About 10 years plus ago, SLR camera were the cameras in the market with nothing digital hence their name. Today everything has become digitalized and DSLR cameras are available. With the DSLR camera you can practice as many times unlike the SLR where the film prevented much practice from its high cost. In order to know how to use DSLR camera, the following tips explain how do you use a DSLR camera with practice.
Understanding the triangle of exposure
The first thing to learning how to use something including cameras is having better understanding. For DSLR camera understand what is meant by triangle of exposure. Generally this can be defined as the relationship between key three elements that is, Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO.
- ISO
ISO defines the measure of sensitiveness to light by the camera lens. As ISO gets lower and light becomes more. Therefore, for instance you are doing your photo shooting from outside when it’s sunny, you are supposed to shot at low ISO like 100. With such setting, you will get a crisp, clear image. If working from an enclosed place where light is low, adjust the ISO such that the sensor gets more light.
Always remember that cameras are quite different and therefore you need to practice using your own camera such that you note the ISO points which work best for your camera. However, remember that higher ISO is always accompanied by a cost with high ISO resulting in grainy pictures and therefore, work so much to maintain the ISO as low as possible.
- Shutter Speed
This is the fastness or slowness of the camera in recording the picture. If the shutter is so slow, much light gets into the camera sensor. If the shutter on the other hand is so fast, less light gets into the camera’s sensor. It is shutter speed which allows action shoot which is a situation where any motion picture is frozen and also allows waterfall which is a situation of blurring any motion. For freezing images, you use a fast speed of the shutter and for waterfall since the images need be blurred hence require more light in camera’s sensor, you use lower speed of the shutter.
Always remember, your camera can be held to capture anything which is falling above 1/50. And therefore in case your shutter speed is reduced below that, for the picture not to be blurry, you have to use something like a tripod. However, just like with ISO it’s varied in various cameras and therefore practice using your camera to get to know times when a tripod is needed.
- Aperture
Aperture defined as the lens opening size as pictures are being shot is measures as f-stops. If the number of f-stops is low, the lens opening is large implying more light into the camera sensor and when the number of f-stop is large, the lens opening is small hence less light gets into camera’s sensor.
Aperture is used to control the picture’s focus. The larger the f-stop the bigger the field’s depth and hence more focus that results in clear pictures.
How does these three key elements ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed work together?
ISO setting in a picture taking context affects the light sensitivity of the camera sensor with the best quality at 100 where there is no noise and poorest quality at 12,800 where there is much noise.
Shutter Speed is responsible for controlling the time which light get exposed to the sensor. For a freeze image less light about 1/500 per second and for motion blur image more light about 1 second of exposure.
Aperture referred to as hole size controls the light amounts which hit the sensor. Smaller hole about f/22 implies big field depth and big hole about f/2.8 implies shallow field depth.
All the above three key elements are dependent on each other. For instance, if you create shallow field depth, it means more light hits the sensor and therefore in order to change the light amounts you either adjust ISO or shutter speed.
Since now you have knowledge of the key elements you will come across in your DSLR camera, you can start practicing. For beginners, it’s recommended that you use this settings for a start: Aperture mode as priority mode if using Nikon camera use A and if using Canon camera use AV, for the shutter mode use TV if using Canon camera and S if using Nikon camera. This settings can be altered using the dial mode at your camera’s top.
Aperture priority shooting
If you taking a picture with priority mode as aperture it’s an automatic set of the shutter speed and ISO by the camera after you set your aperture. Always remember that, if you would like automatic setting of the ISO, keep settings on auto mode. In order for you to get the settings to auto, press on ISO button then holding it back use a dial in black at the cameras top to get the settings to auto. If you would like to change aperture, the same process applies for adjusting.
Shutter priority shooting
If using shutter priority as shooting mode, you need to set shutter speed and automatically the camera will set aperture and ISO for you. To change shutter speed you use dial at the camera’s top black in color for adjustment.
Above is an explanation of the most important settings which you have to familiarize yourself with do that you can be conversant with using a DSLR camera. Explore through each aspect’s effect in order to gain full control of your camera for with control you are assured of good photographic results.