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

Setting up your camera with a few customisations will improve not only how easily you can use your system help you to deliver consistent images, it can reduce your personal irritation as well. Simple changes, like assigning frequently used controls to function buttons or turning off the focus beep sound, go a long way to making you a better photographer.

1. Customise dials/buttons

Options differ from camera to camera, but often let you assign a frequently used control such as spot-metering to a custom function button on the camera and decide whether the command dial or aperture ring on the lens sets the aperture.

2. File number sequence

Avoid the risk of overwriting by setting the file numbering to continue from the last number used when a new card is inserted.

3. AF-L/AE-L button

Set this button to lock both the focus and the exposure, just the focus or just the exposure. Use AF-L when you‘re tracking a moving subject and want to set the exposure at the moment the picture is taken. AE-L is good for backlit subjects as you can lock the exposure then focus on a different point.

4. Auto bracketing

There‘s more to bracketing than just exposure – you may find that your camera offers auto-bracketing for flash and white balance too.

5. Exposure compensation

Usually available in 1/3, 1/2 or 1-stop increments. 1/3-stop increments are best for everyday use as they allow the subtlest alterations, but if you‘re shooting subjects that require bigger exposure adjustments (e.g. silhouettes), you may prefer larger increments.

6. Beep

Turn off that beep that goes off every time the autofocus locks on! If your camera has a custom function that prevents you from taking a shot when the focus isn‘t locked on, you shouldn‘t need an audio alert anyway.

7. Autofocus

Common settings include whether the focus area is normal or wide and whether the camera gives priority to subjects in the centre area or those closest to the camera.

8. Centre-weighted area

Some SLRs offer a choice of diameters such as 6, 8, 10 and 13mm for greater precision when using centre-weighted metering.

9. Viewfinder grid display

A nifty device that helps you compose shots according to the rule of thirds and check that you‘ve aligned the horizon correctly.

10. Self timer delay

If you’re shooting a sunset or landscape using self-timer you may wish to set a short delay such as two seconds in order to avoid passers-by or lighting changes ruining your shot. If you want to appear in the photo a ten-second delay may be more appropriate.