How to: Set Up Your DSLR

[Flutterby]

By: Cameron Ewart-Smith - http://blog.getaway.co.za/
6 June 2012

As photojournalists, we’re often asked which camera settings are best. Of course, there’s no one perfect answer to this and each photographer has personal preferences.

However, there are some basic settings we recommend to attendees on Getaway’s photography boot camps. How these settings are made varies according to camera make and body, so refer to your manual and ensure you understand how to set and adjust these quickly and easily.

White balance
White balance tells the camera about the nature or colour of the light in which you’re taking pictures and, unless I’m trying to achieve a very specific result, this is one of the few settings where I’m comfortable with the camera’s auto setting.

Which exposure programme is best?
Shoot in aperture priority and/ or manual. Aperture priority (usually depicted as A or Tv) is quick and easy and allows for fast, creative control of your camera, as all you need to do is adjust the aperture and the camera picks an appropriate shutter speed for a balanced exposure. If you’re simply trying to take party snaps, the auto or programme (T, P, Auto) mode is fine, but in this setting the camera is making a lot of the decisions around both shutter speed and aperture. Consequently, the camera is in control of critical creative factors such as depth of field and the ability to blur subjects in motion, which can limit what you’re trying to achieve in the shot.

Single-servo versus continuous autofocus
Modern cameras’ autofocus systems can be set to lock off at a particular focal point on a subject (single-servo autofocus) or to continuously adjust or track with a subject in motion (continuous autofocus). Use single- servo for most of your work; I only ever use continuous if I’m shooting extreme action wildlife. Even on something such as a gazelle walking slowly towards me, I’ll often remain in single-servo for my images (one nice option you can set deep within the menus will prevent firing the shutter in this mode if your subject isn’t in focus, which helps minimise wasted shots).

Which autofocus sensor setting should you use?
It’s hard to be prescriptive here – you need to play with the various ways your camera autofocuses and find which pattern of autofocus sensors works for you. Focus is so critical to me that I use the smallest sensor setting possible for 99 per cent of my work. The one exception to this is when I’m trying to track very difficult subjects in motion – things such as birds in flight. (As an aside, don’t neglect manual focus, which is surprisingly useful in a number of tricky yet predictable situations.)

Metering mode
A camera’s built-in light meter can take readings on a small spot, the central area of the frame or from the entire frame. Use this wider setting (often referred to as matrix or evaluative metering) for most of your shots and select the spot meter only when you know exactly why you’re using it. Never use the centre-weighted setting.

Motor drive
Generally there are three or four settings: single shot, continuous low, continuous high (anything up to 12 frames a second or so) and self-timer. Don’t ignore the uses of the self-timer, which can help if you’re trying to prevent camera shake on slow exposures on your tripod or if you need a gorgeous subject (and by that I mean you) to add life into your picture.



There is no magic recipe for making great pictures. In fact, possibly the only generalisation that comes to mind when it comes to photography is that cameras don’t take great pictures … people do.

[Grumpy]

Some of the more modern DSLR's have multiple custom settings and I am fortunate enough to have the Nikon D7000, which has two such setting. One of the benefits of this facility is that I am able to apply two different groups of settings for my style of photography, and then allow the camera to allocate what is appropriate for each scene automatically.

For example, one of these user-defined settings that I use for static bird photographs, applies the following:

• Shoot in Raw to card 1 and Jpeg to card 2
  White Balance on Auto
  Spot-metering
  Auto-focus on continuous (fixed center spot)
  aperture priority on maximum size (minimum f-stop number)
  shutter speed on fastest available, to a minimum of 1/250 (generally using a 70-300 VR lens)
  ISO set to 100, up to a maximum of 1600

I am able to change any of these settings easily, while composing the image, without taking my eye from the viewfinder. The camera is set to take normal exposures. The order that the camera changes any of these last three settings, in order to achieve normal exposures, is as follows:

• the shutter speed will continue to reduce to a minimum of 1/250, then
  ISO will continue to increase until it reaches ISO 1600, thereafter
  the shutter-speed will again begin to reduce, to a point where camera/subject movement results in a poor image

If I am unable to capture an image in focus, it is clear there is insufficient light for the equipment I possess. I then become more grumpy, retreat, and start to surmise how I can afford to upgrade my equipment. To date, the bank manager has declined my request for a loan for the lens (about US$2 million) below:

[PRWIN]

Ohhh! it.s great to have fancy toys

[Flutterby]

-O -O You'd need a trailer just for your lens!!

[Peter Betts]

I havea very easy way of setting up my complicated Nikon D3S

Manual Mode, Manual Exposure
Auto ISO
I set the Shutterspeed I want (say to stop blurring ona 500mm lens) so 1/400th sec is about right)
I then set the lens wide open (Say F4)
I do this the night before and the next morning as I drive out the gate I am ready and the camera will take the shot as I have set and the camera will assign an ISO hopefully as low as possible thats why I choose a relatively slow shutter speed for focal length mentioned above and wide open but ISO is capped purposely by me at 12800 but we never go there with my settings and 3200 is about as high as my camera needs to assign ISO with decent settings. I shoot in Matrix metering and only seldom in Spot but it saya leopard is stationary ina tree then I change to Spot to focus/meter on the nose or eye etc..Never go Centre weight which is for studio work..I use continious servo always unless I am taking a landscape