IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 |
Welcome to Digital Photography. Hi, I am Derrick Story
and we are here in beautiful Samy's Camera
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in Santa Barbara, California.
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This store has everything and we are going to explore a lot of that.
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We are going to put together camera kits.
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I am going to show you the difference between the compact camera
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and the digital SLR.
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We are even going to explore the menus here, so that we know
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what all these little things mean in here so that you
can get the best picture as possible out of your camera.
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So what I suggest is you get comfortable and you come along and you
explore digital photography with me. We are going to have a great time.
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| How I view photography| 00:00 | Well before I get into talking about buttons and menus and
particular types of hardware, I would like to cover a little bit
| | 00:07 | about my view of photography in terms of
how I use these different types of cameras.
| | 00:11 | Compact cameras I just think are very important. Digital SLRs,
which definitely have their place in the photography world,
| | 00:18 | and then mobile devices. Now all of these are important tools
and we are going to cover them all. I want to show you some examples
| | 00:24 | of photos that I have taken with each type just to give you
an idea of how I use these different cameras. This first one,
| | 00:31 | for example is a cloud shot through an airplane window. We have
all seen this shot but because I had a compact camera in my pocket,
| | 00:37 | I was able to pull it out and put it
up against the glass and get the shot.
| | 00:42 | If I didn't have a compact or if it weren't a compact
shooter, I probably would have missed the shot.
| | 00:47 | Compacts are also great because their accessories are usually
cheaper. So for example, I can get underwater housing
| | 00:54 | for my compact camera for far less than a Digital SLR.
And for just a few hundred bucks put on my flippers and
| | 01:00 | go snorkeling and come away with some terrific underwater shots.
If I had to depend on a Digital SLR only, I probably wouldn't
| | 01:07 | make that investment but because it's affordable
and easy to do compact again helps get the shot.
| | 01:15 | There are times however when I need what a Digital SLR
can do. And one of those times is for wide angle shots.
| | 01:22 | Compacts are notorious for not having very wide lenses. Digital
SLR you can basically get as wide a lens as you can afford.
| | 01:29 | I needed a 17 mm lens to get this shot.
| | 01:32 | I could not have gotten it with the compact and so that's why
I had to pull up the Digital SLR and come away with this shot
| | 01:38 | that I really like a lot.
| | 01:40 | The other end of the focal lens spectrum is important too
for Digital SLR. And that's where you have the reach.
| | 01:48 | You need the reach to get the shot. I needed every bit of the
300 mm lens that I had on my Digital SLR to take a picture
| | 01:55 | of these sheep in Iceland. Again I don't think I would have come away with
as compelling a shot with a compact, plus the Digital SLR responds faster.
| | 02:04 | I had to grab the shot right when it was ready,
just a second or two later the shot was gone.
| | 02:09 | With a compact I probably would have missed it.
| | 02:12 | And then the other thing I really like about Digital SLRs
is they have less image noise at the higher ISOs.
| | 02:18 | I had to raise the ISO a little bit for this shot in order to get it.
| | 02:21 | With a compact camera you would have a seen a lot more
noise in the sky than it shows up with a Digital SLR.
| | 02:28 | And so that cleanness is another advantage
and the reason why they are very important.
| | 02:33 | Now mobile devices I think are very important and a lot of times
people overlook some of their true value which is their data capture.
| | 02:40 | One of the first things I do when I get out of the car
is take a picture of where I parked. So that way when I
| | 02:45 | come back hours later, or sometimes days later if you park at
the airport, and I don't have to worry about wandering around
| | 02:50 | aimlessly in a parking garage.
| | 02:53 | And they're also good for just you know capturing information.
Phone numbers, websites, what time things open and close,
| | 03:00 | mobile devices are terrific for these.
| | 03:02 | Why takes notes when you can take a picture? Mobile devices
have their place along with compacts and the SLR cameras.
| | 03:09 | Before I actually get into pushing buttons and working
menus and so forth I have a few little foundations pieces,
| | 03:15 | a few photography basics I want to cover. We are going
to do that next and then we will just keep on rolling.
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1. FoundationsCamera sensors| 00:01 | I want to talk about Image Sensors just for a minute because
a lot of talk around what type of digital camera to buy,
| | 00:08 | gets caught up around megapixels.
| | 00:09 | And really sensors are more important. We have three sensors here,
| | 00:14 | the first one is the Full Frame Sensor
| | 00:16 | and this is a kind of sensor that you would find on a high-end Digital
SLR such as a NikonD3 or a Canon5D. The reason why they call it
| | 00:24 | Full Frame is it's the same size as a 35 mm piece of film,
so all of your lenses behave as they would on a 35 mm camera.
| | 00:33 | What's so good about this sensor is that it has a lot of room.
So if you put 12 megapixels on here, which is really 12 million pixels,
| | 00:40 | then you have lots of space for them to operate.
| | 00:43 | Lots of light gathering power.
| | 00:45 | By the same token,
| | 00:46 | if you go over here to a Compact Camera Sensor
| | 00:49 | and you put 12 megapixels on here, this is much more crowded.
And the photo size themselves are going to be a lot smaller.
| | 00:56 | There is going to be a more heat and heat equals image noise in the
world of digital photography. So although each of these are 12 megapixels
| | 01:04 | there is a big difference in image quality between the Full Frame Sensor
| | 01:08 | and the Compact Camera Sensor.
| | 01:10 | Now the APS is right in the middle, you will find this
on mid-level Digital SLRs and entry level Digital SLRs.
| | 01:17 | It's an excellent size for a sensor. It's much bigger than a Compact
Camera Sensor. And it's not that much smaller than a Full Frame and
| | 01:25 | 12 megapixels on here is going to give you beautiful pictures also.
| | 01:29 | So don't get hung up on megapixels. Really what you want to think
about is sensor size. And if image noise is important to you,
| | 01:36 | in terms of if you are a low light shooter and you don't
want a lot of image noise in the shadows and so forth.
| | 01:42 | Think in terms of Digital SLR, but don't shy away from compact
cameras either. It's really a matter of expectation,
| | 01:49 | not megapixels. It's sensor size and knowing
what you are going to get from those sensors.
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| Depth of field| 00:00 | Two things you need to know about depth of field is that
there are shallow depth of field and extended depth of field.
| | 00:06 | This is an example of shallow depth of field. You will notice
that the Model is nice and sharp but the background is soft.
| | 00:13 | I achieved this effect using a Digital SLR.
| | 00:16 | Extended depth of field on the other hand, the foreground is
sharp, but everything else is sharp too, all the way back
| | 00:22 | to the smallest cloud in the deep blue sky.
| | 00:25 | This is the effect that you get with compact cameras. They have
built-in. They are inherently- they have great depth of field.
| | 00:33 | But it is very difficult to get this sort of shot with a compact camera.
| | 00:36 | So if you are after shots with shallow depth of
field you might have to think about a Digital SLR.
| | 00:42 | If you are fine with extended depth of field, then
a compact camera is going to serve you just fine.
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| Shutter speed| 00:00 | Shutter speed allows you to control motion,
that it's main job in photography.
| | 00:04 | So if you want to freeze motion you need
to be able to use a fast shutter speed.
| | 00:10 | And if you want motion to flow through your frame here,
| | 00:13 | a longer, shutter speed or a slow shutter speed as we often
call it, is required. Now the important thing is if you want
| | 00:19 | to do this sort of effects, you need to
be able to have control over the shutter.
| | 00:24 | Typically we have that with the Digital SLR. Often
compacts don't give us direct control over the shutter
| | 00:30 | but we can get to shutter speed settings possibly through the scene
modes. But if this type of shot is important to you, you may want to
| | 00:38 | look for a Digital SLR because they do typically
give you more control over the shutter.
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| Camera size| 00:00 |
Camera size. Well here are three different types of cameras and you
know we refer throughout all of those training about Digital SLRs
| | 00:07 |
and we refer to compact cameras and mobile devices. But I
just want to give you a quick peek at what I am talking about.
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And I am talking about these three things.
| | 00:16 |
Here is a Digital SLR here, very high quality but not the
most portable camera in the world. So if you only shoot with
| | 00:23 |
a Digital SLR, chances are there will be times when a great shot
is before you and your camera will be back home on the dresser.
| | 00:30 |
So I love these cameras, but they are not always for every situation.
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Compacts on the other hand are easy to carry with you and
they have high quality, they have lots of controls with
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the more advanced ones and even the simple ones these days take
fabulous pictures. They are easy to carry in your jacket pocket or
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your pants pocket and some are so light
now you can even carry them in your top shirt pocket.
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So compacts are a nice compromise between the Digital SLR
| | 00:56 |
and the mobile device.
| | 00:58 |
Now mobile devices today are looking more and more like
cameras and less and less like phones than what they are
| | 01:03 |
originally designed to do. And every mobile
device practically has a camera on it today.
| | 01:09 |
There are good cameras,
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believe it or not, but they are not great cameras. You're not going
to get the same quality of a mobile device that you get out
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of the Digital SLR. But they are handy data recording devices
and you always have them with you. So they do have their place
| | 01:24 |
in our photographic environment here. So just keep in mind
when I am talking about a mobile device or a compact or
| | 01:30 |
a Digital SLR, these are examples of those types of cameras.
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2. Choosing the Right Camera for the JobYour camera manual| 00:00 | I want to talk a few minutes about that
little booklet that comes in your camera box,
| | 00:05 | something that you probably tossed aside on your
way to the camera and the battery and all the strap
| | 00:12 | and all the good stuff that was in there.
That little multi-language document is called
| | 00:17 | your owner's manual and believe it or not, as
hard to use as it may be, it's still worth having.
| | 00:24 | We're actually going to need it for the work that we are
going to be doing together. The reason being I can tell you
| | 00:30 | how to use slow syncro flash and Exposure Compensation and
all that good stuff. I will show you what the icons look like.
| | 00:38 | And even show you examples of them in operation. The one
thing that you are going to need your owner's manual for
| | 00:46 | is to find where those controls are on your camera.
| | 00:51 | So once you find where they are, I will get you home from there.
But you do need to find where they are on your camera
| | 00:57 | and you'll need your owner's manual for that.
| | 00:59 | Now if you have lost your owner's manual, do not despair because
almost every camera manufacture makes it available online as
| | 01:08 | a PDF and you can download it and have it on your computer.
And that's not such a bad thing either because the cool thing
| | 01:14 | about the PDF is it lets you search. You can search for 'flash'
and it will show you all the pages in the owner's manual that
| | 01:22 | has flash on it.
| | 01:24 | So paper or PDF,
| | 01:26 | either way, go find your owner's manual right now and then come
back and then we'll show you how to use all these controls.
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| Anatomy of a compact camera| 00:00 | I have a nice selection of digital compact cameras here.
| | 00:04 | Part of what makes it digital camera
interesting or the right fit for you
| | 00:08 | is how it feels in your hand.
| | 00:10 | For instance, this Nikon here has a nice little grip on it,
| | 00:13 | people with larger hands like nicer grips.
| | 00:15 | However, if I want to put it in my shirt pocket here,
| | 00:19 | that's not such a good look. Argh.
| | 00:22 | So there's always a trade-off. Now, however,
| | 00:26 | this little Leica here, very slim.
Fits in my shirt pocket quite nicely,
| | 00:31 | but the thing about it is that it is
not so good for people with large hands.
| | 00:35 | So you sort of have to think about, what's the right
form factor for you and you actually have to hold the camera
| | 00:40 | in order to get the right one.
| | 00:43 | Now there are a few other things that you should note
about a digital camera. We are going to talk more in depth
| | 00:47 | about some of these features but I wanted
to give you just a run through right now.
| | 00:51 | I am going to fire up this little Sony,
| | 00:54 | it has a cute little zoom lens on here.
| | 00:55 | These zoom lenses usually don't have a lot
of magnification, usually around 3x or so.
| | 01:01 | So they don't have a lot of reach, something to keep in mind.
| | 01:03 | If you need to shoot across the street,
| | 01:06 | then you want a Digital SLR and probably not a compact.
| | 01:10 | On the back though you get this very nice LCD,
| | 01:13 | very big screen,
| | 01:14 | and you have a nice view of the world.
| | 01:16 | However, one of the things that I like about this Sony is it is
also has an optical view finder which means I can turn off the LCD
| | 01:23 | and look through the optical view finder.
| | 01:26 | I can save a battery power that way or if it is just
very bright outside and I can't see the LCD very well,
| | 01:32 | the optical view finder is very helpful.
| | 01:34 | And I keep in mind the optical view finder isn't very accurate so it's
more just to kind of help you framing. You are not getting 100% accuracy.
| | 01:43 | Another thing to keep in mind is where is the zoom ring for the lens?
| | 01:47 | On the Sony here we have it in the back,
| | 01:50 | and you have this little toggle switch,
| | 01:52 | but a lot of cameras such as this Leica will
have it as a collar right around the shutter button.
| | 01:58 | Again this is a matter of preference and you need to
hold the camera to see which one works best for you.
| | 02:03 | I am going to power down right now.
| | 02:06 | One other thing that I like on cameras is I like a lot of buttons
and dials because that means I don't have to go digging
| | 02:12 | through the menu system in order to find the control that I want.
| | 02:16 | I'm also going to take a look here at the power and memory,
| | 02:19 | it's here on the side.
| | 02:21 | And the one thing that I want to note about
that is I like being able to change the battery
| | 02:26 | when the camera's on a tripod.
| | 02:29 | Some cameras will put the power memory down here which means
when it's mounted on a tripod I don't have access to it
| | 02:34 | and I have to take it off.
| | 02:36 | Now another thing I noticed
| | 02:38 | and maybe probably because this is a demo
camera but there is no wrist strap here.
| | 02:42 | Having a wrist strap or a neck strap is very important.
These cameras are small they slip out of your hands easily
| | 02:48 | so make sure that your camera has a wrist
strap and then you use it while you are shooting.
| | 02:53 | Finally the best camera is the one that you have with you.
| | 02:56 | And compact cameras are very easy to carry, whether they're
in your pocket, in your backpack, wherever you may be using them.
| | 03:03 | They are not as versatile as a Digital SLR, but then again
a lot of times you can get a picture with this camera
| | 03:09 | when your Digital SLR is at home on the dresser.
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| Anatomy of a DSLR camera| 00:00 | One of the first things you are going to notice when you move from
compact cameras to Digital SLRs is, my gosh they are a lot heavier.
| | 00:08 | Well of course this is a professional
Model so it's heavier than many others.
| | 00:11 | For example, this nice entry level Nikon,
| | 00:15 | this D40 is quite light and it has mainly the same
controls that you will see on your compact camera.
| | 00:21 | Now one thing that all of these cameras have in
common is that they are modular, in other words
| | 00:26 | I can change the lens on this camera and put on
| | 00:29 | a completely different lens and have a whole new set of functionality.
| | 00:34 | Compact cameras don't allow for that at all.
| | 00:37 | I'll remount this lens real quickly here.
| | 00:41 | Another option that you have
| | 00:43 | with Digital SLRs, is that you can use
an external flash with the camera.
| | 00:47 | You can either mount it directly on the camera.
| | 00:50 | You can have the flash setup of to the side and fire it remotely
| | 00:53 | or you can have an extension cable that
connects the camera to the flash itself.
| | 00:58 | Again, another option that you have.
| | 01:00 | So Digital SLRs. They are faster,
| | 01:05 | they are heavier,
| | 01:06 | they come in a variety of sizes so you
can find the one that's right for you
| | 01:10 | and they provide you with lots of options.
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| Anatomy of a mobile device| 00:00 | Nearly every mobile device has a camera built into it.
| | 00:03 | Now these aren't for fine art photography, if you go to
the Grand Canyon for example, you probably want your DSLR.
| | 00:09 | But there are still good little picture takers. Actually you
maybe wondering why I am telling you this in a parking garage.
| | 00:15 | Well one of my favorite uses for camera
phone is to remember where the heck I parked.
| | 00:20 | For example, let's say I am going to the airport, I am
going to be gone for a week. What I do before I leave
| | 00:26 | is pull out my camera phone,
| | 00:27 | make sure that I have both the car and the marker in the shot,
| | 00:30 | take it,
| | 00:31 | and then when I come back a week later,
| | 00:33 | if I forget where I parked the car,
| | 00:35 | all I have to do is check my camera phone.
| | 00:37 | Oh, I'm in Green 4 and go right to my car.
| | 00:40 | Other uses, restaurant hours. You are walking by a place
and you might want to come back and have dinner there,
| | 00:46 | take a picture of it and you know the
hours that it's opened and that it's closed.
| | 00:49 | Let's say you are in a big hotel in Las Vegas
and you are getting ready to go out to dinner.
| | 00:54 | On your way out,
| | 00:55 | take a picture of your room number.
| | 00:57 | That war when you come back later that night
and you are going, was I in 2886 or 2668?
| | 01:02 | Check your camera phone.
| | 01:04 | Oh, 2886.
| | 01:05 | So these things are very useful tools,
they are data capture devices.
| | 01:09 | They are not for fine art photography,
| | 01:11 | but they are part of our photographic arsenal
| | 01:14 | and keep that in mind when you are out and about.
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3. Compacts: Basic Features and ComponentsThe lens| 00:00 | So we are going to take a look at the
lenses on a compact camera right now.
| | 00:04 | This little Canon right here, I love this camera,
| | 00:07 | mainly because it has not a 3x,
not a 5x, but a 10x optical zoom.
| | 00:14 | That's a lot of reach in a fairly small camera.
| | 00:17 | Now you will notice so there is always a trade-off.
| | 00:21 | You have the 10x optical zoom,
| | 00:23 | which you have a much bigger camera than
this little Leica here, which is cute,
| | 00:28 | but has a 3x optical zoom.
| | 00:30 | Its reach isn't nearly as far.
| | 00:33 | Now you will notice why I am saying optical zoom,
| | 00:35 | because that's a lens that you want to use. Almost all of these
cameras will have an option in the menu system for digital zoom.
| | 00:43 | Stay away from that, turn off the digital
zoom and go only off the optical zoom.
| | 00:49 | Another feature that I want to mention are auxiliary lenses.
| | 00:52 | So this Nikon has a 3.5 power built-in lens.
| | 00:57 | Okay now I can't change that lens, but what I can do
is because it has a little filter ring right here,
| | 01:03 | I can actually use an auxiliary lens and put it over the front,
| | 01:07 | that means that I can go a little wider.
| | 01:09 | I can put a wide angle, auxiliary lens on it
| | 01:12 | or I can put a telephoto auxiliary lens on it
| | 01:15 | and sort of extend the reach of this camera.
| | 01:17 | So you do have options, but you have to make sure if you want
to use auxiliary lenses that you have a camera that has
| | 01:23 | the ability to mount them
| | 01:25 | and that has them available from the manufacturer.
| | 01:29 | So in the end, it really depends on trade-offs.
| | 01:33 | If you want more reach with your camera,
| | 01:35 | if you want a lens that can zoom in on stuff far away,
you probably will have to go with a bigger camera.
| | 01:41 | If portability is more important to you, you will probably
have to settle for an optical zoom that's around 3x or 4x.
| | 01:48 | Either way it all comes down to
finding the right camera for you.
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| The shutter release| 00:00 |
So all cameras have shutter releases,
| | 00:03 |
but it's interesting a lot of people don't know how to use them
properly and I thought I will just take a minute and show you.
| | 00:09 |
Most of them are what we call two-step shutter releases and
what that means is that when you are composing your picture,
| | 00:15 |
you hold the camera up,
| | 00:17 |
you press the shutter release down half way.
| | 00:20 |
Now you may have heard a little beep there,
| | 00:22 |
that's the camera telling me that it's ready to take a picture.
| | 00:25 |
The reason why you will hold it down half way is that the
camera has a number of things it has to do. It has to focus,
| | 00:31 |
it has to figure out the exposure,
| | 00:32 |
and even has to set the white balance.
| | 00:34 |
Now even though it happens very fast,
| | 00:37 |
you have to give it a chance.
| | 00:38 |
A lot of times what people will do is,
they will pick up the camera,
| | 00:41 |
they will compose their shot and they'll just jam at the shutter.
| | 00:44 |
You're not giving the camera an opportunity to take the best shot.
| | 00:48 |
So the way to use a shutter release
| | 00:50 |
is compose your shot,
| | 00:51 |
hold the shutter release down halfway,
| | 00:54 |
let it do its business.
| | 00:55 |
It will give you a confirmation signal, both
audible and it will show you on the screen here.
| | 01:00 |
If you need to recompose your shots
| | 01:03 |
while still holding the shutter release down half way,
| | 01:05 |
when you are ready to take the picture,
| | 01:09 |
press it the rest of the way.
| | 01:10 |
That's all there is to it. It's a very simple technique
and you'll find that your pictures improve,
| | 01:15 |
when you use the two-step shutter release properly.
| | 01:19 |
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| The LCD and rear controls| 00:00 | I am now going to talk about LCD in rear controls.
| | 00:04 | This Nikon, for example, has a nice big LCD screen which I like.
| | 00:08 | It makes it easy to compose the shots and of
course LCDs are handy for reviewing your work also.
| | 00:14 | It's a rather large camera, for a compact that is,
| | 00:17 | and it allows room to have buttons and dials on the side.
| | 00:21 | Now the buttons are handy because it allows you to get into menu
items quickly. You just press a button and you are right there.
| | 00:27 | You don't have to go through navigate a bunch of
menu items to find the control that you want.
| | 00:33 | When you are in the menu having this Jog Dial
on the side here is also very convenient.
| | 00:38 | You can click on one side or another side
and that allows you to move around in the menu.
| | 00:43 | When you find what you want there is
usually an OK or a Set button in the middle.
| | 00:48 | When you press that, that sets the command and locks it in.
| | 00:52 | Now of course we have all this convenience in
| | 00:54 | a very, not overtly compact camera.
I mean it's compact my DSLR terms,
| | 01:01 | but it's not compact when you
compare it to this little Leica here.
| | 01:05 | Let's take a look at the back of this.
| | 01:07 | Now I do have a nice large LCD,
| | 01:10 | but it is on a smaller camera which means there
isn't as much room for buttons and controls here.
| | 01:15 | Something to keep in mind.
| | 01:17 | Another thing to keep in mind
| | 01:19 | is that you might want a camera that
has a swing out LCD such as this Canon.
| | 01:25 | Now the reason why we have a swing out on this camera is
because it shoots movies as well as digital still pictures.
| | 01:32 | All of these cameras shoot movies but
this camera is made for shooting video.
| | 01:37 | So having a camera that has a swiveling
LCD allows me to hold it down low
| | 01:43 | or raise it up high and still compose
the picture. It's very convenient.
| | 01:48 | The trade-off is of course is that the LCD itself is smaller.
| | 01:53 | Compared in size to this Nikon here you can
see that you have a lot less real estate.
| | 01:58 | So considerations to keep in mind
when you are looking for a camera is,
| | 02:02 | what kind of LCD do you need? Do you want a large one?
| | 02:06 | is the smaller one OK that swings out if you're shooting more movies?
And do you like to have a lot of buttons and controls on the outside?
| | 02:15 | If you want to have it all, you are probably
going to have to go with a larger camera.
| | 02:20 | If you want to have just a large LCD and buttons and controls aren't
as important to you, you can probably get away with a smaller camera.
| | 02:27 | And finally, if you are a movie shooter,
| | 02:29 | you might want to look for one that has a swivel out LCD.
| | 02:32 | These are all considerations to keep in mind.
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| Power and memory| 00:00 | I would like to talk a little bit about memory and power now.
| | 00:03 | The first thing I want to mention about
memory is that when you buy a camera,
| | 00:07 | you are going to get a memory card with it maybe.
| | 00:09 | If you do, it's going to be small.
| | 00:11 | It might be 16 megabytes, it might be 32 megabytes,
no matter. That's not movie making material.
| | 00:18 | So you want to factor in a memory card to
the purchase of your camera when you are shopping.
| | 00:23 | I like this 4 gigabyte memory cards.
| | 00:25 | They hold lots of pictures and they hold a ton of
movie footage. And sometimes if you shop around,
| | 00:31 | you can also get a real memory card reader with it.
| | 00:34 | Very handy to have.
| | 00:35 | Now where the memory card is placed is also somewhat
important especially if you are shooting movies.
| | 00:41 | This little Pentax here has the memory card slot on the bottom.
| | 00:45 | Nothing wrong with that.
| | 00:46 | But if you're a movie maker and you have the camera on the tripod,
| | 00:49 | and you run out of memory and you want to change cards then
you will actually have to remove the camera from the tripod.
| | 00:55 | Just something to keep in mind.
| | 00:57 | Now moving to power I want to mention something that
you may have noticed when I opened up this Pentax.
| | 01:02 | They had AA batteries in here.
| | 01:05 | I will tell you right of the top some
people love these and some people hate them.
| | 01:09 | The thing about AA batteries,
| | 01:11 | for those that love them,
| | 01:12 | is that they feel like no matter where they go,
| | 01:15 | any drug store in the world will have
a battery if they run out of juice.
| | 01:19 | People who hate them feel that they are little clunky and they
don't hold as much energy as the proprietary lithium batteries.
| | 01:26 | Let's take a look at one of these proprietary
batteries in this Nikon here at the bottom.
| | 01:31 | Here is what a typical proprietary lithium battery will look like.
| | 01:34 | It's like a wafer, it's very small.
| | 01:37 | It allows the camera to stay small but they pack a big punch.
| | 01:41 | And the thing about them is they are rather expensive
| | 01:43 | which you pretty much need to have an extra one
because sometimes they can run out of juice in hurry.
| | 01:49 | I am going to put this back in here.
| | 01:52 | Speaking of power, chargers also play a role in all of
this. I want to show you two types of chargers here.
| | 01:58 | This little Leica charger is more the style that I like because
| | 02:03 | the plug is built right into the back.
| | 02:05 | That means it's a very compact charger,
it's very easy to carry around.
| | 02:10 | You don't see these as often any more but there are
chargers that actually have a cord attached to them.
| | 02:17 | I don't like the cord as much because,
| | 02:19 | well first of all, you can loose the cord
| | 02:22 | and second of all,
| | 02:23 | you have to carry the cord around with you.
| | 02:25 | So when you are looking at the camera it
doesn't hurt to look at what type of power it has,
| | 02:31 | how you charge it,
| | 02:33 | what type of memory comes with the camera,
| | 02:35 | and how much more memory you think you
are going to need based on still pictures
| | 02:39 | versus movie making.
| | 02:41 | Again a lot of things to consider when looking at your next camera.
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|
|
4. DSLRs: Basic Features and ComponentsThe lens: Prime vs. zoom| 00:00 | I am going to talk about prime lens versus zoom lens.
| | 00:03 | Now I have two examples right here.
| | 00:05 | This is a 24 to 85 mm lens.
| | 00:08 | So it has a nice little zooming range that can cover a lot of subjects.
| | 00:13 | This one right here's just a regular 85 mm lens.
| | 00:16 | They are both about the same size.
| | 00:18 | So why would I want a lens with just one focal lengths
when I can have a lens that has a variety of focal lengths?
| | 00:24 | It has to do with speed.
| | 00:26 | If you look through this lens right here,
you will notice that it's a very fast lens.
| | 00:30 | It has a maximum aperture of F1.8
| | 00:33 | that means I can shoot in very low light with this lens.
| | 00:37 | This one has a maximum aperture of 3.5.
| | 00:41 | It doesn't let in nearly as much light and if you look at
the back of the lenses here, you have some idea of how much
| | 00:47 | light gathering power these lenses have.
| | 00:49 | So a lot of times the reason why we will shoot with a prime lens
| | 00:53 | instead of a zoom lens has to do with light gathering power.
| | 00:57 | Now some people believe that prime lenses are sharper.
| | 01:00 | A few years ago that may have been true.
| | 01:03 | Now both zoom lenses and prime lenses are both very sharp.
| | 01:06 | So the real difference comes down to light gathering power.
| | 01:10 | If you are going to shoot in low light,
| | 01:11 | you might want to think prime.
| | 01:13 | If you want a versatile lens for
lots of different shooting situations,
| | 01:17 | a zoom lens might be the way to go.
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| The lens: Stabilization| 00:00 |
I am going to talk a little bit about image stabilization.
| | 00:03 |
This lens has a very unique feature in that it actually
allows me to stabilize the image while I am shooting.
| | 00:10 |
It has a little switch here were I can turn it off and on,
| | 00:13 |
and the way that it works is that there is a
floating lens element in there and there are gyroscopes
| | 00:18 |
so as the lens moves because of camera shake the gyroscope
helps counteract that movement thereby stabilizing the lens.
| | 00:25 |
This is really phenomenal stuff.
| | 00:27 |
What that means is that when I am shooting in
low light and I have a little bit of camera shake
| | 00:32 |
that lens will stabilize that image.
| | 00:35 |
That let's me shoot in let's say at an 8th of a second
or a 4th of a second, where before I could never do that
| | 00:41 |
with a regular lens, a lens such as this one here
| | 00:45 |
that doesn't have stabilization.
| | 00:47 |
That means that I cannot shoot in low light
the same way that I can with this lens.
| | 00:52 |
Also because of the larger diameter
of this lens it gathers more light.
| | 00:56 |
So combined with stabilization gives me the power to shoot
in very low lighting conditions. Now one other thing that
| | 01:02 |
I want to mention, some DSLRs have
stabilization at the sensor itself.
| | 01:07 |
And that's kind of interesting.
| | 01:09 |
Instead of having a floating lens element,
| | 01:11 |
the sensor actually moves with gyroscopes.
| | 01:14 |
The Sony's are known for this
| | 01:16 |
and what that means is that every lens that you
put on that type of camera is a stabilized lens.
| | 01:22 |
So when you are shopping and you don't want to spend the extra
money maybe for a whole raft of stabilized lenses or maybe
| | 01:29 |
you already have some lenses that aren't stabilized.
| | 01:32 |
Maybe finding a camera where
stabilization happens in the camera body
| | 01:36 |
instead of in the lens might be a wise way to go.
| | 01:39 |
Either way image stabilization is very helpful
and it will give you clear sharper shots.
| | 01:46 |
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| The lens: Maximum aperture| 00:00 | I am going to talk a little bit about maximum aperture.
| | 00:03 | Sometimes lenses that have a wide maximum aperture are referred
to as fast. That's because they allow a lot of light to come in
| | 00:11 | but there is also a price to pay for that.
| | 00:13 | For instance, look at these two lenses.
| | 00:15 | These are both 70 to 200 lenses.
| | 00:18 | This one however is an F2.8.
| | 00:20 | That means it has a bigger maximum aperture that has more light
gathering power as you can see with the bigger lens in the front.
| | 00:27 | This one is an F4.
| | 00:29 | It doesn't gather as much light,
| | 00:31 | and you have a harder time shooting with it in low light conditions.
| | 00:34 | However, the trade-off is size.
| | 00:37 | There is a big difference between these two and
believe me there is a difference in weight also.
| | 00:42 | Now you can have a fast lens without having
this gigantic thing in your camera bag.
| | 00:48 | One of the best deals in photography is
actually the 50 mm lens or the prime lens.
| | 00:53 | This is a very light lens,
| | 00:55 | but you have a maximum aperture of F1.8.
| | 00:59 | It has tremendous light gathering capability
and it usually only costs around a $100.
| | 01:05 | So if you want to shoot in low light and you can't afford an
expensive zoom such as this, keep in mind that a 50 mm F1.8
| | 01:13 | is a good way to go.
| | 01:14 | It gives you the best the both worlds.
| | 01:16 | You have great light gathering power.
| | 01:18 | You have an affordable price and it doesn't weigh very much.
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| Lens filters and hoods| 00:00 | I am going to talk a little bit
about lens filters and lens hoods.
| | 00:04 | Now you may wonder why would I want
to carry this thing around with me
| | 00:07 | other than it looks awfully stylish when it's mounted on this lens.
| | 00:11 | A lens hood does a couple of things.
| | 00:13 | First of all it protects a front of your lens from things hitting it.
| | 00:17 | If you bump into a wall or something you are not doing to ding
the front of your lens you are going to let the hood take the blow.
| | 00:22 | But the other thing that it does is that it protects
your lens, the front of your lens from straight light.
| | 00:28 | Light coming in from the side can do two
things. It can either cause lens flare,
| | 00:33 | which is not very pretty at all,
| | 00:35 | or it can decrease the contrast, which you may not notice
| | 00:39 | unless you had a comparison shot with the lens hood on.
| | 00:42 | So the bottom line is that picture
quality improves when you use a lens hood.
| | 00:47 | And I am going to take it off and I am going
to talk about this filter right here for a moment.
| | 00:51 | Some people believe you shouldn't shoot with a filter on.
| | 00:54 | I actually disagree with that. I think a
good filter protects the front glass here.
| | 00:59 | This filter here probably costs $30, maybe $40.
| | 01:03 | Where as this lens is $500 or $600.
| | 01:06 | So by having the filter on the front I protect my investment.
| | 01:10 | Now the trick is to make sure that
your filter is a multi-coated filter.
| | 01:15 | What does that mean?
| | 01:16 | That means that it lets light comes through the glass much
easier and basically it's not like having a filter on at all.
| | 01:23 | I am going to take this filter off right
now and try to show you how that works.
| | 01:29 | When you hold a lens a certain way you will notice that you see
some green and some magenta. Those are the coating on the glass
| | 01:35 | and that improves light transmission.
| | 01:38 | The good multi-coated filter will
have some of the same characteristics.
| | 01:42 | So if you buy a filter make sure that
you get one with multi-coatings on it,
| | 01:47 | it's almost like not having a filter at all
except when something goes at the front of your lens.
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| Shutter release| 00:00 |
Let me talk a little bit about shutter release.
| | 00:03 |
Now with the DSLR it's not much different than with the compact camera,
| | 00:07 |
yet a lot of people make the same mistakes as
they do when they were shooting way in the early days
| | 00:12 |
and that is they just jab at the shutter when they take a picture.
| | 00:15 |
These shutters are basically two-step
devices and they are very easy to use.
| | 00:19 |
When you line up your shot,
| | 00:21 |
press the shutter halfway,
| | 00:22 |
you will hear a little beep, you
will get a little confirmation light
| | 00:25 |
that means your camera is ready to go.
| | 00:27 |
It's measured the exposure, it's done the
white balance, it's focused, it's ready to fire.
| | 00:33 |
You can recompose if you want,
| | 00:34 |
then push the shutter down the rest of the way.
| | 00:37 |
Take the picture. That's all there is to it.
| | 00:40 |
It's a very simple technique but believe me
your picture will improve if you use it properly.
| | 00:46 |
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| Zoom Lenses| 00:00 |
Let's take a look at the zooming ring on this camera.
| | 00:03 |
Now all lenses on DSLRs have basically two different functions.
| | 00:07 |
They have the focus ring,
| | 00:09 |
don't get that confused with the zooming ring, which is back here.
| | 00:13 |
Now the zooming ring is easier to tell because it has
little numbers on there and those little numbers represent
| | 00:18 |
the different focal lengths that you can zoom.
| | 00:20 |
Notice as I move the zooming ring here,
| | 00:23 |
that the lens in the front goes in and out.
| | 00:26 |
It's not focusing. What it's doing is
moving from one focal length to another.
| | 00:31 |
Now this is a wide angle lens that I have on here,
| | 00:34 |
so it goes from 14 mm here at the wide end
| | 00:37 |
and then as I move it clockwise,
| | 00:41 |
it goes all the way to 24 mm.
| | 00:44 |
So the zooming ring is very easy to
use you just look through the camera,
| | 00:48 |
move the zooming ring to the position that you want for your
composition and then you use your shutter release to take the picture.
| | 00:55 |
Don't confuse it with the focusing ring. This is
for actually making the picture sharper or softer.
| | 01:00 |
Zooming ring is normally in the back.
| | 01:02 |
Focusing ring is normally in the front but that's not always the case.
| | 01:07 |
When in doubt look for the little numbers and
that will help you tell which ring is which.
2.87]
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| Top panel controls| 00:00 | I am going to take a look at the top panel controls on this
Digital SLR. This is a very nice convenience that you have on
| | 00:07 | a lot of Digital SLRs allowing to see controls
| | 00:10 | right here as you look down at the camera.
| | 00:12 | Going from the center here, I actually have a control to
turn on the light for the LCD. This is very helpful when
| | 00:18 | you're in dark conditions, so that you can read your settings.
| | 00:22 | I also have autofocus and white balance settings.
| | 00:26 | I have drive and ISO,
| | 00:29 | and I even have metering patterns all conveniently located
| | 00:33 | right on the top here with an LCD to tell me what's going on.
| | 00:37 | Another thing that I really like on the
top panel is that I have the Mode Dial here.
| | 00:42 | And this is where I can switch from Program Mode
| | 00:45 | to Shutter Priority,
| | 00:47 | Aperture Priority,
| | 00:49 | Manual Focus,
| | 00:51 | Bulb
| | 00:52 | and I even have a custom function that I can set or
I have my own controls that I can quickly switch to.
| | 00:58 | Most of the time I shoot in P Mode,
| | 01:01 | which stands for Program but a lot
of us call this Professional Mode.
| | 01:05 | So the beauty of a Digital SLR is that you have all these controls
right on the top of the camera where they are very easy to access.
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| LCD and rear controls| 00:00 | Let's move to the back panel now, because there
is some really interesting stuff back here.
| | 00:04 | I will start with this row of buttons that's right here.
| | 00:06 | First thing that you have is a
playback button down here at the bottom
| | 00:10 | that allows me to actually look at the pictures that I have taken.
| | 00:14 | Above it, I have the Info button.
| | 00:17 | Now the fun thing about Info is that I
can cycle through different types of menus
| | 00:22 | that give me different amounts of information about my shot.
| | 00:25 | So for example, if I just want to see the image itself
without any additional information, I can go with that view
| | 00:32 | whereas if I want lots of information even
including the histogram, I can cycle to that view.
| | 00:38 | If I want to see the menu itself I have the Menu button here,
| | 00:41 | and then I can use a wheel to
scroll through the different menu settings.
| | 00:46 | Now much like a compact camera, once I
find something I want, if I want to set it ,
| | 00:50 | then the button in the middle is the SET button or the OK button.
| | 00:55 | I have the power button here where I can turn Off and On the camera
| | 00:58 | and then almost every digital SLR, like
a compact camera, has a Trash button.
| | 01:03 | So if I'm back at the picture itself.
| | 01:05 | And I decide that I want to delete it I can press the Trash button,
| | 01:10 | cycle over with the wheel to erase,
| | 01:14 | hit the OK button
| | 01:16 | and the picture is gone.
| | 01:18 | So the back panel controls are fairly simple. Some
cameras have additional things such as a jog dial that
| | 01:24 | allows you to move around, for instance when you have zoomed in on the
picture, you can use the jog dial to move from one edge to the other
| | 01:33 | and other controls to zoom in and zoom out on
your picture, these buttons are often dual function.
| | 01:39 | The blue markers will tell you what
happens when you are in playback Mode,
| | 01:43 | the white markers will tell you what they do when you are
in Shooting Mode, so you just have to know which is which.
| | 01:49 | So once you learn how these buttons work then
your camera becomes much easier to operate.
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| Power and memory| 00:00 | I am going to talk just a little bit about memory and power.
| | 00:03 | Now there is nothing really new here we know
that we need to have extra memory cards.
| | 00:07 | We know that we need to have the right card to fit our camera
| | 00:10 | and the bigger the card the more pictures
that we can take. Well that's just great.
| | 00:15 | And we also know that we want to have an extra battery with you when
you are out shooting because if you are in the middle of a great shoot
| | 00:21 | and you start to run low on power you don't want
to run out of juice, have an extra battery with you.
| | 00:26 | But here is something that I haven't talked
about that I think you may find interesting.
| | 00:30 | Most of these cameras have a proprietary lithium battery.
| | 00:34 | Terrific, but you need a charger and they are expensive.
| | 00:38 | One option that almost all Digital SLRs have is the external
power grip. Now what this allows you to do is put in
| | 00:45 | regular double AA batteries here,
| | 00:47 | load it in like this
| | 00:49 | and then where the battery goes in the camera the grip fits up in there.
| | 00:53 | Now it does make the camera a little bit bigger,
| | 00:55 | but as a bonus you usually get a vertical shutter button too
| | 00:59 | instead of just a horizontal one.
| | 01:02 | So vertical power grip is great in situations
when you are going to do extended shooting
| | 01:07 | where you may not have the ability
to recharge your lithium batteries.
| | 01:11 | Or when you want a vertical shutter button.
| | 01:13 | This is an accessory that doesn't cost a whole lot,
| | 01:16 | but it can extend your shooting well beyond
what you can get with a normal lithium battery.
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|
|
5. Exposure ModesCore exposure modes| 00:00 |
I am going to talk about the handful of basic exposure modes
that you will find on every Digital SLR and on most compact too.
| | 00:08 |
They consist of Program Mode,
| | 00:10 |
Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and full on Manual.
| | 00:15 |
I'm also going to talk about one more Mode after I cover those
that sort of integrates all of that stuff. But let's start by
| | 00:22 |
looking at the four basic modes that you will see on practically
every camera, beginning with Program Mode which I have up here,
| | 00:29 |
right now indicated by the P.
| | 00:31 |
Program Mode means that the camera is setting both the shutter speed
and the aperture by a program that it has in its little computer
| | 00:39 |
reading light and comparing it to various
patterns in nature and other scenes. For example,
| | 00:46 |
a regular outdoor landscape would have darker areas down here
| | 00:50 |
and brighter areas up here. The camera's
program knows that that's probably a landscape
| | 00:56 |
and will use Program Mode to set the
shutter speed and the aperture accordingly.
| | 01:02 |
The next Mode, Shutter Priority Mode,
| | 01:04 |
indicated by a TV sometimes it stands for Time
Value or an S simply for Shutter Priority Mode
| | 01:11 |
allows you to set the shutter speed,
| | 01:14 |
and then the camera sets the corresponding aperture.
| | 01:17 |
In this case you may want a specific shutter speed for something
that you're doing. A slow shutter speed such as 1/8th of a second
| | 01:27 |
or 1/15th of a second may be used to create an effect of
moving water where you get a more dream like feel to the shot.
| | 01:35 |
On the other hand,
| | 01:38 |
1/1000th of a second would be used in action photography
to freeze the action sports, any sort of thing even water
| | 01:47 |
where you want to freeze those droplets
in the air. So you set the shutter speed
| | 01:52 |
and the camera sets the corresponding aperture.
| | 01:55 |
In Aperture Priority Mode,
| | 01:57 |
the camera sets the shutter speed
| | 02:00 |
and you set the aperture so you have control over how much
light is coming through the lens by setting the aperture.
| | 02:06 |
The camera says, "Don't worry about the shutter speed.
| | 02:09 |
I'll take care of that."
| | 02:11 |
So if you are shooting landscape for example,
| | 02:13 |
you may want to have a small aperture opening such as F16.
| | 02:17 |
That's a small opening that creates a lot of depth
of field. In other words, things in the foreground
| | 02:24 |
such a flower all the way back to the mountain range
| | 02:28 |
can be sharpened and focused with a lot of depth of field.
| | 02:32 |
If you are in that situation you want that kind of shot
the Aperture Priority is a natural Mode because you can set a
| | 02:39 |
smaller aperture such as F16 to get that greater depth of field.
| | 02:43 |
On the other hand, if you are shooting a portrait and you
want a soft background you want to limit the depth of field
| | 02:49 |
then you might change the aperture to something like this.
| | 02:57 |
F2.8 lets a lot of light in the lens and when you have a wide
aperture opening such as F2.8 then you have a softer background.
| | 03:06 |
So aperture priority is great for controlling the
depth of field and how big that aperture opening is.
| | 03:13 |
Now the final core exposure Mode is Manual exposure
| | 03:17 |
and it's usually represented by an M
| | 03:20 |
and Manual exposure is where you set the
shutter speed and the aperture yourself.
| | 03:26 |
Now not very many casual photographers will use Manual Mode
because having control over both settings can be a little
| | 03:33 |
daunting. Where do you begin, what
setting do you start with, what do I do?
| | 03:37 |
So you have to have a pretty thorough understanding of what
affects shutter speed and aperture have for creating a photograph.
| | 03:44 |
However, if you want that effect Manual Mode will be
there and you can control both the shutter speed
| | 03:51 |
and if you want, the aperture, to create the effect that you want.
| | 03:58 |
Now most photographers will be shooting in Program Mode
most of the time. I am going to switch back to that.
| | 04:06 |
I think the allure of Program Mode is that you are really letting
the camera take care of the exposure and the aperture setting
| | 04:14 |
and the shutter speed setting but you still have control
over other functions such as Exposure Compensation,
| | 04:21 |
white balance, your metering pattern,
| | 04:25 |
your Drive Mode such as one shot or Continuous,
| | 04:28 |
and even the format that you shoot in.
In this case since I am using a Digital SLR,
| | 04:33 |
I am in RAW Mode.
| | 04:35 |
Now the fifth Mode that I want to tell you about is Auto
everything and it's usually represented by either a green rectangle
| | 04:42 |
or a green A or a green something or other on your Mode
dial. I am going to switch to Auto Everything right now.
| | 04:50 |
And look what happens in full Auto Mode.
| | 04:53 |
All these other settings in addition to
the exposure Mode are all grayed out.
| | 04:58 |
So I have given up pretty much control over the whole camera.
This is not a bad Mode if you are coming from a compact camera
| | 05:06 |
to your first DSLR and you are sort of overwhelmed by
| | 05:09 |
focusing and other things with the camera and you just want to
let the camera take care of taking the picture. All you want to do
| | 05:16 |
is think about composition,
| | 05:18 |
not a bad Mode, but I recommend that as
soon as you can go to Program Mode,
| | 05:24 |
let the camera take care of the basic
essentials, the exposure, the aperture,
| | 05:28 |
the shutter speed and then you still have the freedom to choose the
white balance and the metering pattern and the Drive Mode that you want.
| | 05:36 |
Program Mode is a good place to park your Mode dial,
| | 05:40 |
but it's helpful to learn some of these other modes also because
there maybe specific situations where you want control of
| | 05:47 |
the aperture or you want control of the shutter.
| | 05:50 |
Right now I am going to bring it back to Program Mode
| | 05:53 |
and I'm ready to take pictures.
| | 05:55 |
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| Scene modes in compact cameras| 00:00 | Scene modes are a predefined set of camera settings
that you can use to match to a particular type of scene.
| | 00:08 | For example, the most common scene Mode is Portrait. When
we were talking about Digital SLRs they also had a version
| | 00:15 | of scene modes called a Zone Mode that they
used and they had Portrait, Landscape, Night Scene.
| | 00:21 | We will see many of these in the compact camera version except
compact cameras have many more scene modes and they have a lot of
| | 00:28 | fun stuff you can play with. What I would like to is
show you some of the basic scene modes on this camera
| | 00:34 | but keep in mind that your camera may have different scene modes.
It may have some of these very same scene modes by a different name,
| | 00:40 | it may not have any of these scene modes
at all and have something completely different.
| | 00:44 | The idea is to understand how scene modes work so that
you feel comfortable using them when the situation arises.
| | 00:52 | A Portrait scene Mode enhances the flash tones, it sets you zoom
to telephoto and telephoto settings are very good for portraits
| | 01:00 | because it helps isolate the subject and it helps soften the
background. Scenery, Scenery is almost just the opposite of Portrait.
| | 01:07 | It has an infinity focus, you want to capture a lot of information
from the front to the back and you want increase the saturation.
| | 01:15 | You want those colors, the blue of the sky
and the green of the trees to really pop
| | 01:20 | whereas in portraits you don't want too much
saturation because it will make the skin tones look bad.
| | 01:25 | Portrait with Scenery. We are combining two of our favorite things
that sometimes don't always go together. So as you want to have
| | 01:31 | in Portrait with Scenery you do want to have good flesh tones
but you want to have more of a wide angle zoom so you can get
| | 01:37 | that background information
| | 01:39 | and you want to simplify the focusing. Really you want
the eye to go to the subject and not the background.
| | 01:44 | This is a very handy scene Mode by the way.
| | 01:47 | Children-
| | 01:48 | boy, if you have ever tried taking pictures of children with
a compact camera especially when it has shutter lag, you know,
| | 01:54 | a delay from the time we push the shutter button to the time it
actually takes the picture. You will appreciate this scene Mode.
| | 02:00 | It does play with the skin tones a little bit but it increases
the shutter speeds so you can keep up with those little ones.
| | 02:06 | Sports, Sports is a very handy scene Mode
because one thing it increases the shutter speed.
| | 02:12 | Another thing that it does is if you have
a specialized focusing Mode on your camera
| | 02:17 | it'll switch to that so you can continue focusing while the action
moves across the field or whatever it is that you are taking pictures of.
| | 02:24 | Candlelight Portrait, this is a fun one.
| | 02:27 | There are some special things that the camera has
to do, it changes a white balance a little bit.
| | 02:32 | It slows down the shutter speed so
that it can capture this low candlelight.
| | 02:36 | So when you use a scene Mode such as
Candlelight Portrait, as it says right here,
| | 02:41 | make sure that you hold the camera very still and
if you have a tripod, use it. That might not be a bad idea.
| | 02:48 | Party. Well you know Party is another activity where people are moving.
In the Party scene Mode often what will happen is the shutter speed
| | 02:56 | will speed up a little, it may or may not use flash depending
on what the ambient lighting is. And it will probably open up
| | 03:02 | the lens a little bit wider setting so you can capture all the
action. The Pet scene Mode. Pets are not that much different
| | 03:09 | than children. If you don't have Pet scene Mode,
feel free to use the Kid's scene Mode for shooting your pets.
| | 03:16 | Faster shutter speed. And one thing they allude to here,
| | 03:19 | which I want to talk about more specifically, is that
when you take pictures of pets try to get down to pet level.
| | 03:25 | Don't shoot above the pet, try to get down
to eye level and take the picture there.
| | 03:29 | Now that's not actually part of the scene Mode but it's a good tip
when you are taking pictures of pets. Flower, the Flower scene Mode
| | 03:36 | is basically a close up scene Mode, it moves you into
Macro, but it ups the saturation a little bit assuming
| | 03:43 | that you are taking pictures of colorful objects.
| | 03:46 | The Natural Green scene Mode,
| | 03:48 | perfect when you're in a rain forest or some other place.
| | 03:51 | Those of you that live in Washington State in the United
States will appreciate the Natural Green scene Mode.
| | 03:56 | It increases the sharpness so you can get those tree branches,
nice and crisp and it increases the saturation for the green hues.
| | 04:04 | Autumn Leaves. And let's say this is for folks on the East
Coast of the United States, around October, high sharpness again.
| | 04:12 | So you get nice definition on those leaves and a good saturation
in the red hues. Soft Flowing Water, this is a great instance
| | 04:19 | when you want to slow down the shutter. Soft Flowing Water
will take care of that for you, you just go to the scene Mode
| | 04:25 | and the camera will take care of the rest.
| | 04:27 | Again, they don't mention it here on the screen but when you
are using Soft Flowing Water, you want to steady the camera.
| | 04:34 | If you have a tripod use it and it's not a bad idea to
use a self timer either to trip the shutter so that all
| | 04:40 | the rocks and flowage around the water nice and sharp
and then you get flowing water through the scene.
| | 04:46 | Splashing Water is just the opposite of Flowing Water. Uou want to
stop the water in mid-air, that's a fast shutter speed situation.
| | 04:54 | Splashing Water will help you especially if you don't have shutter
priority Mode where you can change that shutter speed yourself.
| | 05:01 | Sun Down, and this could be sunset,
| | 05:04 | this scene Mode is called all sorts of different
things but it basically does the same thing.
| | 05:08 | It changes your camera to infinity focus, it's adds a little
red to the scene and it changes the white balance to daylight,
| | 05:15 | which is very good for sunsets.
| | 05:17 | Night Scene is one of my favorite scene modes.
| | 05:20 | It slows down the shutter speed, changes the white balance to daylight,
and again as I warned here, you have to keep the camera very still
| | 05:27 | because you have a slow shuttler speed which means the
shutter stays a little bit longer than you are used to.
| | 05:32 | Again, this is a good situation for a tripod or at least
setting on the ledge or somewhere that's stable and tripping
| | 05:39 | the shutter using the self timer.
| | 05:42 | Night Scene Portrait, basically the Night Scene but what happens
is the camera then adds a little fill flash for someone that's
| | 05:48 | standing within flash range. Now flash range normally is around
8 or 9 feet at the most, 4 to 5 feet is a little bit better.
| | 05:56 | This is kind of a cool scene Mode because the flash is
actually balanced with the scenery in the background.
| | 06:01 | Again you have to keep the camera still because it's
a slow shutter speed. The camera needs to do that in order to
| | 06:07 | capture the low light in the background.
| | 06:09 | Fireworks is a very fun scene Mode.
| | 06:12 | Of course we only use it a couple of times a year but when you need it,
| | 06:15 | nothing else really works. It does slow down the shutter speed,
it goes to infinity focus because fireworks are usually
| | 06:21 | off at a distance, you do have to keep the camera still. The
Fireworks scene Mode is a great time to pull out that tripod again.
| | 06:29 | Food-
| | 06:30 | the camera will go to Close-up Mode or Macro Mode so it can get
nice and close on your food and it really increase the saturation.
| | 06:37 | Look out for white balance that maybe off because you are shooting
in existing light under possibly fluorescent or tungsten bulbs.
| | 06:44 | If the color balance doesn't look right you might be better off going
back to regular Shooting Mode and adjusting the white balance on your own.
| | 06:51 | Text.
| | 06:52 | Text is kind of fun.
| | 06:54 | People sometimes forget that our digital cameras are really
data capture devices and instead of taking extensive notes,
| | 07:01 | you can just take a picture of text. The nice thing about the
Text scene Mode is that you go to Macro Mode and it gives you that
| | 07:08 | nice high contrast that makes the text
easier to read later on on your computer.
| | 07:13 | Collection is perfect for those of you that like to sell
things on eBay. The camera gets nice and close so you can get
| | 07:19 | tight on the details of the object and it displays a
composition outline, which is kind of fun. Monochrome.
| | 07:25 | Monochrome is another name for black and white photography. Yes,
you can shoot Monochrome with your camera and Monochrome Mode not only
| | 07:32 | does it convert it to black and white, but it adjusts the contrast so
that it looks good for black and white photos. One thing to keep in mind,
| | 07:40 | I don't want to discourage you from using the Monochrome scene
Mode, but sometimes it's better to go ahead and shoot in color
| | 07:46 | and then convert to black-and-white on your computer.
| | 07:48 | Retro is kind of fun because what happens is the camera
lowers the contrast and then adds a sort of sepia color filter
| | 07:56 | so the pictures look old time. This is a fun scene Mode
to play with. My recommendation here is to shoot in Retro
| | 08:02 | but then also take the shot in color too then you have all of
your options available to you when you get back to the computer.
| | 08:09 | Twilight, this is a wonderful scene Mode and this is
a great time to take pictures especially right when
| | 08:15 | the building lights have gone on and there is still color in the sky.
| | 08:19 | In the Twilight scene Mode the camera will increase
the color saturation and even add a magenta color filter.
| | 08:26 | This is a very good scene Mode. It can produce quite stunning
results if you shoot at the right time of day. Again be aware of
| | 08:33 | slow shutter speeds. You might want to use a tripod. And
sometimes you get to set your own scene Mode so if you have a
| | 08:40 | particular combination of settings that you like to use
for a situation that you encounter regularly you may want to
| | 08:45 | set up a custom scene Mode if your camera allows it.
| | 08:48 | The scene modes are really very extensive as you see and
these days they have scene modes for just about everything.
| | 08:54 | Some of the scene modes that weren't in this particular camera that I
have seen, things such as Beach and Snow. I have seen Aerial, Underwater.
| | 09:02 | So really think about the type of shooting that you
like to do and when you are shopping for a camera,
| | 09:08 | look at the different scene modes are available on it. I find them
to be very handy shortcuts and sometimes when you are in a hurry,
| | 09:14 | it's a lot easier to pick a scene Mode then try to figure
out the particular setting to capture that scene properly.
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| Zone exposure modes in DSLRs| 00:00 | Zone exposure modes are a way to help you take the shot that you want
without necessarily messing with aperture priority, shutter priority;
| | 00:09 | those core exposure modes that I
have talked about in a previous movie.
| | 00:13 | The way that they work is that they work by icons or types
of shots. For example, I am in Program Mode right now,
| | 00:19 | but if I move to a Zone Mode, sometimes they're called
Scene modes on a Digital SLR, and we are working with
| | 00:26 | a Digital SLR right here and not a compact camera.
| | 00:30 | On a compact camera, we'll have a wider variety of Scene modes
to choose from. But right now, let's work with a Digital SLR and
| | 00:36 | see what sort of Zone modes or Scene modes
we have to work with. I am going to move over.
| | 00:41 | The first one is Portrait Mode. And the Portrait Mode is designed
to help you to take good portraits of people, usually just one
| | 00:48 | or two folks, not necessarily group shot Mode.
You notice that we're grayed out on a lot of the options
| | 00:55 | that we have had in Program Mode
where we could choose what Drive Mode,
| | 01:00 | what sort of metering pattern,
| | 01:02 | even white balance, these are grayed out
so the camera is taking control of the shot.
| | 01:07 | Now you will notice the one thing that it does set is
it sets Continuous Drive Mode and a lot of times that's
| | 01:13 | the Mode that you want when you are taking portraits. It allows
you to rattle off a series of shots hoping to get a good expression.
| | 01:20 | But what is it doing behind the scenes? Well, generally
speaking, what happens in Portrait Mode is that the camera pays
| | 01:26 | attention to what's happening in the center of
the frame and puts all of its resources there.
| | 01:31 | So it's not like a landscape where you're taking into account
every corner of the frame. Portrait activity generally happens
| | 01:37 | in the center of the frame and so these settings are
designed to help you get good shots under those conditions.
| | 01:44 | Landscape Mode on the other hand has whole different batch settings.
Landscape Mode is designed to give you greater depth of field.
| | 01:51 | You notice that we've gone from Burst Mode
| | 01:53 | or Continuous Mode to a single-shot Mode, because in Landscape
Mode you're usually going a little slower, you're taking your time,
| | 02:00 | you're working in careful composition,
you're not rattling off 32 shots of a rock.
| | 02:05 | You want to take one shot of a rock
and you want it to be very good.
| | 02:08 | Again, because this is a Zone Mode or a Scene Mode,
| | 02:12 | these other options are grayed out.
| | 02:14 | The camera has set itself so that it is
optimized for taking landscape pictures.
| | 02:20 | In Close-Up Mode, again, you have another situation where
the camera is trying to marshal its resources for activity
| | 02:27 | that happens in the center of the frame.
| | 02:29 | Knowing that you are going to have high magnification and
knowing that camera shake may be an issue and knowing that
| | 02:35 | what you really want a picture of will
probably be in the center of the frame.
| | 02:39 | So Close-Up Mode will take control of the
camera and optimize it for those conditions.
| | 02:44 | In Sports Mode, we are going to have a different array
of settings. Again, our white balance will remain automatic,
| | 02:51 | and we are going to use evaluative metering pattern.
| | 02:54 | But we have changed the Drive Mode now to something that better
handles moving activity. Auto Intelligent Servo in Burst Mode
| | 03:02 | basically means that the camera is shooting
numerous frames when you hold down the Shutter button
| | 03:07 | and it's refocusing at it shoots those burst frames.
| | 03:11 | Very handy for sports activity. Again, the camera is
optimizing its settings to handle this sort of shoot.
| | 03:18 | And finally, Night Portrait, and this is a kind of scene where
you may have a subject that's in twilight kind of lighting,
| | 03:26 | you may have some interesting things happening in the background
such as a sunset, and you probably want the flash to go off
| | 03:31 | to illuminate the subject in the foreground, but yet capture
some of the detail in the background. Night Portrait is
| | 03:38 | going to be your Scene Mode or your Zone
Mode that helps you capture that shot.
| | 03:42 | Once you are done with the type of shot that
you are taking, whether it's Night Mode,
| | 03:46 | or Sports,
| | 03:48 | Close-Up,
| | 03:49 | Landscape,
| | 03:51 | or Portrait,
| | 03:51 | I would recommend that you return to Program Mode
| | 03:55 | as your general Shooting Mode. And if you encounter another
specialized situation such as a portrait, then you know that
| | 04:02 | the Scene Mode or the Zone Mode is just a few clicks away.
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| Exposure compensation| 00:00 |
Exposure Compensation is manual override
of the camera's automatic exposure system.
| | 00:05 |
Now that sounds like a lot but it's actually a very simple concept, and
it's one that I think you'll find handy in certain kinds of situations.
| | 00:12 |
For example, let's take a look at this evening shot
of AT&T Baseball Park. Now this is a night shot.
| | 00:19 |
It's supposed to be dark. But you notice that the sky is
bright in that we have way too much kind of overexposed
| | 00:26 |
kind of look in the shot itself.
| | 00:28 |
That's because the camera is taking the information
that I'm seeing and it's trying to move it more toward
| | 00:34 |
the middle tones of the exposure scale.
| | 00:36 |
That's what cameras do.
| | 00:38 |
That's why they have a hard time recording images
on the dark side and on the very bright side.
| | 00:43 |
Fortunately, we have Exposure Compensation to help
us with this and I am going to activate it right now.
| | 00:48 |
I have turned on Exposure Compensation
using a button on the back of my camera.
| | 00:52 |
Now sometimes it may be in your menu system,
| | 00:55 |
sometimes it may be a button on the back of the camera.
You need to consult to your owner's manual to find out exactly
| | 01:01 |
where it's located for your camera.
| | 01:03 |
Now the way the scale works is that as you move to the right,
| | 01:07 |
for instance if I move and click one to the right there,
it brightens the image. That's not what I want for this shot.
| | 01:13 |
What I want is I want the picture to look the way that I see it.
| | 01:17 |
I want it to be darker. It's a night shot.
| | 01:19 |
So I move the scale to the left.
| | 01:24 |
Each click that I do darkens the image by 1/3 F-stop.
| | 01:29 |
There is one full stop right there. It's almost to where I want.
| | 01:34 |
Now that's more what I am seeing. So Exposure Compensation
helps you bring the picture back to what my eyes are seeing.
| | 01:40 |
Now, I can see this on the back of my camera.
| | 01:43 |
Most cameras, and especially compact cameras, will allow
you to preview the results while you are moving the scale.
| | 01:50 |
Let's try one more click.
| | 01:52 |
Ooh, Well, for a dramatic effect, I may want to go
there, but I think I am going to stop at 1 and 1/3.
| | 01:58 |
So Exposure Compensation is a way to override
your camera's automatic exposure system.
| | 02:04 |
Most of the time, you will be using the scale to do that.
| | 02:07 |
As you move the indicator to the right, it will brighten your image.
| | 02:10 |
And as you move it to the left, it will darken your image.
Now remember, after you're done with a particular shot,
| | 02:16 |
move the scale back to 0, so you
are ready for your next photograph.
| | 02:24 |
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| Exposure bracketing| 00:00 | Exposure bracketing allows you to hedge your bets by providing
a series of shots. Usually, at three different exposures.
| | 00:07 | Typically the scenario is one exposure
is overexposed, one is underexposed
| | 00:12 | and then the third is at normal exposure or the
exposure that your camera determines is the best exposure.
| | 00:17 | Continuous Drive Mode is the best way to go for this because
that way you only have to hold the shutter button once
| | 00:24 | and the camera will fire all three shots. If you are in
Single Shot Mode, you can use that with exposure bracketing,
| | 00:30 | but if you are in Single Shot Mode, you will actually have to press
the shutter three times. Now I know that's not a whole lot of work,
| | 00:35 | but it really is fun just to hold down the shutter button once
and let the camera rip off three frames. Let's see how that works.
| | 00:42 | So the first thing I have to do is find where exposure
bracketing is on your camera and I have it right here
| | 00:48 | and that's in the Off Mode right now,
which is where I want to leave it
| | 00:51 | when I'm not doing exposure bracketing.
| | 00:53 | I'm going to move over and these icons are kind of cute and they're
descriptive. It gives you a feel that I'm going to shoot something
| | 01:01 | at three different exposures. We have it set here.
Now it's telling me to go over to Display,
| | 01:06 | because I actually want to set the different F-stops that
these exposures will be made at in terms of the compensation.
| | 01:14 | So I am going to click on the Display button
| | 01:16 | and I have some options. Right now it's set for
| | 01:19 | one exposure under, that's -1, a normal exposure,
| | 01:25 | and then the third exposure will be overexposed by one f-stop.
If I want something different than that, I just have to rotate
| | 01:31 | my dial here and I can make the changes that I want.
| | 01:34 | I am going to choose one f-stop over and under
because I think for most situations that work best.
| | 01:42 | I will click the Display button again
| | 01:45 | and now I will turn off the menu
| | 01:47 | and let's take a picture. But before
we do, let's double check our Drive Mode
| | 01:53 | to make sure we are in Continuous and we are. Because again I
could do it in Single Shot, it's more fun to do it in Continuous.
| | 02:00 | Now this is a compact camera, so
when I rip off these three frames,
| | 02:04 | it's not going to be like boom, boom, boom.
It's going to be more baboom, baboom, baboom.
| | 02:09 | Whereas with a DSLR, it would go a lot faster, but it's still
easier than pressing a shutter three times. So this is far off
| | 02:16 | to reach us, now watch what happens on the screen.
| | 02:21 | There it goes. I just held down the
shutter button once and I got three frames.
| | 02:25 | One was under, a normal exposure and
then the final one was overexposed.
| | 02:30 | I am going to hit the Playback button
and let's take a look at those.
| | 02:34 | So here's our overexposed shot, so this would be the
+1 under exposure bracket, and it's nice and bright and
| | 02:41 | you can tell that it's definitely lighter
than the other two. I will click back one,
| | 02:46 | this is our underexposed, so this is
-1 f-stop and it is noticeably darker.
| | 02:51 | I would say in this case, too dark. But you don't always know
until you take the shot. For this particular scene, I don't like it.
| | 03:00 | Now the third exposure, this is the normal exposure
or what the camera determined to be the best exposure,
| | 03:06 | the best interpretation of the scene.
| | 03:08 | Actually I think it's a little dull,
| | 03:11 | and to tell you the truth I'm glad I exposure
bracketed on this particular scene because going back
| | 03:17 | to the one that was overexposed by a stop,
I think this is the best interpretation.
| | 03:22 | So this will probably be the picture that
I use. Let's go back to Shooting Mode.
| | 03:26 | So back in Shooting Mode, the next thing that I want to do,
once I have completed working this scene, is I want to go back
| | 03:32 | to my menu and I want to make sure that I turn off auto-
exposure bracketing, because this can be very embarrassing
| | 03:39 | if you forget to turn it off.
| | 03:40 | Let's say that you do a scene and you some auto-bracketing
and great times. And then you put the camera away for a little bit
| | 03:47 | and a couple of hours later you go shooting and you press
the shutter once and your camera starts firing off three shots
| | 03:53 | and then you are looking at your pictures and go, "Oh
my gosh, my exposure's all over the place, what's going on?"
| | 03:58 | And then after a little while you will figure
out that you left auto-exposure bracketing on.
| | 04:02 | So it's better after you finish
the scene, just go back, turn it off.
| | 04:06 | You can leave it in Continuous Drive Mode or
| | 04:09 | put it back into Single Shot, it's your choice. And either way,
this method does help you though when you can't determine
| | 04:16 | exactly how to interpret a scene. If you don't know if you want
it a little darker or little whiter or if you think the camera
| | 04:22 | is doing a great job as it is, go ahead and take
a series or two with exposure bracketing on and
| | 04:27 | then when you get back to the computer, you can
pick the one that you like best and discard the others.
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|
|
6. Lighting ControlsMetering patterns| 00:00 | When your camera is looking at the world and trying to figure
out the right exposure, it has a couple of different views.
| | 00:05 | We call those metering patterns and I am going to show you how they
work right now. I am going to pull up the Metering Pattern menu.
| | 00:11 | Now I have three different choices on this particular
camera. I have Evaluative, Center-Weighted Average and Spot
| | 00:19 | and I am going to go over all these in
a minute. I just want to show them to you.
| | 00:22 | Now you will notice as I switch between these even
the view of the world according to the camera changes.
| | 00:30 | When I go to Spot for example, things get a lot darker.
Now I am going to explain what's going on here.
| | 00:35 | So let's start with Evaluative.
| | 00:37 | This is the pattern that you are going to see most often on
compact cameras and is used most often in general photography,
| | 00:45 | partly because it's so good and it's so smart.
| | 00:48 | Now it has a different names; sometimes it's called Pattern,
| | 00:51 | sometimes it's called maybe a brand name like a Matrix
Metering. Something like that but they all work the same.
| | 00:58 | And basically what they do is they divide up your image here
| | 01:01 | into different sort of zones,
| | 01:04 | and then the computer inside of the camera evaluates these
zones and compares them to profiles that it has in the camera.
| | 01:12 | So for instance when it's looking at this shot
here it's going to go, "Oh, okay. Bright areas up here,
| | 01:17 | middle tones here,
| | 01:19 | dark tones down here. This is probably a landscape that I know.
| | 01:24 | So I am going to make sure that I don't get fooled by
this bright area up here and underexpose the ground here."
| | 01:31 | This is very intelligent and this stuff is happening
very quickly and that's why Evaluative is so good
| | 01:37 | because it is so accurate and you can use
it like 90% of the time and be just fine.
| | 01:42 | And on a lot of compact cameras this will be the only
metering pattern that you have, which is fine because it's great.
| | 01:49 | Now let's switch over to Center Weighted.
| | 01:51 | This is an old metering pattern. This has been around for
a long time, going way back to film cameras, mainly because
| | 01:58 | it doesn't require a computer to work right.
It basically creates a metering pattern
| | 02:03 | that's biased towards the activity
that's in the center of the frame.
| | 02:07 | And I guess the thinking at the time was, well, most of the
activity that people are interested in having exposed right
| | 02:14 | is going to be in the center of the frame and that's what we'll do.
It's fine. The problem is that it's very archaic and on a shot
| | 02:21 | like this, we're not seeing it so much here, but in real
life Center Weighted would be fooled by this bright sky
| | 02:27 | and you would probably have under exposed ground here.
| | 02:30 | Whereas the shot that we are seeing right now you would
probably get it just this way with Evaluative or Pattern metering.
| | 02:36 | So generally speaking I just skip over
Center Weighted; it was great while it lasted
| | 02:41 | but now that we have this really advanced technology it's not
as alluring as it once was. So I don't use it very much and
| | 02:49 | I don't really recommend that you do either unless
you have some sort of special occasion for it.
| | 02:54 | Now Spot metering on the other hand I think is very interesting
and I like it a lot. What the camera does is that it pays
| | 03:00 | all of its attention to just the center area of the frame here.
Now how big that area is varies from camera to camera.
| | 03:06 | On some advanced DSLRs, you can get a very small area, give you very
pinpoint metering and on some consumer cameras the area will be bigger.
| | 03:15 | Either way, this is handy when you want to just get something right
in the frame. For instance I use it a lot for portrait shooting
| | 03:23 | and I will go to Spot Metering Mode and I will
put the center of the frame right on the subject
| | 03:28 | and then I will lock that in using exposure lock and then off I go.
And I don't really care what's happening in the rest of the frame
| | 03:35 | because what I want
| | 03:36 | is a good exposure on the face. Now the thing to keep in
mind about Spot metering is that once you are done with it,
| | 03:42 | make sure you turn it off, that you go back to Evaluative.
| | 03:45 | Because as you will see in this landscape if you are leave it on Spot,
and then you forget and you go outside and you start taking pictures
| | 03:52 | and you run into a situation like this where you have a really
bright sky for example, that's right in the center of the frame,
| | 03:59 | it's going to muck up all your shots and
you're not going to be happy about that.
| | 04:03 | Make sure that you go back to Evaluative because
this is the best place to be for your general shooting
| | 04:09 | and then just keep in mind that you do have Spot in your
back pocket if your camera supports it for things like
| | 04:15 | portraits and product shots and stuff like that. But like so many of
the other options that we've talked about over the course of this title
| | 04:23 | use the other options. I want you to because that's what they are
there for and they can really help your photography be better
| | 04:28 | and then when you're done with them go back to whatever I
recommend as the default setting and in this case, Evaluative
| | 04:34 | is our default setting for metering patterns.
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| ISO speed| 00:00 | ISO speed is really a measurement of
how sensitive your camera is to light.
| | 00:05 | For example, when it's at ISO 100
| | 00:08 | or ISO 200, perfect for shooting outdoors on a bright sunny day,
| | 00:12 | it's not as sensitive to light as your
camera is when it's set to ISO 400 or 800,
| | 00:19 | which is more perfect for when you are shooting inside
under ambient lighting conditions. The higher the ISO number,
| | 00:26 | the more sensitive your camera is to existing light.
| | 00:29 | Now one thing to keep in mind, when you
are shooting with a Digital SLR, for example,
| | 00:35 | we are looking at a Digital SLR menu right down, you have more
latitude in terms of how far you can raise the ISO speed and
| | 00:43 | still maintain good image quality. For example,
most Digital SLRs today can shoot at ISO 1600
| | 00:52 | and still have very good image quality with not that much noise.
| | 00:56 | Now, you may be wondering, ?What is Image Noise?? Well, Image
Noise are those little off-color artifacts that you sometimes see
| | 01:03 | in the dark areas of a picture.
| | 01:05 | The higher your ISO setting, for example, 1600 or 800,
the more Image Noise that you may see in your picture.
| | 01:14 | This is more true with compact cameras than Digital SLRs though.
| | 01:19 | Digital SLRs have the capacity because they have a larger
image sensor. They have the ability to gather more light
| | 01:26 | without creating image noise.
| | 01:29 | Now, a compact camera has a smaller image sensor.
| | 01:32 | So generally speaking, on most of your compact
cameras, you want to stay at ISO 100, 200 or 400.
| | 01:42 | I've now switched over to a compact camera because I want
to show you another feature that we see on compacts a lot
| | 01:48 | more than we see on Digital SLRs, and that's the Auto ISO feature.
| | 01:53 | Of course, we have our regular lineup of ISO settings here:
| | 01:57 | ISO 50, 100, 200 and 400.
| | 02:02 | This particular camera tops out of 400, which is just
as well, because many compacts today are including higher
| | 02:09 | ISOs such as 800 and 1600, but they really not usable.
| | 02:14 | So just topping out at 400 is not a bad way to go because
you can get decent picture quality at 400 on most compacts.
| | 02:22 | Now, when you go to Auto ISO,
| | 02:26 | the camera is choosing the ISO setting for you and it's basing
that on the amount of light that it's reading. The key to using
| | 02:34 | Auto ISO is knowing how high it's willing
to go. For instance, if you have a camera
| | 02:40 | that goes up to ISO 1600 and the Auto ISO range tops out at 1600
and you know you don't like pictures at ISO 1600 on that camera,
| | 02:50 | Auto ISO isn't going to be very useful.
| | 02:54 | On the other hand, if it tops out at, let's say, 200,
| | 02:59 | then you can go you know what, Auto ISO might not be bad,
it will save me from switching between 50 and 200.
| | 03:06 | I let the camera take care of it, knowing
that I am going to have good image quality.
| | 03:11 | Now another feature that you may see on some compact cameras is
High Auto ISO and what they have done there is that they have
| | 03:18 | limited the range of the ISO on the high end.
| | 03:21 | And a lot of times, High Auto ISO will begin at 400
| | 03:26 | and go upwards to 1600 on a compact camera.
| | 03:30 | Now I can't imagine too many scenarios where that's a very
usable setting except in very extreme conditions, when just
| | 03:37 | getting the shot is more important than the quality of the shot.
| | 03:41 | So generally speaking,
| | 03:42 | find out what the top end of your Auto ISO setting is
| | 03:46 | and if it's okay with you in terms
of image quality, go ahead and use it.
| | 03:51 | Otherwise, a safer route to go is use a lower ISO
setting for your general photography, such as 100,
| | 03:57 | knowing that when you run into low light situations
and you don't want to use your flash on a compact camera
| | 04:03 | that you can go up to 400 safely
| | 04:06 | and save 800 and 1600 if you have it for
the special situations when getting the shot
| | 04:12 | is more important than the quality of the shot.
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| White balance| 00:00 | The white balance setting on your camera allows you to compensate
for changing light conditions. Now you may not think about this
| | 00:06 | that often because as we walk around in the world our eyes
and our brain do a great job of adjusting from indoor light to
| | 00:13 | outdoor light to fluorescent tubes to tungsten lighting, which is of
course those little screw light bulbs that we have used for years.
| | 00:21 | Tungsten lighting is much different than what we see outdoors
because those bulbs emit kind of a reddish orange light
| | 00:26 | and outdoors is kind of bluish. We don't
even think about that because our eyes
| | 00:30 | are compensating all the time. Now the camera tries to compensate
| | 00:34 | by using auto white balance and basically that's human
Mode in a sense, in that the camera is reading the light and
| | 00:41 | trying to adjust accordingly so that we get a natural looking
photo. The problem is the cameras' brains aren't quite as good
| | 00:47 | as our brains and so sometimes we need to give it a little bit
of help and that's what the auto white balance menu is all about:
| | 00:54 | giving your camera a little bit of help so it can
produce a natural looking shot. Auto white balance is the
| | 01:00 | default Mode and that's what we are set to right
here and most of the time does a pretty good job.
| | 01:04 | But let's say that we go outside on a bright sunny day.
| | 01:07 | Day Light white balance is very interesting. You think,
well aren't cameras sort of balanced for daylight anyway?
| | 01:12 | Well they are but there is a wide spectrum of difference in
daylight. Daylight can be all the way from let's say 5000 kelvin
| | 01:21 | to 9000 kelvin. Well that's a lot of difference.
Day Light really strikes at the heart of what you see when
| | 01:27 | you are out in bright sunny light.
| | 01:29 | That temperature is different than let's say
when there is a little cloud cover coming in.
| | 01:33 | So the Day Light white balance setting is something worth
looking at. A lot of times auto white balance will cover
| | 01:39 | this setting just fine but if you don't quite like the way the
image looks on the viewfinder, if the color isn't quite right and
| | 01:45 | you're out in broad daylight, take a look at the Day Light
setting. It can be very helpful and sometimes give you just
| | 01:50 | that little extra oomph that you are looking for.
| | 01:52 | Cloudy is like a warming filter and if you ever shot traditional
film photography where you had to put a filter in front
| | 01:58 | of those lens to compensate for changing light, you will
recognize Cloudy as a warming filter and what it does is it adds
| | 02:05 | a little yellow, a little orange to the scene.
| | 02:07 | What happens is when clouds come overhead
or if you are shooting in open shade
| | 02:12 | the light actually gets a little bluish. And it's not very flattering
especially for portraits. Skin tones can look just a little clammy.
| | 02:18 | So what the Cloudy white balance setting does it warms it up a
little bit, gives it a little bit more yellow, little bit more orange
| | 02:25 | and sort of brings things back to life.
| | 02:27 | So whenever you're shooting in shade,
| | 02:29 | overcast skies, even if you're shooting indoors next to an
open window, you might want to look at the Cloudy setting
| | 02:35 | if your pictures are looking a little cool and clammy.
| | 02:38 | Now on the other hand, this is your choice. You
may decide that you like the very warm glowy light.
| | 02:43 | Maybe it feels homey or like a cozy kind of feeling but
if you want the skin tones not to be quite so red and not so
| | 02:49 | orange then try Tungsten white balance setting.
| | 02:53 | You usually have two settings for fluorescent tubes
and that's because fluorescent tubes are not consistent.
| | 02:59 | There are different types, there are cool white, there are natural,
| | 03:03 | so-called natural balance tubes and there are others also.
| | 03:07 | So you have two to choose from and
you notice as I switch from the regular
| | 03:11 | to the H that there are different effects on
the picture. The H version is a little bit warmer
| | 03:18 | and the standard one is a little bit cooler. So what you have
to do is switch to the fluorescent tube setting that you think is
| | 03:24 | going to work best, take a picture, look at it. If it's not quite
right try the other one. Now I will warn you fluorescent tubes
| | 03:30 | are the hardest to get good white balance so
even if you try either of these custom settings,
| | 03:36 | you still may not get exactly what you want.
| | 03:40 | There is also a Flash white balance setting.
| | 03:42 | This is very interesting because flashes tend to be sort of cool,
sort of bluish and what are we using flashes for? We are using
| | 03:48 | flashes to take pictures of people. So first we nuke them, right?
We overexpose them and then we make them cool and clammy looking.
| | 03:55 | It's not a great look.
| | 03:56 | So this white balance setting helps us offset that by warming
up those tones a little bit. It's very similar to Cloudy white
| | 04:02 | balance setting, possibly a little bit stronger
depending on the camera that you have.
| | 04:07 | If you have a camera that can go under water, and I don't mean by
dunking it in the water by itself, usually it has to go in a housing,
| | 04:15 | please check your owner's manual to make sure. But if you
have a housing for your camera, chances are you will have an
| | 04:21 | Underwater white balance setting and when you are snorkeling around,
let's say in the first 10 feet of water, that can be very bluish.
| | 04:28 | Again sort of look to your pictures and you will
lose some of the color in the coral and the fish.
| | 04:33 | The Underwater white balance setting will
help restore some of that natural looking color.
| | 04:37 | I have not one, but I have two
custom white balance settings here
| | 04:42 | and these are very interesting.
| | 04:44 | I like these a lot, by the way. I will tell you that right now.
Because sometimes the other presets they come close but they are
| | 04:50 | not quite right. This allows you to actually measure the light in the
room and then the camera creates a custom white balance profile for it.
| | 04:58 | Now we can try this right now.
| | 04:59 | What you do is you take a sheet of white paper
| | 05:02 | and you hold it so that it reflects the light in the room
| | 05:04 | and then you read the on-screen prompts,
in this case it tells me to press this white button.
| | 05:10 | I'm going to do that.
| | 05:11 | Did you notice it took a reading off the white
sheet of paper and it went from kind of a icky sort of
| | 05:16 | brownish creamy sort of color to now a very neutral color?
| | 05:21 | I have now set a custom white balance
setting for the lighting in this room.
| | 05:26 | And everything should look fairly natural from this point forward.
| | 05:30 | The only tricky thing about custom white balance is to remember
to take your camera off custom white balance when you leave
| | 05:36 | that lighting situation because if I were to go back outside now
and take pictures with this setting, things would look a little screwy.
| | 05:43 | So instead once I finish with this shoot what I am going to do,
| | 05:50 | I am going to go back to Auto white balance.
| | 05:53 | This is where the camera can handle most lighting situations,
| | 05:56 | knowing that if I come in contact with
an unusual lighting situation, Cloudy,
| | 06:00 | Tungsten or something that I just really can't find a preset
for, that I have these controls in my white balance menu.
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| Histograms| 00:00 | Histograms provide a graphical illustration
of all the tones in the composition.
| | 00:06 | Now many digital cameras these days have the ability to show
a live histogram while you are looking at the photograph.
| | 00:12 | Often you can turn it on in the display preferences
or it may be buried somewhere else in your menu system.
| | 00:18 | On this particular camera all I have to do is activate display
| | 00:21 | and I have a histogram option right here.
| | 00:24 | So I am going to turn it on
| | 00:26 | and you notice right away I have a live
histogram of the image that I am looking at.
| | 00:30 | So what exactly are we looking at when we see a histogram?
| | 00:34 | Well first of all, all these points here on this graph
represent tones in this image. Now as you go from left to right,
| | 00:42 | the darker tones are on the left side.
| | 00:44 | So all of this information here are these kinds of tones,
| | 00:51 | And on the right side, you are going to have the brighter
tones right over here. So that will be stuff like this,
| | 00:59 | This bright sky,
| | 01:00 | some of this water
| | 01:02 | that will be over on this side of the histogram.
| | 01:05 | Now in the middle, and you are probably way ahead of me on this,
| | 01:09 | are the middle tones.
| | 01:10 | That was something, wasn't it? Alright here are the middle
tones. And this particular image doesn't have a whole lot of
| | 01:17 | middle tone information and you can see
that it's just a little bit right in here.
| | 01:22 | So the middle tones of course are going to be those tones
maybe something like this up here. So this image is mainly
| | 01:29 | comprised of darks and brights.
| | 01:34 | Nothing too dark, nothing black-black or it would be
stacked up over here and nothing too white-white
| | 01:40 | or it would be stacked up over here.
| | 01:42 | Now in the areas where the image gets tall on the histogram,
that means there are lot of tones in this particular zone.
| | 01:50 | So in this particular bright zone, we have a lot of tones
| | 01:54 | and in this particular dark zone,
| | 01:56 | same thing. We have a lot of image information.
| | 01:59 | So how do I use this information, this
histogram, to help me understand my photography?
| | 02:05 | I think one of the ways that I like to use it is when I'm looking
at the back of the LCD taking pictures out in bright sunlight
| | 02:13 | and I'm reviewing the shots or I'm trying to compose them
it's sometimes hard to judge with light reflecting off the LCD
| | 02:21 | what kind of exposure I have and this is where histograms can
become very helpful because as you learn to read the histogram
| | 02:29 | then that becomes an aid to help you
judge the exposure of the photograph.
| | 02:33 | Let me show you how that works.
Now I'm going to setup a little test here.
| | 02:37 | First I am going to change our metering pattern.
| | 02:44 | I'm going to change it to Spot metering.
| | 02:47 | You may recall from another movie that that means now the camera's
only reading a very small area in the middle of the frame.
| | 02:56 | I am going to zoom in a little bit also.
| | 03:01 | Now we are going to play a little bit with the tones here.
| | 03:04 | If I rotate the camera a little bit this way,
| | 03:08 | you notice that the histogram begins to stack up over on the right side.
| | 03:13 | This usually indicates on a common scene and I mean a
scene that isn't snow or a scene that isn't looking down
| | 03:21 | a black well, but a normal everyday scene such as this one that
is overexposed because all of the information has moved over
| | 03:29 | to the right side, to the bright area. You notice that we
have nothing over here on this side of the histogram
| | 03:34 | in the dark area and you notice as you look at
the image here there are hardly any dark tones.
| | 03:40 | Alright let's see if I can make this go the other way.
| | 03:49 | Now we move,
| | 03:52 | let's go up here,
| | 03:56 | and there we go.
| | 03:59 | Alright now I have moved up to another area of the photograph,
| | 04:03 | and we see that the image data has moved over to the left side
| | 04:07 | and that the image itself is pretty dark.
| | 04:11 | This indicates underexposure.
| | 04:14 | I am going to move this back down.
| | 04:18 | I am going to see if I can find an area now
where we can just kind of get a nice exposure...
| | 04:23 | Oh, we don't want to go over there.
| | 04:26 | By the way while we are over here at severe overexposure, how
do you compensate for this? Well in another movie we talk about
| | 04:33 | the Exposure Compensation scale that you can usually get to
on your menu that allows you to adjust the exposure by going
| | 04:40 | plus 1 or plus 2 or minus 1 or minus 2.
| | 04:45 | In this case when you have a severe overexposure like this,
you can go to your Exposure Compensation scale and move it
| | 04:53 | over to minus 1 or minus 2 to help bring this
histogram back over in this direction and compensate
| | 05:00 | for this mis-exposure.
| | 05:06 | I am just going to move just a little bit here
| | 05:10 | and see if I can find a Spot,
| | 05:15 | OK.
| | 05:17 | Now I have sort of found a Spot where the histogram information is spread
| | 05:21 | somewhat evenly across from left to right.
| | 05:26 | And you'll notice that the exposure isn't too bad.
| | 05:29 | And this is usually what you are looking for in most scenes.
You just want information spread from left to right. It doesn't
| | 05:36 | have to be even, it doesn't have to be in any particular
shape, but you do like to have as much information in
| | 05:42 | all the areas of the photograph as possible,
the darks and the lights and the middle tones.
| | 05:48 | So when you are working with the histogram-
and I am going to take us out of this Mode right now,
| | 05:54 | let's go back to,
| | 05:57 | there we go.
| | 05:59 | You'll see that we have information spread fairly evenly
across the bottom of the histogram so we have a nice smattering
| | 06:07 | of darks and middle tones and lights and sure enough as
you look at the photograph it looks fairly well exposed.
| | 06:14 | So in practical use,
| | 06:16 | where the histogram comes in handy is when you are trying
to judge the exposure of common scenes. Now for instance
| | 06:23 | if you were shooting something that's supposed to be black,
| | 06:26 | then you would want that information
stacked up over here on the left side
| | 06:30 | because you want a lot of dark tones in that shot.
| | 06:35 | On the other hand if you were out at the beach or at the snow and
you were shooting something that's very bright you would want most of
| | 06:42 | that information stacked up over here.
| | 06:44 | But from most scenes what you are really looking for is
information spread across the bottom of the histogram so that
| | 06:51 | you have data points and basically all the tones of the photograph.
| | 06:55 | Now once you are done with the histogram, you probably
don't want to look at it all the time only when you need it
| | 07:01 | an aid to help you with the exposure,
| | 07:03 | just go back to your display menu or wherever
it happens to be located on your camera,
| | 07:08 | turn it off
| | 07:10 | and now you can go back to focusing on the composition of
your photograph. Remember the histogram is not the final say
| | 07:17 | in your exposure decisions. Always look at your image but when you
are having a hard time or you would like a little help in trying to
| | 07:24 | figure out the exposure, whether it's maybe a little overexposed
or a little underexposed, the histogram is an excellent aid
| | 07:31 | to help you get the right exposure.
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|
|
7. Focusing ModesFocusing options| 00:00 | Your camera has a number of different ways of looking at the
world and you can help communicate with it how you would like it
| | 00:06 | to see the world in a particular situation.
| | 00:09 | The default is usually something called multi-AF
and that means that as you click on the camera
| | 00:14 | it will scan the scene,
| | 00:16 | using a number of different censors
| | 00:18 | and figure out what it should focus on.
| | 00:22 | Now, your focusing options menu
| | 00:24 | gives you some other very interesting
choices depending on what you are doing.
| | 00:29 | Multi-AF I think is a good default Mode and you probably want
to leave it there most of the time because the camera does a
| | 00:34 | pretty good job of figuring out what's
important and what isn't on its own.
| | 00:38 | But you have some other modes that I really like.
| | 00:41 | Center AF is interesting because it takes into
account mainly the center area of the frame,
| | 00:47 | not a very small area but kind of the center 1/4th or so.
| | 00:51 | You know that's usually where action happens when we are taking
pictures and the way that you use it when you are in this Mode is you
| | 00:57 | put that area over the subject that you want in focus
or where the action is, hold down the shutter halfway,
| | 01:04 | the camera will lock in the focus on that area and then while you're still
holding down the shutter halfway you can recompose and take the shot.
| | 01:11 | Spot AF is very similar except it takes into account a smaller
area just kind of like a dime-sized area in the center of the
| | 01:18 | frame and this is really good when you want to do things such as focus
directly on the eyes or some other particular object in the frame.
| | 01:26 | So what I would do for instance in this shot
if I want to make sure that the eyes are sharp,
| | 01:30 | I go to Spot AF, I would line up the center of the frame
right where I wanted things in focus in this case the eye,
| | 01:36 | hold down the shutter halfway, block in that focus and then recompose.
| | 01:42 | We have some pretty nifty manual focusing modes here
too where you can just tell the camera focus at 1 meter,
| | 01:48 | 3 meters, 7 meters or infinity.
| | 01:53 | And I think this is a great approach for compact cameras
because a lot of times they try to give you a manual
| | 01:58 | focusing Mode where they give you a magnifying glass and you
turn a dial and when it looks right that's your manual focus.
| | 02:04 | It's very hard to do. At least I have had a hard time
using it but these presets here at specific distances,
| | 02:10 | that I can relate to. It's very easy.
| | 02:13 | And the nice thing about it when you are in one of these preset
modes, the camera doesn't have to worry about focusing anymore,
| | 02:18 | it just sets it there so your shutter
response time is often faster.
| | 02:23 | I am going to go back to multi AF here because
that's where I like to leave the default Mode.
| | 02:28 | Now I want to show you one other focusing Mode here
| | 02:31 | and it's not in this menu. Sometimes face detection which is
what I am going to talk about is in the regular focusing menu options
| | 02:39 | and sometimes it's somewhere else. On this
particular camera and this is a Sony T200 compact
| | 02:46 | I have to go to scene Mode first,
| | 02:48 | choose people and now in my options I have face detection,
| | 02:52 | you can see the face detection option right here.
There are two types of face detection Continuous
| | 02:58 | and then when I activate it either by touching the screen
| | 03:01 | or by pressing the shutter button halfway, in the way that
both of these modes work is that when the camera detects a face
| | 03:08 | in the scene and there has to be two eyes most of the time,
| | 03:12 | faces from the side it has a harder time with but when it can see two
eyes, it'll focus on that face and we'll set the exposure on that face.
| | 03:20 | And if there is more than one person in the frame it
will detect all of those faces and balance between the two.
| | 03:26 | Now the difference between Continuous and when touched,
| | 03:31 | Continuous is just on all the time.
| | 03:33 | So I mean you hold up the camera and there is a roomful of people
those that are looking at the camera they will be detected
| | 03:38 | and they will have the little squares around their face and if
you were to take a picture right then they would be in focus
| | 03:44 | and they would also be well exposed. It's
a pretty nifty technology that works well.
| | 03:49 | Now like I said a lot of times face detection will be in your
regular auto focusing menu of options but sometimes it's
| | 03:56 | hidden away somewhere else so guess what you are going to have
to look in your camera manual to find exactly where it is.
| | 04:02 | I will take this out of here.
| | 04:03 | Let's go back to Program Mode
| | 04:05 | because that's where I like to stay most of the time
| | 04:07 | and we are in great shape. So I have returned the camera to
Multi-AF because I think that's the most versatile focusing option,
| | 04:14 | but now I know where those other focusing options
are such as center Spot and face detection.
| | 04:20 | So when I am in a specific type of situation,
| | 04:23 | I can tell the camera how I want to approach it.
| | 04:25 | It will focus on the right thing and
I'll come away with a nice clean sharp shot.
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|
8. Flash ModesFlash modes| 00:00 |
Flash settings allow you to change the way your Flash behaves
especially when you are in different kinds of lighting situations.
| | 00:07 |
Now when you first turn on your camera, chances are it's
going to be in the Auto Flash Mode. That's the default Mode
| | 00:13 |
and it makes a lot of sense. And the way that it
works is when the light goes down the camera turns on
| | 00:18 |
the flash to add light so you can get a decent exposure and
when there is plenty of light like in this outdoor situation,
| | 00:24 |
it will turn off the flash.
| | 00:26 |
And for most situations that works pretty well.
| | 00:28 |
However, I have 3 other flash settings that I want
to show you again. We will start with Flash On.
| | 00:36 |
I like this Mode, it's called Fill Flash
| | 00:38 |
and what it does is it turns on the flash,
no matter what the lighting conditions are.
| | 00:43 |
This comes in handy and a lot of
times when I use it is outdoors.
| | 00:47 |
For example, let's look at this shot at the hawk right here, plenty
of light, right? So the camera is saying there is lots of light,
| | 00:53 |
I don't need to turn on the flash.
| | 00:56 |
Well the problem is the light is coming from up here
| | 00:59 |
and this hawk has deep set eyes.
| | 01:02 |
So without Fill Flash
| | 01:03 |
this area could go completely dark.
| | 01:05 |
What I want to do is turn on the Fill Flash and bring in
some light into this dark area and brighten it up a little bit.
| | 01:11 |
And so what's so wonderful about this technique is that
the camera will balance that exposure with the exposure
| | 01:18 |
in the background here. It works really well.
| | 01:21 |
Slow Synchro Flash Mode is similar
but for a different lighting condition.
| | 01:26 |
When the background gets darker, let's say a twilight,
| | 01:29 |
at dawn or even at night when there is bright maybe buildings
or a monument in the background sometimes you want to take
| | 01:36 |
a portrait and capture some of that information in the
background and that's what Slow Synchro Flash does. It slows down
| | 01:43 |
the shutter speed so if this area here would go black normally,
with that slower shutter speed it will hold some detail
| | 01:51 |
in the background and at the same time illuminate your subject.
It works really well but the thing that you have to keep in mind
| | 01:57 |
is that slow shutter speed
| | 01:59 |
means camera shakes sometimes. So it's
good to put the camera on a tripod
| | 02:04 |
or on a ledge or somewhere where it can be steady during the exposure.
| | 02:09 |
But for low light situations such as dawn,
| | 02:12 |
twilight or even night shots,
| | 02:15 |
Slow Synchro can be a real blessing.
| | 02:17 |
Flash Off is a different situation.
| | 02:20 |
I turn off the flash a lot of times when I want to shoot indoors and
kind of capture the mood or the ambient lighting of the environment.
| | 02:28 |
Flash can be a real mood killer, I can tell you that right now.
| | 02:32 |
And we have all seen those indoor snapshots where
the subject is kind of nuked and everything else is black.
| | 02:38 |
That's not a very good feeling.
| | 02:40 |
So by turning off the flash you can capture some of
that ambient lighting and it has a much better mood.
| | 02:46 |
Now one of the things that I have to do, usually,
| | 02:49 |
when I am in Flash Off Mode is raise the ISO a little bit because what
I want to do is make the camera more sensitive to that natural lighting.
| | 02:58 |
So I will change those ISO setting to 200 or 400 even, and
that way the camera will be more sensitive to the ambient light
| | 03:06 |
and give me a nice exposure. When I'm done using my
specialized Flash Mode a lot of times I'll just go back to Auto
| | 03:12 |
and then that way I'm ready for most lighting conditions.
However I have to tell you more and more these days,
| | 03:18 |
I have been leaving the flash in Flash Off,
| | 03:21 |
because I like those existing light
shots. What you choose is up to you,
| | 03:25 |
either Flash Off or Auto,
| | 03:28 |
either one is fine but it's nice to know that when you run
into different lighting conditions you have some options
| | 03:34 |
as to how you record your subjects in those different conditions.
| | 03:38 |
Natural lighting, outdoors or even at twilight, you can come
away with some very nice shots just by using Flash Options menu.
| | 03:47 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Flash compensation| 00:00 |
Flash Compensation is similar to Exposure Compensation,
in that it gives you the ability to change the intensity
| | 00:07 |
of the flash when you take a picture.
| | 00:09 |
Now, this will look familiar to you if you've watched our
other movies on Exposure Compensation. It works the same way,
| | 00:15 |
except now it's working with flash.
| | 00:18 |
And you'll notice that we have a little flash icon right here
| | 00:21 |
to let us know that we are dealing with
compensating the flash and not the regular exposure.
| | 00:26 |
Now if the flash is a little hot, when you are taking pictures with
your compact camera or your Digital SLR and the subjects just look
| | 00:33 |
a little mute, then you are getting too much flash, right? So
you can go to the Flash Compensation scale and tone it down a bit.
| | 00:41 |
I've just taken it from 0, which is where
the camera thinks it should be, to -1
| | 00:48 |
so that's one F-stop less of white, which
means the picture will be less bright.
| | 00:53 |
And a lot of times when you have the Flash Compensation
scale set to -1, your flash pictures will look more natural.
| | 01:01 |
Now if you want to hardly have any flash at all in the shot
| | 01:05 |
or at least not notice that the flash is going off,
you can go down to -2 and that really draws it back.
| | 01:12 |
Now there may be instances when you want more flash.
| | 01:15 |
I can't think of any right now but I am sure there are.
Those times, when you say, "I really want to get a lot of flash
| | 01:21 |
in the scene." So then, you would go the other way on the scale.
| | 01:25 |
I've gone to +1 now that adds more light when I take a picture.
| | 01:29 |
I don't think I am going to leave it here though because
generally speaking, too much flash is not good for me.
| | 01:35 |
So I am going to go back to 0.
| | 01:38 |
This is where the camera thinks things should be. And then,
when I take a shot and if I look at it on my LCD viewfinder
| | 01:44 |
and I think it's a little too hot,
| | 01:46 |
or it could use a little more light,
then I know I just come here
| | 01:50 |
to the Flash Compensation scale, I can make
a few minor adjustments and I am good to go.
| | 01:55 |
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|
|
9. Drive Modes| Single shot drive mode | Continuous drive mode| 00:00 |
Continuous Drive Mode is sometimes referred to as Burst Mode
and the reason why is because when you hold down the shutter
| | 00:07 |
the camera takes a series of shots either until you let your
finger up off the shutter button or until you run out of memory.
| | 00:14 |
Now there are a couple of times when this Mode is very helpful.
| | 00:18 |
Keep in mind that normally your camera the default is set
to Single Shot Mode, which means when you take a picture
| | 00:25 |
it takes one shot,
| | 00:26 |
and then you have to press the button again to get another.
In order to go to Continuous Mode or Burst Mode you have to actually
| | 00:33 |
go to your menu, find Continuous.
| | 00:37 |
You notice there is a series of frames
| | 00:39 |
so instead of a single frame,
| | 00:41 |
you get a series of frames. That icon
gives you an idea of what you are in for .
| | 00:45 |
Because now when you take a picture,
| | 00:48 |
hold down the shutter button and let it focus,
| | 01:01 |
you actually get a burst of frames. And the way this is handy
is when you are trying to capture action shots, for instance
| | 01:09 |
this little doggy jumping over the board. Now if you try to take this
shot in Single Shot Mode your timing would have to be awfully good.
| | 01:17 |
And even if your time was awfully good the camera's timing is not,
| | 01:21 |
because there is a thing called shutter lag. And what shutter
lag means is that when you press the button there is a lag of time
| | 01:27 |
in between the moment you press the button
until the camera actually takes a picture.
| | 01:32 |
In compact cameras the shutter lag can be
a long time, it can be a half a second or so.
| | 01:38 |
And this drives people crazy. So the way to get around that
is go into Continuous Mode or Burst Mode, start taking
| | 01:46 |
the picture when the doggy is back before the boards. As he approaches
the boards you're taking pictures, you're holding your finger down,
| | 01:54 |
on that shutter button you going click, click, click, click
and you keep shooting all the way through until he exits the frame.
| | 02:01 |
Now you're going to end up with 8 or 9 shots
and probably 7 or 8 of them you don't want,
| | 02:07 |
but hopefully you'll have that one shot,
that one shot at the decisive moment.
| | 02:12 |
A shot kind of like this here that you can keep,
| | 02:15 |
then you can discard the other shots and that's the way you get
this decisive moment and that's the way you freeze action shots.
| | 02:22 |
Now this also comes in handy when you are shooting portraits
and a lot of times when we are taking portraits of people,
| | 02:27 |
you have a very kind of stiff frozen smile. Well that's because you're
going, "OK, all right now smile. OK I am going to take the picture."
| | 02:34 |
And you know they're sitting there with this grin on their face and
then the next thing you know you may have those very kind of dead smile.
| | 02:41 |
If you use Continuous Mode and again, this is right here,
| | 02:45 |
it looks like this icon,
| | 02:47 |
then take the first picture, but keep
your finger down on the shutter button.
| | 02:51 |
What will happen is the person will move and change a little bit
even if they don't want to, they can't help it, and then you may
| | 02:57 |
possibly get a more natural shot.
| | 02:59 |
So the Continuous Mode, sometimes called Burst Mode, is found in
your drive menu. Hopefully it's a button on the back of your camera.
| | 03:07 |
If it's not look in your menu system.
It's a very handy tool for capturing action.
| | 03:13 |
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| Self-timer drive mode| 00:00 | The Self Timer is a very interesting Drive Mode option.
| | 00:04 | What happens is when I press the shutter release
button when I'm in Self Timer Mode, there is a delay
| | 00:10 | from the time I press the button to
the time the exposure is actually made.
| | 00:15 | Now traditionally the Self Timer Mode is around 10
seconds. I am going to go my Drive Mode option here,
| | 00:22 | I am going to find Self Timer going down
the menu here and there we have 10 seconds.
| | 00:27 | The reason for 10 second delay? Well let's say that you're taking a
group shot of the family and you actually want to be in the group shot.
| | 00:35 | What people do a lot of times they will put the camera
on the tripod, they will get everything all lined up,
| | 00:41 | they will put it in Self Timer Mode,
| | 00:43 | press the button and then run like mad to get in
the group shot. Traditionally a Self Timer works great.
| | 00:49 | It's the way people have been using it for years.
| | 00:52 | That's not the way I use it most of the time.
| | 00:55 | Maybe because I don't have that many family group shots.
I am not sure, but one of the things that I like to do is
| | 00:59 | I like to shoot at night. I like to shoot at twilight.
| | 01:03 | I like to have long exposures. So what I
will do is I will put the camera on the tripod,
| | 01:07 | I will get everything all lined up and
I know that I am going to have a long exposure
| | 01:12 | so what I don't want to do when I take the picture is jar
the camera right at the point when I am initiating the exposure.
| | 01:19 | If I do that then the rest of the shot is well, shot.
| | 01:22 | Right? Because I have already moved the camera.
| | 01:26 | Now if I use Self Timer Mode what happens is I line everything up, I
know I am going to have a long exposure, I put it in Self Timer Mode,
| | 01:35 | press the shutter button and the camera has a
chance to settle down before it makes the exposure.
| | 01:41 | Now if I were to take the shot without using Self Timer Mode
I could actually get something where I actually jar the camera
| | 01:47 | right when I'm taking the shot, that's no good.
| | 01:49 | Self Timer Mode allows the camera to settle down.
| | 01:53 | Now for some people 10 seconds is going to be too long. It doesn't seem
that long until you are in Self Timer Mode and you are sitting there,
| | 02:00 | you're waiting for the picture to happen
you know 9, 8, 7- it drives you crazy.
| | 02:06 | So we have an option for that. Well not always,
but many cameras have an option, a 2-second option.
| | 02:13 | Let's go to it right now.
| | 02:15 | I will go down.
| | 02:16 | Now I have a 2-second Self Timer option. What that means is
now when I press the shutter release button, it's only 2 seconds
| | 02:24 | from the moment I press the button till the exposure is made.
| | 02:28 | Normally that's enough time for the camera to settle down so you can get
a nice exposure, but you don't have to wait forever for things to happen.
| | 02:36 | If you're really lucky you might even
have a custom function for your Self Timer,
| | 02:40 | let's go down here.
| | 02:42 | There it is right there
| | 02:43 | and that means I can set the time that I want.
| | 02:46 | So if I decide that 2 seconds is too fast, that I don't really feel
like the camera is steadied, but 10 seconds is forever. Or I can do
| | 02:53 | something like 6 seconds. Regardless of how you use
the Self Timer Mode, whether it's 10 seconds, 2 seconds,
| | 03:00 | whether it's for group shots
| | 03:02 | or for taking night shots it's a very useful
function. I would like you to give it a try.
| | 03:07 | The most important thing is to know where it is,
| | 03:10 | and to know what your options are. That way when you
encounter a situation that you can benefit from the Self Timer,
| | 03:16 | you can go to it and set it right away.
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|
|
10. Special FeaturesImage stabilization| 00:00 |
One of the best innovations in digital photography
in recent history is Image Stabilization.
| | 00:06 |
This is a fantastic technology that helps us take sharper pictures.
| | 00:10 |
Now there are two ways that image
stabilization works: one is optical-based
| | 00:14 |
and the other is sensor-based and both are good. I like both
a lot. Optical-based is where there is an actual lens element
| | 00:23 |
in your lens that's floating.
| | 00:25 |
It's a floating lens element and it's controlled by gyroscopes.
So you move one way, let's say you kind of camera shake one way
| | 00:33 |
then the gyroscope sense that and they move the
floating lens element the other way to counteract that
| | 00:39 |
movement resulting in a sharper shot.
| | 00:42 |
Now sensor-based works in a similar way except the gyroscopes
are in the camera body and it's adjusting the sensor
| | 00:49 |
instead of a floating element in the lens. In the DSLR
world both are good. Optical, I like because I can preview
| | 00:57 |
the stabilization effect when I look through the viewfinder.
| | 01:01 |
On the other hand sensor-based is good. You'll see sensor-based
in some of the Sony DSLRs and that's nice because every lens
| | 01:09 |
that you put on your cameras suddenly becomes image stabilized
| | 01:13 |
as opposed to on the optical side, you actually have to buy image
stabilized lens. So both have their pros and cons but both are great.
| | 01:21 |
So let's take a look at using them here.
I have the IS menu item pulled up on the screen.
| | 01:27 |
And we have some options here that I am just going to cycle
through. So we have four of them. I am going to start with Off.
| | 01:34 |
Now for the most part, you just leave the image stabilization
on all the time because it will help almost every shot
| | 01:41 |
that you take, but the only time
that you have to really turn it off,
| | 01:45 |
is when the camera is on the tripod.
In part because you don't need it.
| | 01:49 |
And some of the earlier versions of Image Stabilization there
might actually be a problem if the camera was on a tripod and
| | 01:56 |
the stabilizer was left on. That's not so much an issue these
days but you can turn it off when you are working on a tripod.
| | 02:03 |
Just remember to turn it back on once it's off.
| | 02:06 |
Now the Mode that I like a lot is Continuous
and that just means that it's always working.
| | 02:11 |
I get to preview the effect of stabilization when I look
at the LCD Viewfinder, let's say on a compact camera.
| | 02:18 |
And then when I take this shot, the image
stabilization takes effect and I get a sharper shot.
| | 02:24 |
Some people have asked, "Well if you have the stabilization
on all the tim,e are you draining your battery unnecessarily?"
| | 02:31 |
I don't really think so. For the cameras
that I have, that hasn't been an issue.
| | 02:36 |
But if you are little worried about that then this next one,
| | 02:40 |
Shoot Only, might interest you because the way that it works, it
leaves the stabilizer off while you're just looking at the world
| | 02:46 |
and lining up your shot. And then when you go to take
the picture by pressing the shutter, it kicks in and you get
| | 02:52 |
the effect of it on your photograph. So you sort of get
your cake and eat it too in that you're not using any battery
| | 02:59 |
juice when you're just using your camera, only when you're taking
the picture. So if you're little worried about battery drain,
| | 03:06 |
which I am not sure is an issue anyway,
but if you are little worried about it,
| | 03:10 |
you can go to Shoot Only Mode.
| | 03:13 |
Panning, this is- I love this Mode.
This just shows how smart these guys are.
| | 03:18 |
Panning of course is when you are taking the picture of a moving
object that's going by, such as a bicycle rider, riding by you
| | 03:25 |
and you are just following it with your camera
and taking picture let's say from left to right,
| | 03:29 |
that's a Panning motion. Well the way stabilizers work,
they stabilize on both axes, so both horizontally and vertically.
| | 03:37 |
But when you are panning, you actually want it to ignore
the horizontal axis because you are panning and you want
| | 03:44 |
a little bit of that motion. That's
what makes panning shots interesting.
| | 03:48 |
So when you go into Panning Mode on your camera if you have it,
| | 03:53 |
basically what it does is it turns off
| | 03:55 |
the stabilization on the horizontal axis, but you still
get stabilization for up and down motion. Boy, talk about
| | 04:02 |
really having the best of both worlds. This is a fabulous Mode,
just like everything else that when you go outside of your default
| | 04:09 |
when you are done with the panning shoot,
make sure that you go back to Continuous.
| | 04:13 |
So image stabilization. This is very good stuff. If you don't have it now
on a camera, make sure that you get it on the next camera that you buy.
| | 04:22 |
And if you are buying a Digital SLR that
doesn't have sensor-based stabilization then
| | 04:29 |
you'll have to buy a lens or two that are stabilized and I
recommend that, and I am going to turn off the menu for a second.
| | 04:35 |
I just want to show you one thing.
| | 04:39 |
A good lens to buy for your first image stabilized lens
is a long zoom because when you are using a telephoto,
| | 04:46 |
like for a shot like this, you have extra
magnification that's like gives you the reach, right?
| | 04:52 |
Well a magnified lens also accentuates camera shake or camera
movement. So a good image stabilized lens to start out with
| | 05:00 |
is your telephoto and then depending on how much money
you have in the bank, you can add additional lenses later.
| | 05:09 |
But the telephoto is a great place to start.
| | 05:12 |
When you are buying a compact camera just make sure you
have it on the next camera. This is a great technology
| | 05:17 |
and it really is going to improve your pictures.
| | 05:21 |
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| Auto red-eye reduction mode| 00:00 | Auto Red Eye Reduction is a Mode that camera manufacturers
have added to the variety of Flash modes we have to choose from,
| | 00:07 | because consumers were a little frustrated
| | 00:11 | with the red eye that they were getting on their compact
cameras. Now of course, the red eye is happening because
| | 00:15 | the flash is so close to the lens and it causes of reflection
of the blood filled back part of the eye into the lens.
| | 00:23 | And since the cameras are small, you can't really move the
flash, the built-in flash off the camera, which is one of the
| | 00:28 | ways to prevent red eye. So they've sort of come up
with these semi-ingenious ways to get around that and
| | 00:34 | Auto Red Eye Reduction is one of them
that you may see in your Flash menu.
| | 00:38 | Now basically, most of them work
more or less the same, which is this.
| | 00:43 | That they want to constrict the subject's
pupil now before the flash fires
| | 00:48 | and then that way there will be less red to reflect. So they've
conceived of all sorts of devious ways to do this. Sometimes they'll
| | 00:54 | do a strobe effect or there will be a steady light or some
form of subject torture before the flash actually goes off.
| | 01:02 | Then once the flash goes off, the image is recorded and
there may or may not be red eye depending on how effective
| | 01:08 | it happened to work that particular time. A lot of this has
been fairly frustrating to photographers because it throws off
| | 01:15 | the whole timing of the shoot. You press the shutter and
instead of the flash going off and the shutter firing all sorts
| | 01:21 | of weird things happen and then at some point, the camera
actually takes a picture and you may or may not have a good shot.
| | 01:28 | So now, they've gone back to the drawing board and
| | 01:31 | by they, I mean the camera manufacturers and
| | 01:34 | they're going about this a different way. And now, what we're seeing
is red eye correction. And what happens is that after the camera's
| | 01:42 | taken the picture, some cameras, such as some Nikon compacts
I believe, will actually fix the red eye automatically in the camera
| | 01:50 | after you've taken the shot.
| | 01:52 | And this is pretty cool because in that way,
you can just take the shot normally as you would
| | 01:57 | with the normal timing and so forth and then if there is red
eye, the camera will fix it. Other cameras, such as a Sony compact
| | 02:04 | that I am using, actually has an editing tool in Playback Mode
that allows me to correct the red eye if I need to. So I think
| | 02:11 | red eye correction is a better way to go. And generally
speaking, when I see Auto Red Eye Reduction
| | 02:18 | as an option in my Flash modes, I just keep going. I have
discovered one trick for it though that you may like and
| | 02:25 | if you've ever had to take pictures of people who blink
| | 02:28 | every time the flash fires and it's not their fault. They can't
help it, they are reacting to the light. That's the one instance
| | 02:35 | where I've seen Auto Red Eye Reduction work really well because
the phony flashes will make them blink and then your odds go up
| | 02:42 | considerably when you actually take the picture that
their eyes will be open, because obviously they can't blink
| | 02:47 | the whole time or their eyes will just
be closed. So Auto Red Eye Reduction,
| | 02:52 | maybe its real use in life is blink prevention.
| | 02:57 | So who knows? But at any rate, it's something to
keep in mind, unless you have someone who blinks a lot,
| | 03:04 | then I would just skip Auto Red Eye Reduction in
your Flash modes and possibly look for a camera that has
| | 03:10 | red eye correction after the shot's been taken.
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| Aspect ratios| 00:01 | Aspect Ratios are really different frames that you have to work
with when photographing the world with your digital camera.
| | 00:07 | There are three basic ones that we work with these days;
16X9, 3X2 and 4X3, I am going to walk you through each
| | 00:15 | of them right now just so you can kind of
see the world through these Aspect Ratios
| | 00:20 | and think about how you can apply it to your photography.
| | 00:23 | Let's start with 16X9.
| | 00:25 | I love this Aspect Ratio, this is what we're used to seeing in
the movie theatre, the big movies up on the big screen sitting
| | 00:32 | in the dark room like that and 16X9 is
a lot of times what we are looking at.
| | 00:38 | Also, these days, on high definition television is
a lot of times right around the 16X9 Aspect Ratio.
| | 00:45 | So if it's a big beautiful view with
lots available room and I like it a lot.
| | 00:50 | Now, 3X2, we're used to seeing those because this is
the same Aspect Ratio approximately as a 35 mm film.
| | 00:59 | And a lot of Digital SLRs these days are at 3X2, we've been
shooting at 3X2 for a long time we're used to how it looks
| | 01:08 | and also, it's about the same Aspect Ration as a 4X6 print.
| | 01:12 | So if you know you are going to be shooting for
4X6, for output to 4X6, a 3X2 is a great option.
| | 01:20 | Now, not all Digital SLRs are 3X2 however, Olympus
and Panasonic and I think a few others are shooting
| | 01:28 | at the 4X3 Aspect Ratio, which I'll show you right now.
| | 01:31 | And also, most compact cameras, not
all but most shoot at 4X3 also.
| | 01:37 | So 4X3, this is more of the dimensions
of a standard definition television.
| | 01:42 | Again, it's an Aspect Ratio that we're used to looking at.
| | 01:45 | It doesn't have as much as available room as
16X9 but it's a very functional Aspect Ratio.
| | 01:51 | Now, one of the things I want to bring up is that more
and more I am seeing on compact cameras the option to go
| | 01:58 | to the different Aspect Ratio, for instance, right now I am
on a Panasonic LX2 and it actually gives me three options.
| | 02:05 | It gives me all three of these, 16X9, 3X2 and 4X3 and I was just
standing in one Spot when I took all the shots and I was able
| | 02:15 | to switch among Aspect Ratios, which is very nice.
| | 02:19 | Some digital cameras even though they might give you all three,
they will give a 16X9 option and I think we're seeing this more
| | 02:27 | and more also because many of these cameras
are also able to connect directly to an HDTV.
| | 02:33 | So you can shoot at 16X9 with your camera, frame
the world exactly the way you want to present it,
| | 02:40 | plug your camera into the HDTV and run a slideshow right off
your camera and everything looks exactly how you shot it.
| | 02:48 | So, this is a lot of fund stuff, I mean
this is creative side of photography here.
| | 02:53 | And so, one of the things that you might want to keep in mind
that when you are shopping for your next camera or thinking
| | 02:59 | about a camera or even exploring the camera that you
have, if you have some options around Aspect Ratios,
| | 03:07 | try to factor those into your thinking
when you are wondering how you are going
| | 03:11 | to approach the shot and also think about output too.
| | 03:15 | If you know you are going to go directly to
HDTV, you very well may want to shoot in 16X9,
| | 03:20 | just make sure that you are not giving
up too much resolution to do that.
| | 03:23 | Some cameras will move the resolution all
the way down to 2 Megapixels for your 16X9.
| | 03:29 | I don't really recommend that unless you know
you are not going to need it for anything else.
| | 03:34 | Other cameras will give you a full resolution on the width
and just kind of crop it, which I prefer that actually
| | 03:39 | because that way you still have a
whole lot of pixels to work with.
| | 03:42 | And if you know you are going to go to 4X6 prints
and that the main thrust which you are doing,
| | 03:47 | then the 3X2 Aspect Ration is really nice also.
| | 03:50 | So this is fun stuff.
| | 03:51 | I hope that you kind of factor it in
along with everything else when you go out
| | 03:56 | and think about how you are going to frame the world.
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| Panorama mode| 00:00 | I don't know if you have ever had this experience where you are
standing somewhere like this with this beautiful vista behind you
| | 00:06 | and you are going, "My gosh, I need to take a picture of this!"
So you take a photograph of it, you line up your best shot,
| | 00:12 | maybe you put on a white angle lens to
make sure you get as much of it as you can.
| | 00:16 | You make a print and when you get home
you show it to your friend and you go,
| | 00:20 | "Isn't this a wonderful place, isn't this outstanding?"
And they kind of look at the shot and they go,
| | 00:25 | "Ah that's okay, no big deal."
| | 00:28 | Well the reason why they respond that way is because what
they're seeing is a little slice of what you were experiencing.
| | 00:34 | Really what you want to capture is a 180 degrees.
You want to capture the whole vista that is behind me here.
| | 00:40 | So the way that you do that is with panorama
photography and I would like to show you how it works.
| | 00:48 | I'm going to line up the first shot right now and I have
a stitcher to help me here in my camera so it will help us
| | 00:54 | make the overlap correct.
| | 00:56 | The main thing, remember, is to keep the horizon straight.
| | 00:59 | So I'm taking the first shot.
| | 01:02 | I've recorded it. Now what the camera's going
to do it's going to show me how to overlap,
| | 01:07 | so I just rotate.
| | 01:09 | So I get this nice overlap
| | 01:11 | and really all I have to do is just match it,
| | 01:13 | but what it's doing is making a 1/3rd overlap here.
| | 01:17 | I am going to take a second shot and I
have got to keep an eye out on the horizon.
| | 01:21 | Sometimes when you are hand-holding these shots it's easy to get
that messed up. I got a good horizon. Now if you get your horizon
| | 01:28 | off a little bit, it's not the end of the world.
| | 01:31 | The stitching software will help put it together
for you but you lose some of your height of your shot
| | 01:36 | and you can see how the stitcher is very
helpful for getting these shots lined up.
| | 01:40 | Now I am going to fool with the horizon with a bit and I have it.
| | 01:44 | And there's the third shot.
| | 01:48 | Now I would do the fourth shot in the sequence. This is the last one
| | 01:51 | and I have just taken the lost shot.
| | 01:54 | So what I have now is I actually have four
shots covering this beautiful scene behind me.
| | 02:00 | so it's much bigger view than just trying to do it in one shot;
if you are doing it with a wide angle lens it is still not
| | 02:06 | going to have the breadth that you have with four shots.
| | 02:09 | Now I am going to lose a little bit of those four shots because
I had to overlap by a third but it still ends up being three shots
| | 02:16 | covering the scene and you can imagine how great
that's going to look when it's all stitched together.
| | 02:21 | Now here's an interesting technique. If you shoot with
a Digital SLR or you can even do this with a compact,
| | 02:27 | you can turn your camera vertically,
| | 02:29 | instead of horizontally, and shoot panorama that way.
| | 02:32 | It's going to take many more frames but you're going to have a lot more
heights to your shots and it's very impressive. So regardless if you
| | 02:39 | are shooting vertically or horizontally, a panorama is a great way
to add creativity to your photography and I highly recommend it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Macro mode| 00:01 |
One of the things I really like about digital cameras these
days is that they can get in very close to your subject.
| | 00:07 |
And sometimes you can get within inches of a flower
or an insect just with the regular digital camera.
| | 00:13 |
The only trick is you have to know were to set
the camera in order to get that very close focus.
| | 00:19 |
Almost always you will have something called
Macro Mode and I am going to activate it right now.
| | 00:24 |
By the way, the common icon for Macro Mode or Close Up Mode
| | 00:28 |
is a picture of a flower. So all you
have to do, if you can't find it in
| | 00:33 |
your regular menu options, look for the flower icon and that
will lead you to Macro Mode or Close Up Mode. Right now I have
| | 00:41 |
Macro Mode off and the camera even with Macro Mode off
can still focus like within 9 inches or so of my subject.
| | 00:48 |
This particular camera is a Sony T200
| | 00:52 |
and it can get very close even in regular Shooting Mode.
| | 00:55 |
But if I want to get even closer I can activate Macro Mode.
| | 00:59 |
And now I can focus within 3 inches or so of my subject.
| | 01:03 |
The thing that you have to keep in mind when you are
in Macro Mode is that once you have blocked in the focus.
| | 01:08 |
I mean by pressing the shutter down half way so that you get
the conformation light and beep, don't move the camera after that.
| | 01:15 |
Because you have extra magnification going on when
you're in Macro Mode and the camera is very sensitive
| | 01:22 |
to any sort of movement. If you move just a little back,
| | 01:25 |
or a little forward, after you've locked in the focus, your shot
will be out of focus. So remember once you get that conformation beep,
| | 01:33 |
hold the camera very steady or better yet, use a tripod.
| | 01:37 |
Now there is one other Mode here I want to show you
| | 01:39 |
and this is Close Up Mode. This isn't on every camera. This
particular Sony happens to have it and this Mode will get you within
| | 01:47 |
an inch, inside of an inch of your subject. What it does
though it opens up the lens all the way to wide angle
| | 01:54 |
and then it will allow you to focus inside of an inch.
| | 01:58 |
So you can imagine how carefully you have to hold the camera.
| | 02:02 |
Chances are you will get the best results using a tripod
but super Close Up Mode is something that you can use when you
| | 02:09 |
have to get right inside of the flower
instead of shooting it from the outside.
| | 02:13 |
For most of your close-up work though, regular Macro Mode
will be just fine. It will get you within a few inches and when
| | 02:20 |
you're done shooting close-up, remember to turn it off.
| | 02:23 |
And that you are ready to tackle your next subject.
| | 02:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Face detection| 00:00 | I want to tell you about a new technology called Face Detection
and I think it's fabulous. It's perfect for events such as
| | 00:06 | wedding receptions, birthday parties, things like that.
| | 00:08 | The way it works is that when you take
a picture or when you line up a shot,
| | 00:13 | the camera will find all the people looking at the camera,
| | 00:16 | focus on them and set the exposure.
| | 00:18 | I'd like to show you how it works.
| | 00:20 | I have Vicky and Kali and they are
going to help me demonstrate face detection.
| | 00:24 | First thing that you will notice is that both of them are within
the sights of the camera. So if I were to take a picture right now,
| | 00:30 | both will be in focus. But let's mess with it a little
bit. Kali, why don't you step to the side a little bit?
| | 00:36 | And it's following it, yes. And as you come back into the frame it
follows you. And Vicky why don't you move just a little bit too?
| | 00:43 | And there it goes. Now one of the things about face detection
it does need two eyes. It will do its best when it has a profile,
| | 00:49 | but for accuracy you really need two eyes. Just see if we can
make it. Kali, won't you kind of look a little bit toward Vicky?
| | 00:57 | A little bit more, now you see- hold that pose Kali. Now you
see as Kali looks away, we lose her in the face detection
| | 01:04 | because it doesn't have two eyes to work with.
Now as soon as she comes back, come back to me,
| | 01:09 | we're right back in face detection. Alright let's
take a picture. Let's have a nice smile and shoot.
| | 01:16 | Fabulous, we will do one more just for fun.
| | 01:18 | And there is our shot. I always like to take two shots and
group shots and then that way I know I have a great shot
| | 01:25 | but with face detection, my odds go up dramatically.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Digital zoom| 00:00 | Digital Zoom. I have the menu right here set up,
| | 00:03 | pointed to Digital Zoom and I could end
this movie right now by telling you this:
| | 00:08 | Digital zoom. Never use it.
| | 00:10 | Leave it on Off. This is the menu setting that you need.
Now I can tell you a little bit about why. I can even tell you
| | 00:16 | how to get around digital zooming for instance when you are
absolutely tempted to have a little extra reach and how you can solve
| | 00:23 | that in post production. I can even tell you a little
bit, which I will do right now, as to why Digital Zoom
| | 00:28 | is even here in the first place.
| | 00:30 | But did I mention to just leave it off and keep it there?
| | 00:33 | OK, let's start out with why do we have it in the first place.
There are two types of zooming on most cameras, Optical and Digital.
| | 00:41 | Optical is with glass, it's lenses, it's good stuff, it's sharp.
| | 00:45 | Digital Zoom is something that camera manufacturers have added
so that on the outside of the box they can say this camera zooms
| | 00:51 | up to 24x and then you will see in parenthesis,
| | 00:55 | optical plus digital.
| | 00:56 | You don't want that.
| | 00:58 | Here is how it works. We are going up to the Digital Zoom
menu right no. It's right here. A lot of times you will get to it
| | 01:05 | by pressing your Menu button
| | 01:06 | and it will be near the top because I don't know why, they just want to
tempt you a little bit more. I'll move down here using my down button.
| | 01:14 | We are at Digital Zoom.
| | 01:15 | Now look at some of the options you have
here. I am going to hit the right button.
| | 01:19 | So they have 1.5,
| | 01:21 | which is bad, worse and then terrible.
| | 01:25 | Standard, it sounds so innocuous right? Standard.
| | 01:29 | You know what that means?
| | 01:30 | That means you can go all the way up to a total combined of 24 times.
| | 01:36 | On this camera we have 6x optical since everything
else is digital. That is scary stuff. So go back to Off.
| | 01:43 | Did I mention that Off is where you should leave it?
| | 01:46 | Now at the top of this tutorial I alluded to the fact
that you can get around Digital Zoom in post production.
| | 01:52 | It's actually not bad at all.
| | 01:55 | So you see something off in the distance, you are tempted,
you feel your fingers wanting to go to the menu and turn on
| | 02:00 | Digital Zoom so you could get to that subject.
| | 02:03 | Don't do it. Instead go to your menu and double check that your
camera is set on its highest resolution. By doing so you'll be
| | 02:10 | capturing all the information that you need so that when
you're in post production, you can use that resolution to crop
| | 02:16 | out the center of the frame, throw away the side information.
| | 02:19 | It's just like Digital Zoom, except it's good
| | 02:22 | and it will look great. So remember don't use Digital Zoom.
Leave it set to Off. If you need a little extra reach,
| | 02:28 | make sure you are shooting at the camera's highest resolution
| | 02:31 | and you can crop later on in postproduction.
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| Movie mode| 00:00 | A very handy feature that you often get with compact camera is
its ability to make movies in addition to recording still photos.
| | 00:08 | I am going to show you how Movie Mode works on this particular
camera. Remember your menus may look a little different,
| | 00:14 | but chances are you have a Movie Mode too.
| | 00:17 | Start by going to the Mode menu, I will just click on this right here.
| | 00:21 | And I have all my different choices.
| | 00:24 | I have Auto Mode, which is for still pictures.
| | 00:26 | I have my Scene Mode,
| | 00:27 | which of course allows me to use all these different
presets in order to match them to certain types of shots.
| | 00:34 | I have Program Mode and I have Movie Mode right here. They
are selected right now so I am going to go ahead and close that.
| | 00:41 | Now once I have selected Movie Mode I also have
some options as to how the camera records the movie.
| | 00:47 | So I am going to go up to the Options menu.
| | 00:50 | I have 640 and they don't show it here,
but it's actually 640x480 in Fine Mode.
| | 00:56 | So that means it's standard definition,
high quality resolution, not as much compression.
| | 01:01 | In Standard Mode it's always 640x480 but there is a little
bit more compression. The image quality won't be as good
| | 01:08 | in Standard Mode as in Fine Mode.
| | 01:11 | At 320x240, the movie will be half the size of the 640x480.
This is half size standard Mode. It's fine for web and
| | 01:20 | for computer use but if you are going to show it on a
TV screen you probably want to go with a 640x480 Fine Mode.
| | 01:28 | Once you make your selection,
| | 01:30 | exit out of the Option menu,
| | 01:32 | now let's make a movie.
| | 01:33 | You start the movie the same way you would taking a picture.
| | 01:36 | You line up your shot,
| | 01:38 | press the shutter down,
| | 01:39 | let it go.
| | 01:40 | Now once you start the movie it will
record and you will either get a red dot
| | 01:44 | or red record button.
| | 01:48 | You can go ahead and do a little panning,
| | 01:52 | or simulating Movie Mode here as you can tell.
| | 01:57 | And that moves back a little bit the other way
| | 02:02 | and it will come back. By the way this is the space you don't see
or in any case you're wondering whether the scene was recorded.
| | 02:10 | Once I have recorded my scene all I have
to do is press the shutter button again,
| | 02:15 | and my movie is saved to the memory card.
Now there are a couple of things to keep in mind, one,
| | 02:20 | your movies maybe stored differently in your still pictures
and your photo management software may not recognize them.
| | 02:28 | So you may have to upload your movie separately from your still photos.
| | 02:31 | Second, it's worth taking a look at the specifications for how
your camera saves these movies and make sure it's compatible with
| | 02:38 | the software that you already have on your computer
| | 02:41 | or see if there is software bundled with
the camera that you can use to edit your movies.
| | 02:45 | This is a handy way to grab short movies when
you on to go without carrying an extra camcorder.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
11. Data ManagementResolution and image quality| 00:00 |
Resolution and image quality are two things that you have to
consider when you are shooting with the JPEG format. Now you have
| | 00:06 |
two formats to choose from if you are shooting on a
DSLR, JPEG or RAW. On most compacts, you only have JPEG.
| | 00:13 |
So these are a couple bits of important
information that I am going to cover right now.
| | 00:17 |
Let me pull up the menu.
| | 00:19 |
So resolution is the actual dimensions of the image in terms of pixels.
| | 00:23 |
I have a 12 megapixel camera right here, so the resolution
on this camera is 4000 pixels across and 3000 pixels down.
| | 00:32 |
This is the highest resolution this camera has to offer.
| | 00:36 |
On my memory card that I have in there right
now, I can get 254 shots at this resolution.
| | 00:43 |
I am going to move down one notch
| | 00:46 |
and go to M1. I'm not exactly sure what M1 means but I'm going to
guess Medium for now and I'd probably guess that L stands for Large.
| | 00:53 |
I am shooting at 8 megapixels, a resolution of 3264 x 2448,
| | 01:00 |
so you know that's a lot less than shooting over here at 12
megapixels. I'm capturing fewer pixels, so I have less resolution.
| | 01:08 |
Now the thing that happens of course is that the number
of pictures on my card or the number of pictures that
| | 01:14 |
I can put on my card goes up to 383. Let's
work our way down the ladder here. At M2.
| | 01:20 |
I'm at 5 megapixels and I can get more pictures on my card.
| | 01:24 |
And at M3, I'm at 2 megapixels, 1600x1200 and I can get a whopping
1267 photos on my card, but don't get too excited about this,
| | 01:33 |
because I am going to burst your balloon here in just a minute.
| | 01:36 |
At Small, I can get 640x480
| | 01:40 |
and that's really just a VGA quality even though I can get
over 4000 pictures on my memory card, I don't want to do this,
| | 01:48 |
because I'll have over 4000 pictures that I really can't
do anything with. I can't make prints with them, really.
| | 01:54 |
They're not even big enough to fit on
a high definition television screen.
| | 01:58 |
They're virtually useless.
| | 02:00 |
Sometimes people fall into the trap of lowering their resolution
to get more pictures on their memory card. Don't do it.
| | 02:08 |
What I really recommend is that you get another memory card.
Memory is not that expensive now and it's really worth it to be
| | 02:15 |
able to shoot at high resolution all the time.
I will give a couple of reasons why in just a second.
| | 02:20 |
Now this one has a Wide Mode, a wide screen Mode, and basically
I'm getting the full width in my resolution, but it's cropping on
| | 02:26 |
the top and the bottom. That's fine it helps me you know pre-
visualize what panorama will look like or 16x9 or you know that
| | 02:34 |
look that we get in the theater. And it's fine to shoot at
that Mode actually, but you don't have to if you want to look.
| | 02:40 |
You can go ahead and shoot at L and then crop later on,
on the computer. That way you can get to put the crop where
| | 02:46 |
you want or play with the crop, whereas when
you shoot it in the camera that's what you get.
| | 02:50 |
And fortunately, this camera has RAW Mode,
| | 02:53 |
which is terrific. In that RAW Mode, I'm getting everything
out of the camera that it has to offer, I get full resolution
| | 02:59 |
and I get the highest quality possible.
But here's where I want you to shoot.
| | 03:05 |
I would like you to shoot at the largest or the best resolution
you can and there are two reasons. One, it's better for printing.
| | 03:13 |
You have more pixels available to you when you print and you
can make larger prints. Two, this one is a kind of sneaky one,
| | 03:20 |
but it's really important, in a lot of ways it's more important
than printing, and that it extends the length of your telephoto lens.
| | 03:28 |
A lot of compacts only have a 3x zoom lens and a lot of
times that's not enough reach for the shot that you want.
| | 03:34 |
If you are shooting at the highest resolution, your compact
has to offer, whether that's 6 megapixels or 8 megapixels
| | 03:40 |
or 10 or 12, whatever you have,
| | 03:42 |
then when you get on the computer, when you put that image
there then you can crop the thing that you want out of that picture.
| | 03:49 |
Throw away those other pixels and if you are shooting at high resolution,
you'll probably have enough pixels left to still make a nice print.
| | 03:56 |
So shooting at high resolution, it's a great way to extend the length
of your telephoto lens. You can always crop out the pieces that you want
| | 04:03 |
and still make prints. We need to talk
about quality also, so let's pop up one.
| | 04:08 |
We have three quality settings, Super Fine,
| | 04:10 |
which I like. That's sort of like super
hero, right? Or Superman or Super Good.
| | 04:15 |
Fine, which is just fine.
| | 04:18 |
Then I love this one, we have Normal. Normal, yeah sure.
| | 04:21 |
Actually it should be like 'Really, really bad and don't use it.' Maybe
that label was too long so they put Normal there. You don't want that.
| | 04:29 |
These are the quality settings. So JPEGs are compressed files,
| | 04:33 |
your camera processes them and then it
compresses them after it processes them
| | 04:38 |
and that way you get more pictures on you card, they are easier
to move around and all those kind of good things. When it does
| | 04:43 |
heavy compression, in other words, it really squishes them,
you lose image quality and there is a certain logic to that
| | 04:50 |
if you really think about it. But you don't want that.
| | 04:52 |
You want to come away with as much image quality as
you can. So even though when you shoot in Super Fine Mode,
| | 04:58 |
you only get 254 shots on your memory
card. Only. I used to shoot in film days.
| | 05:04 |
I am not going to give you that I walked 6 miles in snow kind
of speech here, but in film days I had 36 exposures per RAW,
| | 05:11 |
so saying only 254 shots on my memory card
doesn't really exactly make me feel that bad.
| | 05:18 |
And I know it's tempting when you look and
| | 05:20 |
you move it down to Normal and you get 871 but don't do it.
| | 05:24 |
The picture quality is not nearly as good as it
would be at Super Fine and this is where you want to be.
| | 05:30 |
So when you take your shots,
| | 05:33 |
you want to come away, and especially this is very important in
JPEG Mode, you want to come away with the best image that you can
| | 05:38 |
and when you put that on your computer
then you have all of your options open
| | 05:42 |
in terms of printing, in terms of cropping. I know the file
size is bigger, but you can always make a copy of that image,
| | 05:49 |
make that smaller and send that on to Aunt Jane or put that on your
website. What you want to keep on your computer are your master images,
| | 05:56 |
that are at the best quality your camera can produce
and then later on you can use them anyway that you want.
| | 06:02 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| File formats| 00:00 |
File formats are basically the container your camera
uses to store image data after it takes a picture.
| | 00:06 |
There are three basic types of file formats
we are seeing on digital cameras today.
| | 00:11 |
JPEGs they are everywhere. they are on all cameras.
| | 00:15 |
RAW.
| | 00:16 |
We see those on DSLRs and we see them on some compacts also,
| | 00:20 |
and DNG,
| | 00:21 |
which stands for Digital Negative, it's an open standard
and we see it on some Compacts and a few Digital SLRs too.
| | 00:29 |
In another movie I talked about how to shoot with JPEGs
| | 00:34 |
and I reminded you that because JPEGs are a compressed format,
| | 00:39 |
you want to use the highest quality setting possible.
That's because JPEGs are actually processed in the camera.
| | 00:47 |
And after it finishes its processing it compresses it a
little bit so that more JPEGs will fit on your memory card
| | 00:53 |
and they are also easier to transport that way.
| | 00:56 |
So the trick to shooting with JPEG is
to compress it as little as possible or
| | 01:01 |
use the highest quality setting, they are the same thing.
| | 01:05 |
RAW, on the other hand,
| | 01:06 |
doesn't deal with any of those issues at all.
| | 01:10 |
Here is a RAW format right here. Now with RAW basically your
camera gathers all the image data, puts it in the container
| | 01:18 |
and then waits for you to put it on the computer. When you
put the RAW file on your computer that's when you process it.
| | 01:25 |
So the processing doesn't really happen in the camera.
| | 01:28 |
It happens on your computer.
| | 01:30 |
And this is why a lot of photographers like RAW because
they have all of their options open to them and they have all
| | 01:36 |
the image data waiting for them when
they get the file to their computer.
| | 01:40 |
Now sometimes people ask me well, what's
the best way to go, should I shoot RAW,
| | 01:45 |
or should I shoot JPEG?
| | 01:47 |
I recommend shooting RAW whenever possible and especially if
you have a digital SLR the reason being because you will have
| | 01:55 |
all of your quality waiting for you
when you get that file to your computer.
| | 01:59 |
Now granted you can get fewer RAW files
on a memory card as you will see here.
| | 02:04 |
Only 66,
| | 02:06 |
compared if I go to JPEG,
| | 02:10 |
I can get 259.
| | 02:12 |
SSo if I am running out of room do I take it off RAW and
go to JPEG? Well that's an option, but generally speaking,
| | 02:20 |
the best way to go is to have another
memory card waiting to put in the camera.
| | 02:23 |
Now there are times when shooting JPEG does make sense.
| | 02:27 |
For example if you are covering a sporting
event where you are going to be in Burst Mode a lot,
| | 02:32 |
Continuous Shooting Mode,
| | 02:34 |
most cameras will allow you to capture more
images in Burst Mode in JPEG and then in RAW.
| | 02:40 |
In other words you might be able to rip off
a burst of maybe 20 or 30 images in JPEG,
| | 02:46 |
and if you are in RAW maybe only 6 images and then you
have to wait for some writing to happen to the memory card.
| | 02:53 |
So if you are going to be in that situation where
you are using Burst Mode a lot JPEG does make sense.
| | 02:59 |
Another time that JPEG make sense is if you're going to take the memory
card right out of your camera and put it into a direct printer,
| | 03:07 |
direct printers, any of those little printers that
accept memory cards, they can't process RAW files,
| | 03:14 |
but they can look at JPEGs and give you a print right away.
| | 03:18 |
So if you know you are going to be using
direct printing or some other use of the images
| | 03:22 |
right off your memory card then shooting JPEG does make sense.
| | 03:27 |
There is one more option though.
| | 03:30 |
Many cameras that allow you to capture in RAW
| | 03:33 |
will also allow you to capture in RAW+JPEG.
| | 03:37 |
Now this is a very handy function. Remember though,
| | 03:40 |
if you are shooting in RAW+JPEG, you are writing two
files to the memory card every time you take a picture
| | 03:47 |
so it will use up more of the space on
your memory card. But here's the advantage.
| | 03:52 |
When you shoot RAW+JPEG you have all those JPEGs waiting
for you when you take the card out of your camera and
| | 03:58 |
put it into the printer if you want to make a direct print. But
if you want to use it for something else, let's say hand it off to
| | 04:10 |
somebody and say yeah you can just grab those JPEGs and
then give me the card back. That sort of thing. And then
| | 04:10 |
when you are ready to work on the files and really perfect the images
that you like those hero shots then you can upload the RAW files
| | 04:17 |
to your computer and really fine tune them.
| | 04:20 |
So it's the best of both worlds RAW+JPEG.
| | 04:23 |
Many times I will shoot in RAW+JPEG because I do like using
direct printers and things like that and at the same time,
[00:04:30:18]
I want to have the master files waiting
for me when I am ready to fine tune them.
| | 04:34 |
So keep in mind RAW+JPEG is a good way to go.
| | 04:39 |
If you are shooting with Compacts, you will probably have to use
JPEG all the time and that's okay. When you are ready to shoot,
| | 04:45 |
with RAW you can usually get a more advanced Compact
that has RAW or you can move up to the Digital SLR.
| | 04:51 |
If you have one of those cameras then I do recommend
hat you shoot in RAW because in the end you'll have
| | 04:57 |
more image information to work with.
| | 04:59 |
Keep in mind that RAW or JPEG is not a
religious issue, it has to do with practicality.
| | 05:06 |
So if you have enough memory,
| | 05:08 |
and if you have the time in the computer
to process RAW files, go that way.
| | 05:12 |
If you don't or if you just want to use the pictures right off
your memory card shoot JPEG, shoot at its highest resolution,
| | 05:19 |
the highest quality settings and you will be just fine.
| | 05:22 |
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| File numbering options| 00:00 |
That set of numbers that you see before the
extension when you upload a file to your computer,
| | 00:05 |
such as IMG_3421.jpeg,
| | 00:10 |
that 3421, those are your file numbers.
| | 00:13 |
Fortunately, this is a very easy thing to deal
with on your camera because you only have two choices
| | 00:18 |
on how those file numbers are recorded:
| | 00:20 |
Continuous
| | 00:23 |
and Auto Reset.
| | 00:24 |
If you choose Auto Reset, what it means is every
time you format your memory card, it starts all over.
| | 00:30 |
So it starts at 0001 and you shoot a bunch of pictures,
| | 00:35 |
you format it, you put the card back in the camera
and you start shooting and it goes 0001, 0002 again.
| | 00:41 |
You can probably figure out there are drawbacks to going about
things this way because pretty soon, you're going to end up with
| | 00:47 |
a bunch of files on your computer called
0001 and 0002 and that could be confusing.
| | 00:54 |
So I recommend for file numbering
that instead you go to Continuous.
| | 00:59 |
Continuous means that the camera picks up the file number in
sequence every time you format the card so you have only one 0001,
| | 01:07 |
but you can go all the way up to 9849, whatever, and at some point,
it will start over again but you have to shoot a lot of pictures.
| | 01:16 |
So therefore, you may end up with one or two, over time,
| | 01:20 |
0001.jpegs on your camera, but that's a lot better than
ending up with 50 of them or 60 of them or 1000 of them.
| | 01:28 |
So I recommend for file numbering, you just go to your menu,
| | 01:32 |
choose Continuous
| | 01:33 |
and you're done.
| | 01:34 |
This is as easy as it gets.
| | 01:37 |
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| Date and time| 00:00 | Time stamp is important.
| | 00:02 | So you want to make sure that you set your date and time correctly,
so that all of your photos have the correct date and time
| | 00:08 | as part of their metadata.
| | 00:10 | Now you can use this for sorting your photos later on, searching
for photos or just knowing when you took the darn thing.
| | 00:18 | For instance, you are looking at a shot and let's say it's a
sunrise shot, you can confirm that by looking at its date and time
| | 00:25 | and the metadata and know that it's
a sunrise shot and not a sunset shot.
| | 00:30 | And believe or not this does come in handy. There are other things
that you want to remember about date and time, so of course
| | 00:36 | changing your settings if you live in an area
that has daylight savings or when you're traveling.
| | 00:41 | So let's just take a look at our menu here and make some settings.
| | 00:46 | I am at the top of the menu here and
you will notice that I am in the tools area.
| | 00:52 | And I am clicking on the down arrow right now
| | 00:55 | on my controls, so that I can navigate down to the date and time.
| | 01:00 | I am going to hit the Function button or the Set button
| | 01:03 | and cameras call these things different things, but normally
you have a button that's like the OK button or the Set button.
| | 01:10 | So once you land where you want in the menu, it activates it.
| | 01:14 | I am going to click that Set button right now
| | 01:17 | and I have date and time.
| | 01:20 | First thing, I am going to do is make sure that
my month and my date and my year are accurate.
| | 01:27 | Let's change this back to February,
| | 01:30 | the 19th is fine, 2008.
| | 01:32 | I am hitting this side button as I
do this to navigate through the menu.
| | 01:37 | We leave the time as it is.
| | 01:40 | Now I have month,
| | 01:42 | date, and year right now, which I like,
| | 01:45 | but I can use the up and down buttons,
| | 01:48 | I am using the down button now just to cycle through my options.
| | 01:52 | But I'll leave that month, date and year.
| | 01:55 | And this little sun over here, this allows
me to turn daylight savings on and off,
| | 02:02 | which means then I don't have to go back through and
reset all you know my time, so much as I can just turn on
| | 02:09 | daylight savings, if and when it's daylight
savings and then turn it off, when it's not.
| | 02:14 | We are not daylight savings right now,
so I am going to leave it off.
| | 02:17 | Now I am going to click my OK button and that actually
| | 02:21 | locks in my date and time. And I am in good shape,
| | 02:25 | as long as I don't travel,
| | 02:26 | as long as there's no daylight savings time,
| | 02:30 | or as long as my battery doesn't run out and stay empty
for an extended period of time causing my camera to reset.
| | 02:38 | Now if any of those things happen, you need to reset your date
and time. Camera manufacturers know we have to do these sorts
| | 02:45 | of things and they are trying to make it easier
on us. I am going to hit the Up button again
| | 02:49 | and go to Time Zone,
| | 02:50 | something that I'm seeing more and more on cameras.
I am going to click Set button to open it up.
| | 02:57 | Now I have options here and this is kind of cool, the Home
option which is highlighted right now, that's what we just set,
| | 03:04 | that's our generic date and time.
| | 03:06 | But let's say that I am on the West Coast,
that's home, and I know I'm going to fly to New York.
| | 03:13 | And let's say that I fly to New York a lot, let's say
I am a West Coast to East Coast kind of traveling guy.
| | 03:20 | What I could do is make a setting for when I land on the East
Coast, make it once and then to switch between my home time stamp
| | 03:30 | and my travel time stamp and I am going to use the down arrow
| | 03:36 | and I am going to get over to my little travel time stamp here.
| | 03:41 | And if I hit the Set button, again that Ok button or what it
happens to be called on your particular camera, I can actually
| | 03:48 | look at a map with all the time zones on it.
| | 03:51 | And this kind of fun, I like this.
| | 03:54 | So I have it set for New York right now,
but let's just move around the world a little bit.
| | 03:59 | Now I am going to hit the Set and that's okay.
| | 04:02 | So now it actually sets the time for me
| | 04:05 | and I am in good shape, so I have my airplane
setting, my travel setting, and my home setting.
| | 04:11 | Here's my airplane setting right here.
| | 04:13 | Now since I am not flying right now,
I am going to move it back to Home setting.
| | 04:18 | So I am going to navigate back up,
| | 04:21 | move my arrow key to the left,
| | 04:24 | highlight Home.
| | 04:26 | Now instead of hitting Set, because I don't really want to set the
time zone or anything, what I want to do now is get back to my menu,
| | 04:33 | so I am going to hit the Menu button
| | 04:36 | and I am ready to go. So when I am taking pictures at home,
| | 04:40 | I will see the little Home icon on my LCD Viewfinder here.
| | 04:43 | Let's say that I just landed in New York, and I know
that I need to change my timestamp, I open up Time Zone
| | 04:51 | and the I move sideways,
| | 04:53 | and I'll hit the Set button,
| | 04:56 | just to double check. OK, I'm good.
| | 04:59 | So I've set it, now I am going to hit Menu
| | 05:02 | and you will notice that under the Time Zone here,
| | 05:05 | I have my little airplane. All right.
| | 05:08 | And actually when I am taking pictures, I'll see that
little airplane on my LCD, which is nice reminder so that
| | 05:14 | when I get home and I start to take pictures then I see
the little airplane, go, "Oh I have to change my time zone."
| | 05:21 | So now that you know setting your
travel time zone is that much easier
| | 05:26 | than changing it back and forth, but what I like
about this functionality is that you have a reminder.
| | 05:32 | You have a reminder that you know, ooh, ooh, ooh, you know you
are in a different time zone and that will help you set it back.
| | 05:39 | Now one other thing that I want to say is that a lot of
photo management applications allow you to batch process
| | 05:46 | time zone changes, so if you do forget,
all is not lost. I wouldn't depend on that,
| | 05:52 | but you know that you do have that safety net. And then there is one
other thing that I want to show you, your camera can also be a clock.
| | 05:59 | In this case I am going to hold
down the Set button for a few seconds.
| | 06:05 | So one other thing that you can do is on a lot of the
cameras you can actually use your time setting as a clock,
| | 06:13 | right here, I have it set it to 24-hour clock.
| | 06:15 | So date and time is important. It's good to know when
you took your pictures. It helps you sort of figure out
| | 06:21 | what was going on in this shot
| | 06:23 | and it's also a handy tool when you are working in your photo
management application to help you find pictures based on when
| | 06:30 | they were captured. And remember if you do forget to
change your date and time, you do have the safety net
| | 06:36 | with your photo management application
that probably allows you to do batch changing.
| | 06:41 | However, like everything else in photography,
it's best to get it right at capture.
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| Erasing Options| 00:01 | You have a number of erasing options on your camera
that allows you to take pictures off your memory card.
| | 00:07 | For example, right now I am looking at this photo on my LCD Viewfinder.
| | 00:13 | And if I decide that for some reason I need to take it off the
memory card, I look on the back of my camera and there is probably
| | 00:21 | a little trash can icon there and by pressing that I
come up with the first erasing option, which is single-erase.
| | 00:29 | That means I can take one picture at a time off my memory card.
I want to say right upfront here that don't be in a rush
| | 00:37 | to do this. Obviously if you take
a really-really-really bad photo,
| | 00:41 | and you want to get it off your card, this single-erase
is a great way to go. However, with questionable photos,
| | 00:49 | keep in mind that memory cards are
big these days and they are cheap,
| | 00:53 | which means that you will have the luxury of waiting
til you get back on your computer to erase images.
| | 00:59 | And the advantage of that is of course when you are
at your computer, you have a big LCD, you can see all
| | 01:05 | the details and you are not looking at a little 3-inch screen.
| | 01:09 | So the point here is don't be in a hurry to erase. Yes,
if you have a very embarrassingly bad photo on your LCD,
| | 01:17 | which means on your memory card and you want to get it
out there, I fully understand, but otherwise for most of the
| | 01:23 | questionable shot wait till you your back at the computer.
Now I am going to move over to Cancel, hit the button,
| | 01:29 | and I am going to show you a couple of other
options for getting images of your memory card.
| | 01:34 | I am going to hit the Menu button now.
| | 01:37 | Now remember I am in Playback Mode, I am not in
Picture Taking Mode so my menu will be different.
| | 01:42 | And I am looking at the Playback menu.
| | 01:45 | And I am going to just roll down here and I have an Erase option,
| | 01:49 | and I hit the Set button.
| | 01:51 | And you notice that I would select range of images,
| | 01:55 | images by date, category and if I am using folders on my camera
to organize images, I can select by folder. I am not doing any
| | 02:03 | of that but this is an option that you are going to see. Sometimes
you will even see this option with the Erase icon, trash can,
| | 02:12 | which I think is a little bit more dangerous. I like those pulled
out separate as a menu item. I don't like it as an option on
| | 02:19 | the back button because you could accidentally erase all images.
| | 02:23 | I don't want to do that right now but here it is, now most of the time
whenever you see those little three dots here, I'll point them out to you,
| | 02:31 | right here.
| | 02:32 | That means you are going to get another menu.
| | 02:34 | So by pressing the Set button right now doesn't mean that I am
automatically going to erase all my images, it means because I have
| | 02:42 | those three dots so there I will get another option here.
| | 02:45 | Now I have the chance of saying, do I really want to do this?
| | 02:49 | No, I am going above,
| | 02:51 | I mean I will go back to Cancel,
| | 02:53 | I am going to hit the Set button
| | 02:55 | and I'm not going erase anything.
| | 02:58 | Now the last thing in the options that we
have here, I am going to hit the Menu button,
| | 03:03 | take me back to the Menu, this is a Format option.
| | 03:06 | So I want to go back up to the top,
| | 03:08 | we will go over to Tools,
| | 03:11 | and format is usually somewhere over here,
| | 03:14 | wandering down our menu, here is a Format option,
| | 03:17 | I am going to hit the Set button.
| | 03:19 | We have two types of formatting we have
regular formatting which just basically
| | 03:24 | rewrites the file header information on your memory card.
It doesn't actually take off the images of your card,
| | 03:32 | the regular formatting function. And for that matter,
| | 03:35 | either does Erase or Erase All, all they do is sort of hide them
from your camera and as you take more pictures they are replaced.
| | 03:43 | This is why if you accidentally erase all your images
| | 03:46 | or if you accidentally format your card you can probably
recover those images with Recovery Software because
| | 03:53 | they are not really gone, they are just sort of hidden from you.
| | 03:56 | Now if you do accidentally erase all your images,
| | 04:00 | stop taking pictures. Don't take anymore pictures because every time
you take a picture, there is a chance of one of your so called
| | 04:06 | erased pictures can be eliminated forever. So
if you accidentally erase, stop taking pictures.
| | 04:13 | Get some software, get them back and then you are back in business.
| | 04:16 | Now however, if you want to get rid of the pictures,
| | 04:21 | forever and ever off your memory card and if you have the option
| | 04:25 | right here for low-level format,
| | 04:27 | that will actually zero out everything
and there will be nothing on there.
| | 04:32 | So generally speaking you don't want to use this option
unless you want to make absolutely sure, no one ever sees
| | 04:38 | the pictures on that memory card again.
I am not going to choose that right now.
| | 04:42 | I am going to choose Cancel,
| | 04:44 | brings you back to my menu.
| | 04:46 | I am going to hit the Menu button,
which will bring me back to my picture.
| | 04:50 | Just for the heck of it I am going to
hit he trash can icon one more time,
| | 04:55 | single-erase, that's what you will do most of the time,
| | 04:59 | but be very careful about this, wait to your
computer and one last thing about the computer,
| | 05:06 | sometimes photo applications will ask you if
you want to erase the memory card with the computer.
| | 05:12 | I recommend that you decline that.
| | 05:15 | Once you are done, once you have uploaded all your pictures,
| | 05:18 | put the card back in your camera and then either use
Erase All or Format. It's a better way to go about it.
| | 05:24 | That way you will ensure that your memory card is compatible
with your camera and you will get the best performance.
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|
|
12. Playback and Images TransferPhoto playback| 00:00 | Photo Playback is of course enjoying your images after
you have taken them and today's cameras make that
| | 00:05 | almost as easy as capturing them in the first place.
| | 00:08 | Now there is nothing really scientific going on here.
You go to Photo Playback Mode, you find the navigation tool
| | 00:15 | on the back of your camera,
| | 00:17 | and you watch your pictures on the LCD monitor.
| | 00:20 | And then you can go back and review them in the other direction.
| | 00:25 | Most people don't have a very hard time using this particular
tool this way. However there is something else that I want to
| | 00:31 | show you here that is helpful and not
everyone has mastered this technique yet.
| | 00:36 | The same control on your camera that you use to zoom in
and out also works as a zoomer for when you're viewing
| | 00:42 | your pictures and now it could be the collar around the
shutter button or it could be a rocker switch on the back.
| | 00:48 | When I'm in Playback Mode,
| | 00:49 | I can use this tool to zoom in on my photo
| | 00:52 | and then the navigation tool that
I use to move from picture to picture,
| | 00:56 | I can move around within the picture.
| | 00:59 | This is helpful because it allows me to get
a very close look at what's going in the shot.
| | 01:04 | Something that I may not see when
it's back at full size Mode here.
| | 01:09 | Now if I move the zoomer one more notch to the right,
| | 01:13 | I can get into Grid Mode here where I have a number
of thumbnails to look at, usually it's a grid of 9.
| | 01:19 | Sometimes you have an option for 9 or more.
| | 01:21 | Now I can use my navigation tool to move around within the
grid and when I find what I like, pull the zoom ring again
| | 01:28 | toward the telephoto side and I go directly to that photo.
| | 01:32 | So this is a very handy tool to get a closer look at your photos.
| | 01:36 | Now something I want to mention here.
| | 01:39 | Even though you can review your images on the screen and even
though you can zoom in, I recommend that you don't delete
| | 01:45 | too many photos while you are reviewing
them on the back of your camera.
| | 01:49 | The reason being that this is still a small LCD,
| | 01:52 | and in order to really see all the detail of the
image you want to look at it on your computer screen.
| | 01:57 | So my recommendation is enjoy your pictures on the back of your camera.
| | 02:01 | You can go ahead and take out the obvious dogs, but leave
everything else intact until you upload on to your computer.
| | 02:08 | You have more information to work with and
therefore I think you will make better decisions.
| | 02:13 | Now I am going to zoom back out here.
| | 02:15 | I have enjoyed all the pictures on the back of
this camera and I am ready to go back to shooting.
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| Movie playback| 00:00 | One of the nice things about compact cameras these days
is that it captures movies as well as still photos.
| | 00:07 | You notice here among my still photographs that I took I have
this one frame up here in the upper left that has sprocket holes.
| | 00:15 | What do you think that could be?
| | 00:16 | I am guessing that it's a movie.
| | 00:18 | I am going to go over to it right now with
the navigator on the back of my camera.
| | 00:23 | I am going to pull the zoom caller ring
to bring it forward and I have a movie.
| | 00:28 | Now all it's telling me to do here is hit the Set
button or the OK button depending on what kind
| | 00:34 | of camera you have to bring up the movie controls.
| | 00:37 | So I will do that otherwise I am just looking at the first
frame of the movie and quite honestly it's not that exciting
| | 00:43 | so I am going to hit the Set button now I have my controls.
| | 00:48 | The control back here allows me to exit or get out of the movie
then I have the Play button which allows me to play the movie
| | 00:55 | which is kind of fun I will get my pointer out of the way here.
| | 00:58 | And I hit the Set button again and it stops playback.
| | 01:04 | I like this next button this is Slow Motion so I can
click on it and I get slow motion but look at this
| | 01:10 | up here I even can control how slow the motion goes.
| | 01:14 | I am just using the navigation buttons on the back of the camera.
| | 01:19 | I can go really slow or I can speed it back up.
| | 01:28 | Okay and I hit the Set button again to bring out my controls,
the next one allows me to go back to the first frame so if I get
| | 01:34 | into the movie and I go oh I want to
see that first frame again there you go.
| | 01:39 | The next button is the previous frame.
| | 01:41 | Now this just goes one frame at a time I am hitting my navigation
tool on the back of the camera and I hit the Set button now.
| | 01:47 | Now I will just go back one frame at a time.
| | 01:52 | Now this is primarily when you are doing
editing which you can do in camera.
| | 01:58 | Now the next one goes forward one frame at
a time and I will just hit the OK button.
| | 02:05 | The next control takes me all the way to the last frame so if I
am thinking that I am not really enjoying this movie very much
| | 02:11 | and I just want to wrap it up I can just hit that
and get to the end and this next one is pretty cool.
| | 02:17 | I can actually edit in camera so I am going to hit the
OK button and have a whole set of editing tools here.
| | 02:24 | This first tool allows me to do editing
at the beginning of the movie.
| | 02:28 | And I use my navigation tool to move to the
frame that I want to be the first frame.
| | 02:34 | And then if I hit the Set button it
will cut everything that's behind it.
| | 02:38 | Now if I go down to the next one I
can do the same thing on the other end
| | 02:41 | so I can do trimming on the end to my hearts content here.
| | 02:45 | Now I just move my navigation tool and I would move in until I
get to the frame that I wanted to be the last frame of the movie,
| | 02:52 | hit the OK button and it will snip off
everything else outside of that marker.
| | 02:57 | And of course then I could play it back so I could
admire my editing prowess by hitting the Play button here
| | 03:03 | and making sure I did okay because if I
didn't do okay I don't want to save it.
| | 03:07 | Once I have the movie the way I want I hit the Save button or
if I just want to get out a dodge I can hit the Exit button.
| | 03:14 | Now when I hit OK here with the exit highlighted
it's going to ask me if I want to save the movie.
| | 03:20 | No, I don't because I really didn't do anything
but the camera doesn't seem to know that.
| | 03:25 | So I will go over to OK hit the Set
button and I am back in play back Mode.
| | 03:30 | So making movies is fun watching them on the back of
your camera is very fun especially with today's cameras
| | 03:36 | that have nice big LCD monitors on the back end.
| | 03:39 | Not only are they big they are good
and then the other thing that you have
| | 03:42 | in your camera kit is you have a cable
that goes from your camera to your TV set.
| | 03:48 | Plugging in your camera and watching
movies on the TV set is surprisingly good
| | 03:52 | and now we are even seeing HD playback from these little cameras.
| | 03:56 | It's really phenomenal.
| | 03:58 | Now once I am all done with this I just hit the Menu button
in this particular camera to get me out of movie control Mode
| | 04:05 | and I will hit my Zoom Caller and I will move it
| | 04:08 | to the left brings you back the thumbnails
and I can navigate back to something else.
| | 04:13 | So movie playback it's a blast, shooting movies with these
cameras is a lot of fun you can watch some on the back
| | 04:19 | of your LCD you can hook them up to
your TV really give this thing a go.
| | 04:23 | If you haven't played with movie Mode I
highly encourage it it's really a lot of fun.
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| Uploading to a computer| 00:00 | Now, that you have some great shots on your
camera, it's time to move it to your computer.
| | 00:05 | There is a couple of things to keep in mind here, you have
both hardware considerations and software considerations.
| | 00:10 | I am going to talk about both.
| | 00:11 | First let's look at hardware.
| | 00:14 | Now, you can use the cable that came with your camera to
transfer the pictures from your camera to your computer.
| | 00:20 | You can also use a memory card reader.
| | 00:23 | Now the memory card reader is pretty cool toy
here, did I said toy, I actually meant tool.
| | 00:28 | And you take the memory card out of your camera, you put
in this nice little reader, they are very affordable,
| | 00:33 | usually it will have a USB connector on the other side
and you connect the USB connector to your computer.
| | 00:39 | Now, you don't have to worry about cables and things.
| | 00:42 | Memory card reader takes it from there, that's why we
suggest that you use a memory card reader instead of a cable
| | 00:48 | for the primary reason cables are easy to lose and if you
lose the cable while you are out and above, maybe on vacation
| | 00:54 | or something, then it's going to be hard to get a replacement.
| | 00:57 | Memory card readers, even though you might lose it,
you can always go down to the local computer store,
| | 01:03 | even drug stores these days have memory card readers, so it's
easy to replace, it's affordable and it works a lot better.
| | 01:11 | Let's take a look at software, now what you are going to do
once those pictures are actually ready to go onto your computer?
| | 01:17 | You have made all of the hardware connections.
| | 01:19 | Now, you have to do something with the software side of things.
| | 01:22 | You can copy those images directly to your computer, put
them right on the desktop, or you put them in a folder
| | 01:28 | where you keep all of your digital pictures or just scatter
them throughout your hard drive, never to be seen again.
| | 01:34 | You have many options when you copy images
directly from a memory card to your computer.
| | 01:40 | A lot of them are bad though, that's why we think copying
images to a photo application might be a better way to go.
| | 01:46 | When you use a photo application to handle the copying of
your images, you have some organization built right in,
| | 01:53 | plus during the upload process you
can add metadata to your photos too.
| | 01:58 | So, we suggest that you use a memory card reader and then
some photo management software, such as Adobe Bridge.
| | 02:04 | The thing about Adobe Bridge is so cool, is that it comes
with all versions of Photoshop including Photoshop elements.
| | 02:10 | So let's go to bridge right now and
take a look and see how this works.
| | 02:14 | One of the reasons why I like bridge, it has this
nifty application called photo downloader in it.
| | 02:20 | You can get to it by going up to the File
menu and choosing get photos from camera.
| | 02:25 | When you do that this is what you see,
right here, this is my memory card.
| | 02:29 | Now, I am using a memory card reader and bridge
is seeing it, it's plugged into the computer,
| | 02:34 | it's right here it tells me how many files I have, it
gives me the dates, I could bypass this whole thing
| | 02:40 | and just drag those photos from the
memory card reader to my desktop.
| | 02:43 | But I wanted to show you on why I like this better.
| | 02:46 | First of all, I get to choose the location where they
go right here in Photo Downloader and they will remember
| | 02:52 | from session to session where I am putting my images.
| | 02:55 | So if you are forgetful and if you do it the old fashion way
where you are dragging from the memory card to your computer,
| | 03:01 | you might not always remember exactly where you keep your
stuff and your stuff could end up in different places.
| | 03:07 | This way it will always go to the same place.
| | 03:09 | You establish a place on your computer where your digital
images go and then Photo Downloader will remember them for you.
| | 03:17 | Now, you can create subfolders if you want within this area
and you can organize them by all sorts of different ways,
| | 03:23 | you can by shot date, and you can do year, month, day.
| | 03:26 | So you have these different options for choosing your shot dates.
| | 03:29 | I am just going to choose year, month, and day.
| | 03:33 | Now, rename files, this is really cool
because one of the things that I hate
| | 03:38 | and I suspect you might hate too are the file naming
conventions that we are stuck with from our camera
| | 03:44 | that IMG_3624.jpeg is not the most exciting
thing in the world and it's really hard
| | 03:53 | to tell the difference between 3624 and 3698.
| | 03:57 | With Photo Downloader I can rename the files as I
upload them and look at all the options I have here.
| | 04:04 | I am going to show you my favorite one
right here, is custom name plus shot date.
| | 04:10 | I actually get to give a name to each file that comes
in on this upload and the date that it was captured.
| | 04:18 | So I am going to enter the name "friend" here and you can
see I even get an example of how this is going to work.
| | 04:25 | So I have my custom name, I have the date, I still
have a sequence and then I have the file extension.
| | 04:32 | And I have all sorts of different options
so you can pick the one that you want.
| | 04:36 | Now, if I want to keep this in metadata, I just have to check
this box here and that's what XMP stands for, it's really,
| | 04:43 | it's what we call a Sidecar file and so data file that
hangs out with your photo and it has all the metadata
| | 04:49 | that you either have added through upload or even later on if
you add keywords and things like that and that's all that means.
| | 04:57 | I think it's a good idea to keep the sidecar files because they
can contain a lot of valuable stuff that might help you later on
| | 05:03 | and then after we do this, we are
just going to open an Adobe Bridge.
| | 05:07 | Now, just a couple of other options that you
have here, I would just want to mention them.
| | 05:11 | You can't convert these files to Digital
Negatives, that's what DNG stands for
| | 05:16 | and that is an open standard created
by Adobe for preserving your files.
| | 05:20 | The thing about DNG is that once you save a file as a DNG, then
it's lossless unlike the jpeg, if you open up a jpeg and edit it
| | 05:29 | and then recompress it, you might lose, you
probably will lose a little bit of quality.
| | 05:34 | With DNG it's sort of locked down tight
and you don't have to worry about that.
| | 05:38 | But DNG files are bigger, so you may or may
not want to take advantage of this option.
| | 05:43 | Also, at the same time if you have an external drive hooked
up to your computer, you can actually do backup on upload.
| | 05:51 | Right now, we are sending all of these files up here as I
mentioned before to a special folder in our Pictures folder,
| | 05:57 | but if I want to save copies at the same time to maybe
an external FireWire drive that I have connected,
| | 06:03 | I would just check this box here, click
choose navigate to that external drive
| | 06:08 | and on upload I am actually backing up
my pictures at the same time, very nice.
| | 06:13 | Now, you try doing that dragging to the desktop, I am going to
unclick this right now; I am going to go down here to get photos.
| | 06:20 | Now, we are actually going to initiate the upload process
because we have everything set up the way that we want.
| | 06:27 | Now, you notice here that it is also uploading
a movie in addition to the still photos.
| | 06:34 | Okay, now here we are in the Pictures folder, now this is the
date that I use for our shot, so if I double-click on this,
| | 06:41 | our photos will be in here and there they are.
| | 06:44 | Now, here's my custom file name, now this is
much more useful than just IMG whatever, right.
| | 06:50 | I actually have a word that kind of describes the photo.
| | 06:54 | I have the date that it was captured; now I even have
a sequence number and then of course I have ".jpeg".
| | 07:00 | So there is a lot of information going on here.
| | 07:03 | Now if I click on one of these photos over here in the metadata
and let me just get myself a little bit more elbow room here.
| | 07:11 | This is one of the very cool things about bridge.
| | 07:14 | I have all sorts of wonderful metadata here; I have
file properties, so I know how big the file is,
| | 07:21 | what its dimensions are, its color space and
then look at this, I have the exposure Mode.
| | 07:27 | I know what focal length I used when I took the picture.
| | 07:31 | The flash was fired, it says right here in the metadata.
| | 07:34 | I used the Pattern Metering Mode, white balance is set on
auto and if I wanted to I could even add more information.
| | 07:44 | Now, somebody just don't apply this,
so we will just go ahead and close it.
| | 07:53 | IPTC, this is data that I can add myself.
| | 07:58 | Now, you see that I already have my copyright in here
because I have that programmed into my camera but if I wanted
| | 08:04 | to add more information, if I wanted to add
my website so that if people found this photo
| | 08:09 | and they wanted to get a hold of me, I could do that.
| | 08:18 | And I can add other information to headline,
a caption, I could do my keyword in here.
| | 08:24 | Now, remember when I was talking about that XMP sidecar file.
| | 08:27 | All the information that I add here, will be added to the
sidecar file and it will forever be associated with this photo.
| | 08:34 | Well, another thing I want to point
out that's really nice about bridge,
| | 08:37 | it gives you some nice information right up here at the top.
| | 08:40 | So even if you don't want to look at this list here, you can see
the basics, 160th of a second at F28 using Pattern Metering Mode,
| | 08:50 | automatic white balance and then the
size of the file, pretty cool stuff.
| | 08:55 | And the best part is I know exactly where they are, so
this is why I suggest that you use a photo management tool,
| | 09:02 | such as Adobe Bridge to handle your photos, they will go to the
same place, you can add metadata and it's much easier to organize
| | 09:10 | and then after they are in the bridge or whatever you are
using, you have a lot of information right at your fingertips
| | 09:15 | to help you understand what's going on with your photos.
| | 09:18 | It's really a great way to go; I hope you give it a try.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Direct printing| 00:00 | I am going to talk a little bit now about
printing directly to a printer without a computer.
| | 00:05 | This is a lot of fun and these little portable printers now
have come a long ways. You have a couple of different options,
| | 00:12 | you can connect your camera cable to the printer
| | 00:15 | and send a print job that way, but what I really like
to do is take the memory card right out of the camera,
| | 00:23 | I will set it down there. Put it directly in the printer
| | 00:27 | to the memory card reader slot here
| | 00:30 | and on the LCD screen on the printer, my images will appear.
| | 00:36 | I can navigate through my pictures,
| | 00:38 | look for the ones that I want and I go,
| | 00:41 | "Oh I think this is a lovely shot here." When I click on it-
| | 00:45 | I actually get a larger view of it.
| | 00:47 | I can edit the photo and I have a variety of editing options
including cropping, exposure control, even some creative options
| | 00:55 | where I can put borders on the print itself.
| | 00:58 | Once I have with the way that I want,
| | 01:00 | all I have to do is hit the Print button.
| | 01:04 | The printer will actually read the information off my card.
It's a jpeg file. Keep in mind that if you are shooting RAW,
| | 01:12 | these printers cannot read RAW files,
| | 01:15 | but they can read JPEGs. So if you are shooting RAW try shooting
in RAW+JPEG that way you will have the RAW file for later on when
| | 01:22 | you are working on your computer. But you'll
have a nice JPEG for doing direct printing.
| | 01:27 | Now, another thing that you can do with this printer and I will show
you while we wait for the printer actually cycle through is that
| | 01:34 | you can connect this printer to your computer
| | 01:36 | and use it as regular output. It supports both 5x7
and 4x6 prints, so you have different sizes to work with.
| | 01:46 | The prints are just as good practically as which you'll get from a photo
finisher, and in fact the archival quality on them is 40 or 50 years.
| | 01:55 | So things have really come a long ways.
| | 01:58 | Inside the printer right here, this is where the ink cartridge
is located. Now, normally speaking you will probably get
| | 02:06 | oh, 100 to 75 prints, something around that from each ink cartridge.
| | 02:12 | Total cost for each print is usually right around 29 cents a print.
Now that maybe a little bit higher than you can get at your local
| | 02:19 | photo finisher, but the thing about it is that when you have
this sort of ease of option and you get to pick the shots
| | 02:25 | that you want, you're not going to be printing every shot that you
take. In the old film days, we would shoot a roll of 36 exposures,
| | 02:33 | take that to the lab and we get 36 prints.
| | 02:36 | Well, we may only want one print or two prints or three prints
out of that whole roll. So even though the price per print was
| | 02:44 | cheaper in the old days, we were actually spending more money
on printing because we were printing everything on the roll
| | 02:50 | instead of just the shots that we want.
| | 02:52 | Now you notice that just in the few minutes, our print comes out,
we have a lovely 5x7 print here, directly off our memory card.
| | 03:01 | This print will dry and we can hand it over to somebody
else. You can touch it just like a regular print,
| | 03:07 | you can put it in a photo album.
| | 03:09 | They work fantastic. So direct printing without a computer
is a very easy way to get prints directly from your camera,
| | 03:18 | by either putting the memory card in the printer
| | 03:20 | or connecting it with the cable, either way
t's effortless and there is a lot of fun.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
13. Putting Together Your Photo KitThe Traveler kit| 00:00 | So I am going to show you right now are the basic ingredients for
a travel kit, everything that we are going to talk about that's
| | 00:05 | in the nice little bag like this that you can throw
over your shoulder and take off for the weekend.
| | 00:11 | It always starts with the camera, and of course,
for a smaller travel kit, you want a small camera.
| | 00:16 | And I have a nice little Panasonic here, it's a LUMIX.
| | 00:19 | It's beautiful device.
| | 00:22 | It shoots both still photographs and movies, which is
very convenient because you can have one device with you
| | 00:28 | and capture all sorts of different types of media.
| | 00:31 | The camera has a nice big screen on the back so you can use it
not only for composing your shots, but also viewing them later
| | 00:37 | on maybe in the hotel room at the end of the day.
| | 00:40 | Now, you may have noticed that I have a
little bag also to go with my big bag.
| | 00:45 | I am going to show you why that is.
| | 00:47 | I will take the camera here and I am just
going to put it right back in the little bag.
| | 00:52 | And the thinking behind this is let's say that you are on
vacation and you have all of your camera equipment with you
| | 00:57 | and you decide you want to go out to dinner or you want
to go for a walk, you want to have something with you.
| | 01:02 | Never walk out the door, now this is the
photographer to photographer we're speaking here,
| | 01:07 | never walk out the door without your camera, have it with you.
| | 01:10 | So by having a little pouch that you can put on your belt or
whatever, then that way you can take it out of your bigger bag,
| | 01:16 | leave this bag in the hotel room and have a little bag with you.
| | 01:20 | Now, one little tip I have is that make sure that you
put some sort of identification in the bag itself just
| | 01:28 | in case you leave it in a restaurant or somewhere like that.
| | 01:31 | You want to make sure that the honest person
that finds it can call you and return it to you.
| | 01:36 | Now, remember cell phone number, not home phone
number because you are not going to be home.
| | 01:40 | We are going to stash this away right now.
| | 01:44 | Now, two things that you need to think about
when you're buying a camera is not only the price
| | 01:49 | of the camera itself, but also these two accessories.
| | 01:52 | You need an extra battery always because these
batteries can run out quickly and unexpectedly.
| | 01:59 | When you are on a weekend trip, you want to make
sure that you include the battery charger also.
| | 02:03 | At the end of the day, take the battery out of your
camera, put it in the charger, put it in the wall
| | 02:08 | and then that way you are ready to go the next morning.
| | 02:11 | But you need to factor in the cost of that extra
battery when you are buying your camera itself.
| | 02:16 | Now, you may have noticed that I also have an extra memory card.
| | 02:20 | Extra memory cards are important because
you don't want to hold back on the number
| | 02:24 | of shots you are taking while you are out in the field.
| | 02:26 | There is something exciting happens, you want to be able to
shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot knowing that you have that extra card
| | 02:33 | in your camera bag and that you can change out if you need to.
| | 02:36 | Also, by having an extra card, you won't be
tempted to go to a lower resolution on your camera.
| | 02:42 | That is not the way to go.
| | 02:43 | Some people do that in order to get more
pictures on their card, don't do it.
| | 02:48 | What happens is when you get back home, let's say that
you find a shot that's absolutely fabulous and you want
| | 02:53 | to make a nice big enlargement, you want
to have as much resolution as possible.
| | 02:57 | Also, another little tip, extra resolution
allows you to crop out parts of a photo
| | 03:02 | and still have enough room in order to make a nice enlargement.
| | 03:05 | So carry that extra card too and factored
that in to the price of the camera itself.
| | 03:10 | I am going to suggest that you actually keep your
charger because they are so nice and small these days,
| | 03:16 | look at, it's like a deck-of-cards kind of small.
| | 03:19 | Keep it with you, that way you'd always be able to
charge your battery even on those unexpected trips
| | 03:25 | where things go a little longer than you anticipate.
| | 03:29 | Now, possibly, one of the things that you have heard
over and over again is to always carry a tripod.
| | 03:35 | Now, probably what came to mind was some sort of
big heavy metal thing, which doesn't make much sense
| | 03:41 | when even the rest of your camera kit is this size.
| | 03:45 | I like little tripods.
| | 03:46 | This one here, this is a Gorillapod.
| | 03:49 | It's very handy.
| | 03:50 | Not only does it work as a tripod itself, and I will straighten
| | 03:53 | out his little legs right now, set
them right here, this is great.
| | 03:57 | You can set it on a newspaper machine or on
a table or something, put your camera on top,
| | 04:04 | turn on the self-timer and you can go and get in the shot.
| | 04:07 | Remember, just because you are the photographer doesn't mean
you shouldn't be part of the vacation photography history.
| | 04:13 | You want to be part of the thing.
| | 04:14 | Having a little tripod like this
allows you to use the self-timer.
| | 04:18 | It's also great for taking night shots, something where the
camera, maybe the shutter is going to be open for a while.
| | 04:25 | Put the camera on the tripod, use your self-timer again
so you don't jar the camera when you start the exposure,
| | 04:31 | and then let it take a nice long exposure,
so you can get those twinkling lights
| | 04:36 | or maybe the Golden Gate Bridge at desks, something like that.
| | 04:39 | A little tripod really helps with that type
of shooting and if it fits in your camera bag
| | 04:44 | and it's nice and light, we won't care at all.
| | 04:47 | Let's stick that right in here.
| | 04:50 | Two other things that I think are very important and these are
to help to take care of your camera while you are on the goal.
| | 04:56 | One is the Microfiber Cloth and other is the Lens Pen.
| | 05:00 | The Microfiber Cloth is great for wiping off
both the LCD, also the front of the lens.
| | 05:06 | It doesn't scratch.
| | 05:08 | You can wash it.
| | 05:08 | It's very easy to clean.
| | 05:10 | But I think the Lens Pen is important
also because it has a brush,
| | 05:15 | which means that you can brush off the surface
first before you use the Microfiber Cloth.
| | 05:20 | That way you don't get any little scratches if
you have a little particle of dust or something.
| | 05:23 | And then there is also a cleaning solution on this
little pad here so you can get into little small Spots
| | 05:30 | like the optical viewfinder and things like that.
| | 05:32 | And neither one of these accessories are very
expensive and it fits easily in your camera bag.
| | 05:38 | However, I will say that when I carry the
Microfiber Cloth, I take it out of the package.
| | 05:44 | For now, we will just go ahead and push it right in here.
| | 05:47 | We will put our pen in there.
| | 05:49 | Now, the last two things may surprise
you and they are held together
| | 05:53 | with a rubber band which I think is always handy to have.
| | 05:56 | The first thing I will show you,
there is something that you can get
| | 06:00 | at practically any hotel and this is shower cap of all things.
| | 06:04 | Now, why would I want to carry a shower cap?
| | 06:06 | Well, you notice my shower cap has a hole in it.
| | 06:09 | And when you have rainy weather or just weather that's
maybe a little damp and you want to protect your camera,
| | 06:14 | let's pull it out here and I will show you how this works.
| | 06:17 | It's actually very cool.
| | 06:19 | All you have to do is take your camera, take off the lens
cap, you cut the hole so that you can put the lens through it
| | 06:29 | and then you hold the camera in the bag like this.
| | 06:32 | And since we are using the LCD viewfinder,
you can shoot, take pictures,
| | 06:38 | have all of the controls with your hands here in the shower cap.
| | 06:42 | Accessories don't get any cheaper than this and
it can really make your day and kind of keep you
| | 06:48 | from being stuck inside when weather turns a little inclement.
| | 06:51 | And then the last thing I have is the Ziploc bag itself.
| | 06:56 | Of course, Ziploc bags are great when you just want to put your
camera in and seal up and not have to worry about moisture.
| | 07:03 | But another trick, especially if you are shooting
in cold climates, is when you are outside still,
| | 07:08 | put your camera in the bag, seal up nice and
tight and then leave your camera in the bag
| | 07:15 | when you go back in the hotel room or back home.
| | 07:18 | Let the condensation form on the bag
itself while the camera is warming up.
| | 07:23 | Once it's warmed up, then you can take it out of the bag, all the
condensation would be on the Ziploc bag and not on your camera.
| | 07:30 | We are going to fold everything up here.
| | 07:33 | Just these few simple items that weigh very
little give you lots of picture-taking power,
| | 07:40 | you can cover everything from vacation
snapshots to family events, birthday parties.
| | 07:47 | You name it, you'll have everything you need.
| | 07:49 | People would be amazed.
| | 07:51 | Let's say if the weather gets a little damp and
you pull out the shower cap, they'll love it.
| | 07:56 | So not only is your camera protective,
you'll have a very nice conversation piece.
| | 08:00 | I am just going to fold it all up.
| | 08:02 | I will go ahead, close the glass,
everything right in here, a nice light bag.
| | 08:09 | I am ready to go to take pictures.
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| The Weekend Warrior kit| 00:00 |
OK, now we are going to take a look at the contents for
a bag for the weekend warrior. The main difference with
| | 00:05 |
the weekend warrior is that there is a Digital SLR in here,
| | 00:10 |
which means you have a little bit more versatility, you can use
additional lenses, the camera performs a little faster.
| | 00:16 |
So let's see what's in this kit. You'll notice first of all that this
bag isn't that big and I have some straps back here so it's easy
| | 00:22 |
to throw over your shoulder and take off for the weekend,
but there is a lot of fire powering here. I'm going to start out
| | 00:30 |
by showing you the tripod. Now in this case we have to have a
little bigger tripod and the reason why the tripod is big, of course
| | 00:38 |
because the camera is bigger. But because of the
design of this bag, I can carry it on the outside.
| | 00:44 |
It doesn't weigh very much yet I have a very versatile tool
for shooting in low light or for getting in the shot myself.
| | 00:51 |
So we will set the tripod off right over here.
| | 00:53 |
Now let's see what we have inside.
| | 00:57 |
Well the guts of any kit is of course the camera itself,
| | 01:02 |
there is my Digital SLR. This is a light one, this
is a little very compact camera it's a Digital Rebel.
| | 01:09 |
I have a standard zoom lens on here.
It's a 24 to 85, it's not too wide,
| | 01:14 |
but yet has a little telephoto reach but the way that I shoot it's
an excellent lens because I like to take people pictures. Of course,
| | 01:21 |
the nice thing about having a Digital SLR
| | 01:24 |
is that you can change the lenses.
| | 01:26 |
So I have two additional lenses in here. One is a wide angle,
| | 01:30 |
this is a 17-40 lens,
| | 01:32 |
It gives me a nice broad view shooting landscapes or maybe
if I am in tight conditions. You may notice that I also have
| | 01:39 |
a filter on the front here. Now some people say well you
should never put a filter on your camera. I don't agree.
| | 01:46 |
I think filters protect the front of your lens. What you should
never put it on the front of your camera is a cheap filter.
| | 01:52 |
I have a filter that is multi-coated that way it will give
good light transmission yet protect the front of your lens.
| | 01:59 |
So here's our wide angle lens,
I also have a nice little zoom in here.
| | 02:03 |
This little guy here is a 75 -300, it gives me nice reach.
| | 02:09 |
So I can shoot a soccer game, I can go out in nature,
| | 02:13 |
if I see a deer off in the distance I might be able to reach it with this
lens. Again you will notice that I have that protection filter on there
| | 02:20 |
and again it's a multi-coated filter so I get
good light transmission. I will put that right here.
| | 02:27 |
Some people would like to carry lens hoods.
| | 02:30 |
I realize they are bulky. Some don't because they take up room
in an already small kit. The nice thing about a lens hood
| | 02:37 |
though it does two things.
| | 02:39 |
First of all it protects the front of
your lens from objects that would hit it.
| | 02:43 |
The second thing it also protects it from stray light, light
coming in from the sides or you know kind of even at an angle like
| | 02:50 |
that and of course light hitting the front of the lens causes flare,
| | 02:55 |
it will degrade the contrast so if you have the room
for it I think a lens hood is a good investment.
| | 03:00 |
However if you don't want to have one, if you want to use this space
for something else. I completely understand, but something to keep in mind.
| | 03:08 |
Just look at a few goodies in the front here.
| | 03:11 |
A lot of cameras come with a handy little cheat sheets
| | 03:15 |
and the nice thing about a cheat sheet is that it has
all the information that you need, the basic menu controls,
| | 03:21 |
but it's not in a big book. You can
carry it with you. It's only one language.
| | 03:25 |
This is a English, this is what I speak, so you don't have
to worry about having a big book that's in 8 different languages.
| | 03:30 |
Just carry a little cheat sheet. That ways if you
forget what something is you can look it up very quickly.
| | 03:36 |
Extra memory,
| | 03:37 |
you already know the speech on this, don't run out of memory.
| | 03:40 |
Carry an extra card. This is a 4 gigabyte card. That means even
if I am shooting RAW files I have room for plenty of pictures.
| | 03:48 |
I like to carry two.
| | 03:50 |
Extra battery- and again, I like to have an extra battery
with me, I don't want to run out of juice at the end of the day.
| | 03:57 |
Make sure you charge it, don't carry good batteries with
you. When you get home that night, recharge your battery
| | 04:03 |
and if you are being very, very smart,
| | 04:06 |
you'll carry your battery charger with you.
| | 04:09 |
Battery charger,
| | 04:11 |
battery
| | 04:11 |
don't run out of juice. I want to show you just a
couple of other accessories here. I love this one.
| | 04:17 |
This is an Expodisc.
| | 04:19 |
What it is?
| | 04:23 |
This is for using the custom white balance function on your
camera. When you are shooting indoors under all sorts of different
| | 04:29 |
lighting conditions, your camera sometimes
has a hard time getting natural skin tones.
| | 04:34 |
Go to Custom White Balance,
| | 04:36 |
put the Expodisc on the front. That way
you can set a custom white balance setting
| | 04:40 |
that allows you to have natural looking skin tones
| | 04:43 |
and the whites look white and they don't
look green or blue or some odd color.
| | 04:47 |
Very handy accessory.
| | 04:50 |
Now I mentioned the zip lock bag before.
| | 04:53 |
I have another one here.
| | 04:55 |
The only thing now it's a little bit bigger, don't carry out a
bag that's too small. Remember especially when you are shooting in
| | 05:02 |
cold conditions, put your camera in the bag.
| | 05:04 |
Bring it into house, let the condensation
form on the bag, not on the camera.
| | 05:10 |
One last little thing I want to show you.
I know this is a Digital SLR Kit,
| | 05:15 |
I know that you're on the go and you want to have all
the fire power that you need, but it doesn't hurt to have
| | 05:20 |
a little compact camera in there either.
| | 05:23 |
Because you know the thing is,
| | 05:24 |
when it's time to go to dinner
| | 05:26 |
you probably don't want to carry all this with you.
| | 05:29 |
Have a camera in your pocket, that way if something interesting
happens back and forth from the hotel room or wherever
| | 05:34 |
you are going you can grab a good shot.
| | 05:36 |
So compact camera,
| | 05:38 |
even in a Digital SLR Kit. Well I think I have everything
I need. It's all nice and packed in this very portable bag.
| | 05:48 |
Oh, you know another thing- handle on the top.
| | 05:51 |
Very handy, don't want to have just straps. Just grab
it and I am going to grab it right now and off I go.
| | 05:58 |
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| The Aspiring Professional kit| 00:00 | I am now going to get out the heavy artillery.
| | 00:02 | This is the kit for the aspiring professional.
| | 00:05 | Right away you notice that the bag is bigger.
| | 00:08 | That's because we have we have a lot
of stuff in here and we need to be able
| | 00:11 | to get the shot no matter what the lighting
conditions are, no matter what happens,
| | 00:15 | we have to come away with a photo so
we need a few extra goodies to do that.
| | 00:19 | One thing I want to point out is that this bag has wheels on it.
| | 00:22 | I think when you have a large bag like this and you
are on the go it's helpful to have a roller bag.
| | 00:27 | This has a handle that extends out nicely.
| | 00:30 | That way I can pull it behind me and I
don't always have to have it on my shoulder.
| | 00:34 | Let's take a look inside and see what we have.
| | 00:37 | I am going to start with a camera itself.
| | 00:40 | You need a good Digital SLR, a nice hefty one, a one
that can hold up to weather conditions and rugged use.
| | 00:48 | This is a Canon 5D.
| | 00:50 | What I like about it is that it has a full frame sensor on it.
| | 00:53 | That means that CCD or actually the CMOS sensor that's
in here is the same size as a 35 mm piece of film.
| | 01:01 | What that means is that when I put my lens on here
for instance this is my workhorse lens, my 24 to 105,
| | 01:09 | I actually get 24 to 105 on the focal length
none of this 1.5 or 1.6 magnification.
| | 01:17 | The lens I put on here what it says on the lens is what I get.
| | 01:21 | This lens also has an image stabilizer on it and the
reason why I like that is that when I am shooting
| | 01:27 | in low light it gets me a little extra stabilization, holds
the camera little more steady and avoids camera shake itself.
| | 01:35 | Its optical stabilization that means all the action's
happening here in the lens and it works very well.
| | 01:42 | Sometimes I get an extra 2 or 3 stops with stabilization.
| | 01:46 | I have mentioned it before but I do like to keep a protection
filter on the front of my lens, just make sure it's multi-coded
| | 01:53 | and that way you will have good light transmission.
| | 01:57 | Inside I have some additional lenses and this is what's
really fun about having a heavy duty aspiring pro kit.
| | 02:05 | My workhorse lenses are 24 to 105 that
covers a pretty good range of focal lengths
| | 02:12 | but it's nice to have a good wide angle lens also.
| | 02:16 | This is a 16 to 35, it's an F28 so not only is it
very wide remember it's on the full frame sensor,
| | 02:23 | it's actually fairly bright too which
means I can shoot in low light with it.
| | 02:28 | It's an excellent wide angle lens, I love it.
| | 02:31 | I don't need an image stabilizer on it because it is a wide
angle lens and so camera shake isn't as much of an issue.
| | 02:38 | I also need to have a good telephoto lens.
| | 02:42 | This is my workhorse, this is the 70 to 200 lens
right here, I have talked to a lot of pros lately
| | 02:49 | and I asked them what is the one
lens that you absolutely have to have
| | 02:54 | and almost every pro will say my favorite
lens is my 70 to 200 it's very versatile.
| | 02:59 | I use it a lot for portraits in addition to
shooting nature and action and things like that.
| | 03:06 | It's a very handy lens now.
| | 03:07 | This is an F4, it's bright but it's
not as bright as some other lenses.
| | 03:14 | For example Cannon makes an F28 it's a little bit
brighter which means you can shoot in low light
| | 03:19 | with it but it's a much bigger and heavier lens.
| | 03:22 | I prefer to have a little lighter lens
with me but your mileage may differ.
| | 03:27 | One other lens that I want to show you we have
been talking mainly about zoom lenses at this point
| | 03:32 | but it's good to have one prime lens in the kit also.
| | 03:36 | Now a prime lens means that there is only one focal length,
in this case this is an 85 mm lens, no zooming at all
| | 03:45 | but what's important about it is that
it's an F1.8 it's a very bright lens.
| | 03:52 | Here I have an F28 that's pretty good,
my everyday shooting lens is an F4.
| | 03:58 | This is an F4 here so this lens is brighter sometimes many
times over than any other glass that I have right here.
| | 04:06 | That means I can put this lens on the camera, maybe raise the
ISO up to 800 or 1600 and shoot in very low light conditions.
| | 04:15 | It's a very handy lens to have.
| | 04:16 | They are usually somewhat affordable not as
expensive as maybe some of these other zoom lenses
| | 04:23 | and in low light can prove to be a very valuable lens.
| | 04:27 | Now since it's very important that we get the shot no matter
what's happening, we need to bring some of our own light with us
| | 04:34 | because natural light or existing
room light doesn't always participate.
| | 04:38 | So have at least one good flash with you.
| | 04:41 | This is a professional level flash, this is a 580EX it's
a very powerful flash, it has a bounce head which means
| | 04:49 | that I can endorse, shoot the light up off the ceiling
and have it rain down making a little bit softer.
| | 04:57 | I can mount it on the camera itself but also
because I shoot events and sometimes events are
| | 05:03 | in low light conditions I don't want to come away
with red-eye because red-eye is very unprofessional.
| | 05:09 | So I have an accessory that is a very simple accessory
but boy does it work well, it's a flash bracket.
| | 05:17 | It's very simple.
| | 05:19 | I put the camera on the bracket itself, I mount the flash
at the top here and then I use a dedicated chord that goes
| | 05:28 | between the bracket and down to the camera so
that all my camera functionality is retained.
| | 05:33 | But by having the flash up away from the
lens it virtually eliminates red-eye.
| | 05:38 | I never get red-eye at all with this rig and even when I turn
the lens vertically, this bracket will flip right with it;
| | 05:50 | very simple, very easy to use but I tell you when you
are shooting events something like this, it's invaluable.
| | 05:57 | Another goody that I want to show you this is my rocket blaster
right here and basically what it does is it shoots there.
| | 06:05 | Now sensor dust can be a real problem because
it will show up on your images as little Spots,
| | 06:10 | can be very irritating because in post production
what you have to do is you have to take them out.
| | 06:16 | One of the ways to help reduce the possibility of sensor
dust is that when you change lenses first hold your camera
| | 06:22 | down so the stuff doesn't blow in there as easily, take
your rocket blaster and blow off the back of your lens.
| | 06:31 | Most sensor dust comes in when you
mount the lens so if you are very vigil
| | 06:35 | about cleaning your lens every time before you
put it on, you will have a lot less sensor dust.
| | 06:41 | And the nice thing about something like a rocket blaster
is that no propellants and nothing to your hurt your glass.
| | 06:49 | We will dig around in here and look for just a few more goodies.
| | 06:53 | I have a light modifier and this is helpful
even when the flash is on a bracket,
| | 07:00 | sometimes you want to soften the light a little bit,
this is made by Gary Fong, it diffuses the light
| | 07:05 | and kind of gives it more natural appearance.
| | 07:08 | You can also use by the way if you don't want to buy an
accessory, here is a handy tip just take your business card
| | 07:16 | and a rubber band, put your business card on the
back here, have your flash bounce off the ceiling
| | 07:22 | and the business card will add a little
extra kick light to fill in the eyes.
| | 07:26 | And if you watch closely when you watch professional
photographers especially journalists a lot
| | 07:33 | of times you will see that business
card right there on the flash.
| | 07:37 | Looking in here and just one more little goody
I want to talk about do I need to tell you
| | 07:42 | that you have to have extra batteries and extra memory?
| | 07:46 | No I don't think so, you know that already and you
might even want to carry an extra charger with you too.
| | 07:52 | And because these Digital SLRs especially when they have image
stabilize zooms on them can use power a little faster, have 2,
| | 08:01 | 3 even 4 batteries it doesn't hurt to be protected there.
| | 08:06 | Now last but not least even though this is our
Professional Digital SLR Kit it's still good
| | 08:13 | to have a Compact camera with you.
| | 08:15 | You never know sometimes you just want to leave the kit
behind in the room, take the camera, go out in the field,
| | 08:22 | maybe even just take a nice walk and kind
of get away from work for a little bit.
| | 08:26 | This Compact camera has a 6 optical zoom
that's the Cannon G9 but what I really
| | 08:32 | like about it is that it allows me to shoot RAW also.
| | 08:35 | So I am shooting RAW with my Digital SLR.
| | 08:38 | I can shoot RAW with my Compact.
| | 08:40 | That means I can get all the information
that the camera can capture out on the file.
| | 08:46 | One other thing that I like has a hot
shoot too so all of my accessories,
| | 08:51 | all of my flash accessories will work with my Compact camera.
| | 08:54 | This is a very nice kit.
| | 08:56 | I feel like I can handle just about
anything that comes my way with these tools.
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