Photography Cheat Sheet

After deferring the purchase of more photography equipment that has been in my wish-list for several years now, I finally went ahead and splurged. It was time to really read end-to-end the photography book my wife gifted for our first anniversary.

Here is a summary/cheat sheet:


Shutter Priority

Use this mode when you are capture moving subjects. The shutter speed you set will affect the type of picture you create depending on how fast the elements of the picture are moving. Use automatic mode (such as P), press the shutter relase half way through and get the light meter evaluated shutter speed. Switch to Tv mode and provide a reduced or increased shutter speed. i.e. expose it for a longer or shorter time than shown by the light meter to get the desired effect.

1. It is a waterfall/fountain and you want to get a softer flowing-water effect. Decrease the shutter speed.
2. It is evening/night time and you are in a place like an amusement park or the street where there are moving lights. Slow down the shutter speed to half a second or longer to get the blur-effect. You may need to use a good tripod, and may need to use the remote or timed shutter release to avoid shakes.
3. You are capturing action and excitement. Like kids playing at the pool, or a whale diving out of the water at SeaWorld, or a boxer punching his opponent. Use a high shutter speed to capture action at the right fraction of a second. Sometimes, using continuous mode to click successive pictures may give you a better chance of one good picture.
4. You are capturing quick movement - like a fast train. Or a baseball batsman swinging at incredible speed. Decrease the shutter speed by one
5. You can take the picture from a moving object like a vehicle and get the reverse effect of a blurry road. Add still subjects to the same frame (like the vehicle itself) to highlight motion.
6. Panning can be used to picture racing cars. It results in a blurry effect on everything else but the car. Pan your camera smoothly along the path of the car such that it appears in the same position on the frame. Shoot with a slower shutter speed. Use continuous frames mode and fire away.
7. You want to picture a flying bird which is flying fast across from left to right. To get a sharply focused bird, use a fast shutter speed.
8. Use a slower shutter speed if you want to picture rain or sprinkling water.

Aperture Priority

Use this mode to control depth-of-field i.e. the range of elements in the picture that are in sharp focus.

1. Use higher f-stops (smaller apertures) like f/16 or f/22 to get deeper depth-of-field, i.e. when you want to capture background as well as foreground elements sharply. Use it in combination with wide angle lenses to get interesting landscape pictures. Come closer to the subject and provide interesting backgrounds (like clouds, mountains and sky) in focus.
2. Use lower f-stops (larger apertures) like f/1.8 or f/2.8 to get narrow depth-of-field. You can also move further away from the subject and zoom in to get narrow depth of field. Larger focal length can provide the same effect and can be used to reduce the depth-of-field further.
3. Use apertures f/8 or f/11 (midway between apertures for shallow and deep depth-of-field) for pictures where all subjects are at same distance and where depth-of-field is not a concern at all. With f/8 & f/11 pictures turn out to be sharp and with higher contrast levels.
4. Use shallow depth of field with the subject against a colorful and contrasting blurred background.
5. Use the depth-of-field-preview button on the camera to see the correct preview of subjects in focus.

Exposure Compensation

Most times, the light meter in your camera does a good job at calculating the exposure needed for the picture. But in some situations it is fooled when dominant colors are present in your frame thus making your picture look too dark or too light. Adjust the compensation by rotating the dial while pressing the AV+/- button

1. While shooting frames where there is a lot of greenery (combined with white or dark subjects like waterfal or dark sky), the default exposure metering results in the green colors to be overexposed and dark. Hence adjust the exposure by -2 stops.
2. While shooting scenes that are mainly white (snowy background, at the sea), increase exposure by one or two stops.

AE Locking

Many times you want exposure metering done against a specific area in your picture as against the camera's way of metering the entire frame. In these sitations, point your lens to the specific subject to be metered and instead of half-clicking the shutter release, press the AE lock (*) button to lock the exposure values. Then recompose the picture to include other elements and shoot.

1. An alternative to the overexposed green subject problem is to use AE locking to focus first on the greenery, then lock the exposure values and subsequently recompose the picture.
2. Taking exposure metering off the sky sometimes helps in correctly exposing snow filled landscapes and other difficult lighting or low-light situations. Point camera to the sky (blue, dusky, orange) and lock the exposure values before recomposing your photo. In coastal areas, lakes or beaches, metering the reflected sky (water) is also a good idea.
3. Silhouettes can be shot by first focusing on the bright background, locking the exposure values and then recomposing the picture.
4. As a generic rule when you are posed with difficult lighting conditions, pick the area of the frame which needs to be correctly exposed. Point your camera to that subject exclusively and get the light metering off it.

I am now reading a book on flash photography. Hopefully my next post will be soon, with some summaries on that topic.