exposure compensation as needed. And with white balance, I would probably start off with it at auto and then adjust according to your needs from there on out. And with the drive mode, single mode will work fine most situations, but you can adjust it as necessary from there. But that's a good super simple setup. Next up, let's look at landscape photography. And so when you are wanting lots of depth of field, things in the foreground, things in the background in focus, maybe you're even using a tripod. I know Leica's don't get used on tripods a lot, but they work perfectly fine on tripods. In this case I would probably set an ISO 200. If you recall earlier in the class, ISO 200 had a little bit wider dynamic range than ISO 100 and the noise difference between 1 and was negligible, so I'm choosing this to get a little bit wider dynamic range. With landscape photography you're probably gonna want a little bit more depth of field so aperture f11, 16, maybe 22 in some cases. And with that you're gonna probably end up with slower shutter speeds which is why you end up on tripods doing landscape photography. You wouldn't be using exposure compensation because we are in a full manual mode. With white balance, auto is going to be fine. Adjust if necessary. And then with the drive mode, single, or potentially using the two second self timer so that you're not getting any bumps and motion with the camera as you are using it. Next up, let's try a little bit of portrait photography. And so in this case we're probably gonna be shooting with shallower depth of field and we're gonna need to be a little bit more conscious of having a faster shutter speed to control the movement of our, to stop the motion of our subject and possibly the motion of ourselves handholding the camera. In this case, probably one of the first things I would do is to set a fairly wide aperture, 1.4., 2, 2.8, depending on the lens you have. I would then choose a shutter speed, probably a hundred and twenty fifth of a second or faster. That's pretty good for casual human movement. I'll set an ISO for 200 if it's good lighting conditions. If it's poor lighting I would start bumping up the ISO as needed from there. Not gonna need exposure compensation in a manual mode. I'd stick with auto white balance unless it needs to be changed. And in most portrait situations I'd probably be fine with the single mode, but continuous would be a pretty good second choice in here as well. Next up is action photography. Not exactly the Leica M10's forte, but it's still something you can use in the right types of action. And so in this case you're gonna be wanting faster shutter speeds, five hundredth of a second or faster in most situations, depending on the speed of what you're shooting. Faster lenses are gonna help out here, allow you to use those faster shutter speeds. Often times you'll need to have a lens fairly wide open, around 2.8 or more. I would like to be at a lower ISO but in most action situations that faster shutter speed is often gonna require a higher ISO like 400 or faster. It will vary according to the light and the action of the subject that you are shooting, of course. Don't need exposure compensation here. Auto white balance is fine most of the time. And then, of course, we're gonna change the drive mode to continuous and so that way you can shoot at about five frames per second up to 30 shots in a row with the buffer if you are shooting RAW images. Finally, let's set this up for basic photography. This could be street photography or anything where you're not really sure what the next photograph is going to be. And so in this case, the automatic shutter speed setting for aperture priority is gonna simplify the process. You select an aperture. 5.6 is not a bad middle aperture. Maybe eight, maybe 11, depends on what you do. Setting an ISO of 100 or 200 might be a good option. Exposure setting of zero most of the time. You'll adjust that as necessary. White balance to auto, adjust as necessary as always. And then the single or perhaps a continuous mode would be very good here. So this is just a suggestion for you to start off with. You are, of course, gonna make your own adjustments and fine tune it to your own needs. One last little slide here is if you wanna get some inspiration from other Leica photographers, here's the name of some other famous photographers that have used Leica as part of their work, and they have a lot of great work. You can check em up, check out books, check em up online, and just get some good inspiration for what you can do with a Leica camera. And so there's a lot of great things and this is some good inspiration out there for you to go out and create your own great artwork. So if you followed along throughout the entire class, thank you very much. Congratulations. I now consider you an expert in the M10. So get that camera out there, get shooting, and have some fun with it. If you are interested in other classes from me here at Creative Live, I have too many to talk about and too many to list, so just go to Creative Live. Go to Creative Live's website, look up Greengo, my last name, G, R, E, E, N, G, O, and yuo'll find a bunch of classes out there on lenses, cameras, and different types of shooting. If you wanna find out more information about me and some of the other things that I do you can go to johngreengo.com. I got a brand new website up there runnin with links to all my classes and other events going on. If you wanna connect with me on the internets, I have John Greengo Photography at Facebook and @john_greengo on Instagram. So please connect with me there. Love to share photos and all sorts of little bits of photography with you there. So folks, thanks a lot for tuning in. Appreciate you tuning in for this M10 class. Get those cameras out there and keep shooting. Thank you.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Guy Neal
I am migrating from the Leica Q to the Leica M10. Though I know my way around a Leica digital camera, the Leica M10 is my first rangefinder. I wanted someone to quickly walk me through the front/back/top/bottom of the M10. John Greengo was the perfect guide. This class is "as advertised - a "fast start" for those who prefer not to page through a fairly dense owner's manual. I especially appreciated that the lessons were broken into small chunks - so I could skip the lesson on the wifi setup, for example. And kudos to the person who prepares the amazing slide decks. While there are two dozen free Youtube videos that review the M10, they do not convey the helpful information you get in this excellent class.
Simon Johnson
John does a great job of going through every aspect of using the M10. There's not a dial, stitch button or menu item that isn't comprehensively covered. He uses simple, but effective graphics to explain what's happening. He also touches on the fundamentals of photography and throws in some tips and secrets. I can't imagine anyone doing a better job than John. I'm a Leica Q owner, that's just about to upgrade to an M10 so this course has been very useful indeed.
Sylvia Hoke
John is an excellent teacher. I am so amazed how thoroghly he goes through everything in the menu, about the various lenses, how best to use them and so much more. I am keeping my fingers crossed John gives a class on the Leica SL2-S as there is not much out there at all about the camera and is very much needed. I would be the first to buy the class.
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