With your camera’s basic settings taken care of, you’re ready to start snapping away, but you’ll soon want to know how to take advantage of all the other features your SLR has. Read on to find out how to take your camera craft up a notch.

Exposure modes

Choosing an exposure mode gives you the freedom to stop worrying about settings and start concentrating on taking great shots. Your camera will offer a number of automatic settings, including modes that help you to shoot action, close-ups and portraits, but these modes can be restricting and should generally be ignored. Get to grips with your camera’s semi-auto and manual settings (below), and you’ll soon see an improvement in the results.

Auto

This is the basic beginner mode, with minimal manual control. The SLR effectively becomes a point-and-shoot compact, with all the exposure settings taken care of.

Program (P)

Here, aperture and shutter speed are set automatically for you. However, you can control ISO, exposure compensation and other settings, enabling you to override the suggested settings if you wish.

Shutter priority (S/Tv)

This mode is similar to aperture priority, but you select the shutter speed and the camera sets the aperture. This mode is perfect for freezing high-speed action or for creating motion blur.

Aperture priority (A/Av)

This semi-automatic mode enables you to choose an aperture value that gives you your desired effect (blurred backgrounds, for example), and the camera then selects the shutter speed that’s needed for a correct exposure.

Manual (M)

In manual mode, you set both the aperture and shutter speed for any given scene, which places you in total creative control. It gives you access to all of the available aperture values and shutter speeds, and an exposure level indicator in the viewfinder (or on the LCD screen) tells you whether your shot is correctly, under- or over-exposed. The Bulb mode enables you to shoot exposures for as long as the shutter button is held down, making it ideal for night photography, when exposures of 30 secs or more are required.

File format

As mentioned here, there are two main options here – JPEG or raw. The JPEG format was created for digital photography, and is now a universal standard that’s viewable on any suitable device. In contrast, raw files are specific to individual makes and models, and specialist photo-editing programs are required to open or edit them. The big advantage of shooting in raw is that the image contains more information, which can be used to get the highest quality images. JPEGs compress the image slightly, losing quality.

ISO sensitivity

Your SLR’s sensitivity to light is determined by the ISO setting. To produce noise-free images, it’s best to use your camera’s lowest ISO, but this isn’t always possible. In low light, for example, a slow shutter speed is often needed to expose the image correctly, and this can result in motion blur caused by camera shake. If you’re already using your lens’s widest aperture, the only way to get a faster shutter speed – and therefore avoid camera shake – is to increase the ISO. And the higher the ISO, the more noisy the image.

White balance

You can rely on the auto white balance (AWB) setting in most shooting situations, but there are some occasions where it can’t be relied upon. If you’re shooting in mixed light or in dark shade, for example, your camera’s auto white balance setting may produce images with a so-called ‘colour cast’. To eliminate this cast, switch to the preset closest to the type of light you’re shooting in. When it’s important to get the white balance exactly right, shoot in raw, because the white balance in a raw file can be fine-tuned later.

Custom functions

Scroll through your custom function menu for the first time and you’ll be amazed at the volume and complexity of the changes you can make to the way your SLR operates. Don’t be daunted, though – configuring some of these to suit your preferences will enable you to work much faster than sticking with the defaults. Some cameras enable you to save the most commonly used functions in a quick-access menu, or to assign custom function settings to different shooting situations. See your SLR’s manual for your options.

Back to: Set up your camera

Forward to: Get better exposures

An aperture is simply a hole in the lens – a variable diaphragm that can be made larger or smaller to control how much light reaches the sensor. You can control the aperture size using the dial on your SLR (or it can be set for you by the camera). The aperture size is measured on the f-stop scale. The relationship between the numbers on the scale can be hard to grasp. The best way to think of them is as fractions, with f/4 being twice as large as f/8, f/8 twice as large as f/16, and so on.

Your choice of aperture will vary depending on the lens you use, but it will generally range from a widest setting of around f/4 to a narrowest of around f/22. Aperture size is divided into so-called stops – f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22, and so on – with each stop effectively halving the amount of light reaching the sensor. As mentioned earlier, this can be compensated for by doubling the exposure time.

What does depth of field mean?

In addition to helping control exposure, your choice of aperture also affects what’s known as ‘depth of field’ (or DoF). The depth of field is a measure of how much of your photo is in focus, both in front of, and behind, the point you’ve actually focused on. Depth of field is more apparent when your image contains elements at varying distances from the camera, and is particularly noticeable in the background. Whether your background is sharp or out of focus depends on your aperture choice.

Setting a wide aperture reduces the depth of field, helping to separate the subject from the background

To blur or not to blur?

A wide aperture of f/2.8 will produce an image with a very shallow depth of field, meaning that everything behind or in front of your focal point will be blurred, which is great for portraits. On the other hand, a narrow aperture – f/22, for example – will maximise the depth of field, which is ideal for landscapes. Depth of field also varies depending on the focal length of your lens, and how close you are to your subject. The longer the lens and the closer you are to your subject, the shallower the depth of field at a given aperture.

Narrow aperture

Why use a narrow aperture?

• Increases the depth of field to ensure the whole scene is in focus, from front to back
• Captures the optimum degree of fine detail – ideal for close-ups and landscapes
• Enables you to use slower shutter speeds for creative motion-blur effects

Wide aperture

Why use a wide aperture?

• Reduces the depth of field to focus attention on your subject while keeping the background blurred
• Allows you to create arty abstract shots with only a few millimetres of the subject in focus
• Enables you to choose faster shutter speeds to freeze motion or stop camera shake ruining shots

Back to: Get better exposures

Forward to: Shutter speed explained

Like Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority is a semi-automatic shooting mode designed to bridge the gap between automatic and manual exposure. Shutter Priority (sometimes called Tv) enables you to pick a desired shutter speed and then the camera selects an aperture to match the cameraís light meter. The shutter speed you select performs two functions. First, it controls the length of time that light is permitted to reach your image sensor; and second, it governs the degree of subject movement that’s recorded in your shot.

Like Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority is a semi-automatic shooting mode designed to bridge the gap between automatic and manual exposure.

Shutter Priority (sometimes called Tv) enables you to pick a desired shutter speed and then the camera selects an aperture to match the camera‘s light meter.

The shutter speed you select performs two functions. First, it controls the length of time that light is permitted to reach your image sensor; and second, it governs the degree of subject movement that‘s recorded in your shot. Shutter Priority is an great tool for sports and action photographers who need to freeze fast-moving subjects. It’s also good for the creative use of blur to emphasize movement.

If you want to completely freeze the action, use a fast shutter speed. The exact speed depends on a number of factors – the speed of the subject, the direction in which it‘s moving and its size in the frame. For example, if a horse galloping towards you requires a shutter speed of /500 sec to freeze it, the required shutter speed will be much faster - around /2000 sec - if it‘s moving across the frame at 90 degrees to the camera.

Subject size is also important. A subject that appears small on the horizon will require a much slower shutter speed than one that‘s looming up close in the viewfinder.

Be a more effective photographer

Choosing the right shutter speed when you‘re intentionally introducing blur for creative effect is far from a precise science.

The degree of blur that works best for a subject is a matter of personal taste. A good starting point is to make a set of test shots using shutter speeds ranging from 1/30 sec to 1 sec, moving beyond these parameters if the resulting blur is too weak or too strong.

When you find a shutter speed that works well, use your auto-exposure bracketing facility to give you a selection of three or more options. The difference in shutter speed between each shot will depend on the bracketing exposure increment selected.

Warning!

When shooting handheld remember to use a shutter speed equal to or faster than the reciprocal of the focal length of the lens. For instance, if you‘re shooting with a 300mm lens, use a shutter speed of 1/300 sec or faster to avoid camera shake.

Keep an eye on your aperture value too - because your camera varies this for you as the light changes it‘s easy to overlook. Aperture also changes when you dial in EV compensation, and too wide an aperture may result in overly shallow depth of field.

All pictures by Andrea Thompson

Most cameras offer a selection of exposure modes ranging from fully automatic to fully manual. Automatic modes are best avoided unless you want your camera to make all the crucial creative decisions for you. But if you’re not confident about setting both shutter speed and aperture manually, a semi-automatic shooting mode is the perfect solution.

Most cameras offer a selection of exposure modes ranging from fully automatic to fully manual.

Automatic modes are best avoided unless you want your camera to make all the crucial creative decisions for you. But if you’re not confident about setting both shutter speed and aperture manually, a semi-automatic shooting mode such as Aperture Priority (often abbreviated to A or Av) is the perfect solution. In Av mode you choose the aperture and the camera selects the shutter speed to match the internal light meter reading.

The main advantage of Aperture Priority is that it enables you to vary the depth of field - the zone of acceptably sharp focus that extends in front of and behind the point you focus on - with a minimum of fuss. The larger the aperture you pick, the narrower the depth of field. Conversely, smaller apertures extend the zone of sharp focus.

Aperture Priority is ideal for portraits when you need mid-to-wide apertures to blur distracting backgrounds.

It‘s also handy for macro work because you can set narrow apertures to bring entire subjects into focus, and then quickly switch to wider apertures to create abstract compositions featuring minimal depth of field. Av mode is also popular with landscape photographers who need to maximize the depth of field across a whole scene.

Be a more effective photographer

When light levels drop it‘s tempting to open up to the widest aperture in order to maintain a suitable shutter speed. However, if you‘re shooting with macro or telephoto lenses, depth of field can become too narrow (often just a few millimeters) to ensure precise focusing.

In these conditions boosting your ISO is a more sensible way to increase shutter speed. A shot with a slight increase in noise is better than no shot at all.

Assessing depth

Depth of Field Preview can help you ascertain if your subject is ‘in focus’ from front to back. You‘ll find the button on the front of your camera next to the lens. When you press it, the lens will be stopped down to the selected aperture enabling you to preview the depth of field in the viewfinder.

This works well in bright conditions, but in lowlight levels and very small apertures the viewfinder becomes quite dark, making it hard to accurately assess the zone of sharpness.

WARNING!

One of the drawbacks of Aperture Priority is that it‘s all too easy to overlook your shutter speed, which can prove disastrous if you‘re shooting handheld.

For example, if you were using a wide-angle at f/8 and 1/125 sec, then switched to a long telephoto without selecting a wider aperture or boosting the ISO, there‘d be a severe risk of camera shake.

Under and overexposure is another thing to watch out for - but your camera should flash a viewfinder or LCD warning at you, like this…

Nikon

Select an aperture that lets in too little light and the Nikon system warns you of the ‘Lo‘ light levels.

Canon

In the Canon system, the shutter speed readout flashes when the exposure time is longer than 30 secs.

All pictures by Andrea Thompson