Lesson Notes

None!

Transcript

Hey–this is Kim Bultsma again, and welcome back to our Introduction to DSLR Photography premium course. Last time we covered some basics of our DSLR camera, and you were asked to go out and shoot some pictures in Auto mode. Today, we’re going to take a look at some photos shot in Auto mode and discuss the pros and cons of them. Then, we’ll dive into what I like to call Scene modes–the other auto modes your camera uses to help you take better pictures without having to think much about the setup of your camera. So grab your camera and let’s get started!

So how did shooting in auto mode go? My guess is that you got some pretty great snapshots, and then you got some not so great ones. Let’s take a look at how I faired.

Since my husband and I are both photographers, our daughter is used to us telling her to be cute for the camera. Most beginning photographers are looking for these kinds of snapshots: those that document an occasion, where we just want to get a picture of people or things. Auto mode works really well for that.

I set my camera to auto, and take a picture of Mallory on the swings. Lots of good things going on here. Mallory is in focus, and there’s hardly any blur to her hair or her as the subject. Remember, in Auto mode the camera thinks it’s smarter than I am, so it chose the focal point. Lucky for me, it chose her shirt. We will get into Auto Focus points in a later lesson, but something to think about now is that if you want something in focus, all the items you want in focus MUST be on the same focal plane as the auto focus point and your camera’s sensor. This means that if I want her entire body to be in focus, everything must be in the same plane as the highlighted dot on her shirt–this one right here–which is the focal point the camera chose. Luckily for me, she was sitting up straight and happened to be on that same focal plane as the dot the camera chose to focus on.

Unfortunately, Auto mode doesn’t always work out this well. Using the same Auto mode in the exact same situation, I got this picture. Take a few seconds to closely look at this picture, and see if you can spot what the camera chose to focus on. If you chose the sky off to the right of the picture, you were correct. Since that blue sky–the focal point the camera chose–was far beyond Mallory and the playground and even the trees beyond, nothing was in focus. What do you think might have been a better mode to shoot in for this situation?

A sports or action setting.

So I decided to switch out of the land of the green square and try a Scene mode. Most consumer DSLR cameras have a similar lineup of Scene modes that you can choose from: Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Action, Night time, No Flash. In Scene modes, the camera has been set to shoot in a more specific situation which, for the most part, is more beneficial than shooting in straight auto.

Action mode, or sports mode or kids and pets mode, is primarily designed to help the photographer take better pictures of moving subjects. Action mode, however, requires more light and works best during full daytime sunlight. I took this picture at dusk with the sun setting behind Mallory, but my position and her position in combination with the amount of light I still had and shooting in the Action mode left me with a satisfying shot. She has good light on her face, the action is stopped mid-swing, and the camera chose a good focal point.

In this shot, however, the camera chose so many focal points that it had a difficult time metering the light. Metering is another term we’ll discuss in a later lesson, but for now think of it as your camera’s assessment of the lighting situation combined with what’s being focused on. The result is a darker shot, even though the action is stopped.

Let’s talk a bit about Macro mode. Macro mode usually looks like a little flower on your dial. This is for taking close-up pictures of subjects and often requires a fair amount of light. Many use it for flowers or insects or whatever else requires you to get closer to snap the shot. Macro mode tells the camera that it needs to fine tune the subject that is in near focus. This is a picture of the squishy ground beneath a swing at the park. I actually took this picture using the Canon 50D with an old 28-90mm non-image stabilized lens, which is not a lens designated for macro photography. I wasn’t able to get super close, but this does show you where the camera chose to focus. The purpose of Macro is to get in close and tight to your subject and brings things that are normally small and make them appear larger than life. Blurring the surroundings gives this shot the larger than life appeal that many seek in Macro photography.

Let’s get back to taking pictures of people and using Portrait mode. In this mode, the camera will set itself to give you a blurry background beyond the subject but enough enhancement of skin tones for a more natural look. Portrait mode also works best with lots of light. My daughter recently lost her 2 bottom teeth, so I wanted to document it. I switched to Portrait mode, and instantly my camera’s flash popped up. I took another picture in the same mode, but because my camera’s red eye mode was off, I ended up with a picture of a devil child. Many editing programs like Aperture have an easy red-eye removal, so often times this isn’t that big of a deal.

Landscape mode is primarily an outdoor mode that requires more light. This mode will allow for more light to be let into the camera so that more of the picture area is in focus. It deals with shutter speeds and aperture values, all of which we’ll talk about a few lessons down the road. In this first shot, I got some sun spots. There are two reasons for this: first, I didn’t have a UV filter on my lens. UV filters protect your lens’ front element from damage and, if you purchase a high quality filter, it can greatly decrease the amount of glare you get from brightly lit objects. It’s much cheaper to purchase a $30ish UV filter than a $300–or more–lens. The reason I had lens flare was because I didn’t use a lens hood. Before I segue too far off topic, I’ll get into these types of accessories in a later lesson. So let’s get back to other reasons this picture turned out poorly. The camera also chose every focal point possible in the viewfinder, which made it rather difficult for the camera to focus on something and to meter the lighting situation correctly. When I repositioned the camera, I got a much better shot. No more sun flare, and more is in focus here. Great colors, a more serene looking photograph.

Since it was getting darker, I decided to switch to Night-time mode. These modes vary in name across camera brands. Typically, the Night-time mode is a picture of a person with a star next to it, which would indicate to the user that the camera is setting itself up to take portraits at night. This means that the camera is expecting the subject of focus to remain still so that the shot can be fired. Lucky for me, this first shot worked out alright. The camera chose to fire the flash, and I think I caught her right at the apex of her swing, so there was minimal movement. In this next shot, Mallory was mid-swing and the camera just wasn’t sure what to focus on. It chose to focus on the swingset itself, so other items were blurred.

Finally, let’s look at the No Flash mode. This is a great mode to use when you think there’s enough light in a shooting situation but your camera keeps trying to pop the flash in Auto mode. The No Flash mode is still similar to the Auto mode in that it will not allow the photographer to make many changes. I loved the colors that were behind Mallory as the sun was setting, and I knew from experience that if I shot a subject against a brightly lit background that the subject would appear dark. So I decided to use the No Flash mode, and this is the shot that I ended with. With just a smidge of editing, I came up with this.

Obviously, there are several items I neglected to discuss–like aperture and shutter speed–but these are heavy topics we’ll have to tackle alone in later lessons.

Assignment: For today, get out there and take some photos. Move beyond the Auto mode and go into scene modes. When you’re done, upload them to your computer and analyze them like we did today. Why did things work out well? Why didn’t others work out as well?

Next time, we’re going to talk about all things light: exposure, metering, and ISO. But until then, don’t be a green square!