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

Like the aperture setting, the shutter speed you choose isn’t simply a way of controlling the overall exposure. It also has a visible effect on your shots, enabling you to control the appearance of a moving subject.

Fast shutter speeds freeze movement, ensuring pin-sharp pictures no matter how unsteady your grip on the camera, or how fast the subject is moving. Slow shutter speeds tend to blur movement, and so can be used for creative effects. Generally speaking, the slower the shutter speed, the greater the degree of motion blur in the image you take.

To freeze the motion of a fast-moving subject, choose a fast shutter speed

The shutter speed is the length of time that the shutter is left open. The scale used is easier to understand than the aperture system, because speeds are measured in fractions of a second. However, the numbers are often simplified – so 1/125 sec is shown as 125, 1/15 sec as 15 and so on. Speeds of a second or longer are shown as 1”, 2”, and so on.

Working in stops

As we’ve established, your aperture and shutter speed work together to capture an exposure. This means that there is no one single combination that will give you the correct exposure. You can pair a slow shutter speed with a narrow aperture, or a fast shutter speed with a wide aperture, and get a shot that is equally as bright. In the following sequence, 1/125 sec at f/5.6, 1/60 sec at f/8 and 1/30 sec at f/11 will all let in the same amount of light to produce an identical exposure.

Each f-stop number is ‘half’ the size of the one before it, and so lets in half as much light. The difference between two sequential f-stop numbers is often referred to as an f-stop, or simply a ‘stop’. If you reduce the aperture by one stop (letting less light in), to set the same exposure you need to compensate by slowing the shutter speed by one stop, to allow that light to hit the sensor for twice as long. Unless you’re in manual mode, your SLR will work this out for you.

Keep up to speed

If you’re shooting handheld (without a tripod) you’ll need a fast enough shutter speed to make sure camera shake doesn’t cause blurred shots. A good rule of thumb is to use a shutter speed that’s faster than the focal length on your lens; so with a focal length of 200mm, make sure you shoot at around 1/250 sec or faster.

Setting shutter priority mode (S/Tv) enables you to choose the shutter speed

The more you zoom in, the faster the shutter speed will need to be. Keep an eye on the shutter speed in the viewfinder and widen the aperture if necessary. In low light, you may need to increase the ISO, or use a tripod, which will allow you to shoot at very slow shutter speeds.

Back to: Understanding aperture

Forward to: Perfect your exposures

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