Manual or Automatic…
Thats what you get with vehicles these days with majority of the bigger cars on auto (my car wasn’t even available in manual!)
However a lot of cars these days (mine included) are not just fully automatic transmissions, they come with an ‘activematic’ or ‘tiptronic’ mode allowing you to have some manual feel and control over the drive of the car. This allows the driver to take over some of the decisions in relation to the gears creating a more engaging drive.
Now, with this method of taking control in mind think of your DSLR. Do you rely on the fully auto mode but crave to be a little daring and take some creative control?
With the fully auto mode all of the decisions are made for you. Sure it’s easy and gets you from A to B and the output provides you with a seemingly satisfactory end result. You get a picture…but couldn’t you have got those with a happy snap compact?
Lets use the car analogy again for a moment. Imagine you’re driving along a scenic road like the famous Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia, where ideally you want an open topped convertible with manual gear to really feel the road, experience the turns and ‘make the decisions’ as to when to pull more torque or hold the gear for those miles of glorious tight curves. (I may be speaking from experience driving that exact road in a late model MX-5 manual vs a late model Mazda 6 wagon auto).
Like wanting the experience of the convertible manual geared car, you want the creativity of engaging with your camera and capturing the image using the functions you crave to use, to engage and make decisions knowing ‘you’ created the end result…not the camera.
You have the opportunity to pick auto and manual or even the in between such as the tiptronic car (choice of full auto with option to flick across enabling two positions to upshift and downshift), all at the twist of a button on your camera dial. Yes it’s a little daunting at first trying to remember it all – the aperture, the shutter speed, ISO – do I want big numbers or little numbers…which one gives me which effect?!
I’m here to tell you it’s not that scary and we’re going to discuss briefly just one option to get you on your way. We’re going with Tiptronic (semi-automatic) version as a first step. We want to try and get you off the full auto mode without complicating it too much! Lets try yes?
First of all you need to think about what you’re taking a photo of and the outcome you would like.
What are you taking pictures of?
> Portrait – of a friend where you want to have a short depth of field (blurring the background)
> Landscape – where you want most of the frame / image to be sharp
What effect do you want of your subject?
> Do you want the whole image sharp front to back or are you focussing on one central spot where you want the remainder to be blurred?
When you’ve decided on the subject and the effect you want, lets look at some of the easy options to get you there.
The following list contains the most common terminologies used on all DSLRs (excluding scene modes such as night, portrait etc as these are essentially still auto modes) and you will find these settings on your DSLR, probably located on the the top left as a dial:
- ADEP (Canon) Automatic Depth-of-field mode
- M Manual exposure mode
- AV/A Aperture priority mode (Aperture Value)
- TV/S Shutter priority/Action shot mode (Time Value)
- P Program AE mode – shutterspeed (exposure) and aperture set automatically
For a choice in creativity lets go with the ‘AV – Aperture Priority’ mode where we can create short and long depth of fields, in other words how much is in focus surrounding (behind and in front) of your focal point. This mode gives you the opportunity to manually select the aperture where the camera will automatically select the shutter speed to ensure a correctly exposed image. Perfect!
A little on Aperture first in small steps – What is it?
Aperture is in essence a hole through which light passes allowing the image you capture to be recorded on film or in our case using a DSLR, the sensor.
Using another analogy, think of your eyes in particular the pupils. Your pupils will dilate (become larger) opening up and allowing more light to pass through to the optic nerve (the sensor on your camera) for you to be able to see better. Likewise on a bright day, your pupils will be small, reducing the amount of light to the nerve (sensor).
Remember: Small hole, less light. Big hole, more light.
Note each aperture, or hole, from left to right has double the surface of the next and therefore reducing the amount of light by half at each stop. You will also note the f-number increases as the hole reduces/ gets smaller. This is important and one not to allow yourself to get confused with. Don’t let it – trial and error and usage will see you get it in no time.
Remember: Small hole, less light, BIG f-number. Big Hole, more light, SMALL f-number.
Now to the point of using apertures for creativity.
The reduction of the aperture with its bigger f-number, means longer depth of field. Now this means its ideal for landscape images to ensure a sharp inage all the way through.
Example of small aperture, small hole, BIG number creating long depth of field:
Of course then the increase of aperture with its smaller f-number means a shorter depth of field. This is usually ideal for portraits, close up images of flowers for example:
I won’t go into too much more detail than that as I think too much info can only cause confusion.
So we know what we’re taking a photo of, we know a little about what Aperture is and we know what effect the size of the aperture can have on our images.
Why not give AV/Aperture Priority a go today.
It’s a semi-automatic mode where YOU decide and control the aperture size. If you’re shooting landscapes choose a longer depth of field to get all of the image in sharper/in focus and if shooting flowers or portraits choose a shallower/shorted depth of field to throw out the focus and blur everything you’ve not got you focal point on.
Remember the small numbers create large open apertures giving longer depth of field so most of the image is sharp and bigger numbers will have smaller apertures (great for indoors allowing more light to the sensor) giving you a wonderful blurred background.
Please note: Not all lenses will go down to f1.4 or even f2.8. These usually cost a little more for these type of lenses however you may have one that steps down to f3.5/f4. This will still give you enough to throw out the background for a superb portrait shot.
Next time we’ll try to master the next semi-auto mode, Shutter Priority!
Good luck and please feel free to post your feedback and ask questions!
Lola
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