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21
Sep
Your digital SLR is a highly sophisticated piece of kit but it will only do what you tell it to do. And if you’ve told it to do one thing on one day it will do exactly the same the next, unless you override those instructions. As a result, perfectly good pictures can be ruined simply because you forgot to press a couple of buttons. It sounds obvious, but running through a simple checklist in your head will prevent silly mistakes from occurring and ultimately mean better pictures. Here are five simple but important things you need to remember every time
you plan a photo-session.
- Have you charged your batteries?
A digital SLR is completely powerreliant, so if your battery is only half-charged or, worse still, completely dead when you come to shoot, then you’ll be down the pub earlier than expected. It’s best to slot batteries into the charger after every trip out and give them a blast. When they’re fully charged pop one set back into the camera itself and tuck a spare (you should always carry an extra set) safely in your camera bag.
- Have you formatted your memory card?
By formatting the memory card you wipe all the information held on it. So when you do format, be certain that any images on it you want to keep have already been downloaded and safely stored. If you haven’t, you can still shoot as the card will store your new images into a separate folder, but space on the card will be limited. To format your card, simply access the Format Card option in your camera’s menu. Once you’ve hit the Okay button and formatting has started there’s no going back. Once formatted, you will have plenty of free card space on which to store your new images.
- Have you checked the ISO setting?
Back in the ‘old days’ of film and manual cameras, when you put a roll of film into your camera you needed to set the ISO manually too. Then along came modern electronic film cameras and the DX coding on the film allowed the camera to automatically rate the film at the required ISO. With a D-SLR, of course, there’s no film at all, but ISO rating still plays a role.
It effectively alters the sensitivity of the camera’s sensor, allowing you to continue shooting in different light levels. But larger ISO also brings greater visible noise (unwanted graininess) on an image, meaning it’s best to use as low an ISO setting as possible. So if you have used ISO 800 to shoot fast-moving action in low light and then forgot to change back to ISO 100 for a landscape shoot, you may feel your resulting pictures are ruined by excessive noise. Remember, on a D-SLR you can change ISO from shot to shot.
- Have you selected the right file type?
A D-SLR gives you various options as to what format your digital file is saved in. The most popular is JPEG, but even this gives you various choices that relate to the final quality of the image itself. All you need to know is how big you are likely to want to print your image at and how much postcapture control you want over it. If, for example, you want a small image for use only on a website or for e-mailing, you may choose to shoot the smallest JPEG option available. On the flip side, if you want as big a fi le as possible and as much post-capture control over
it, then shooting RAW is the best option. From a Digital SLR shooting checklist perspective, you just need to have the right file option selected for the job at hand.
- Have you chosen the white balance?
There’s a whole issue wrapped up in white balance choice that we will cover later, but at the checklist stage just be sure that you don’t have a completely inappropriate white balance selected that could make your picture look a bit weird. If you’re in any doubt as to which white balance you should use, then go for the fail-safe of auto white balance. The camera will make the decision for you.2v7hbnyu4k
