Which Settings to Use for Certain Shots

akoerber

Hi!

I am a complete newbie to this camera. I just purchased it last night and I have spent the last six hours reading the manual and playing with my camera. I am slowly getting the hang of what ISO to use on certain shots. The only lenses that I own are the 18-55mm and EFS 55-250mm. The shots that I'm wanting to take are of my son (he's not into sports yet). I have heard I need to use the 55-250mm for sport shots when that time comes. I'm mainly wanting to do closeups and photoshoots outside on the farm and in the city on the downtown streets of Cape Girardeau. I want to know what Im doing before I take him anywhere because he is five, and he's going to get very impatient with me trying to swtich my settings because I still have no idea what settings to use on which shots. I own Photoshop Elements 11 so I know I can retouch my photos, but I have to learn how to use photoshop as well. Any tips on how to make the best of my photos with those two lenses? This may sound funny, but I would also love to take pictures of my son in front of the christmas tree, but I want the lights to be blurry and my son to be the main focus? Any ideas on how to do that with either of my lenses?

Thank you!

amigo

For the christmas tree picture you can put your camera in aperture priority mode (Av), and set the aperture as wide open as the lens will allow at the selected focal length. In aperture priority mode you select the aperture and the camera takes care of the rest (shutter speed, iso, etc.).

Slow lenses such as the ones you have are not ideal for blurry backgrounds. If in the future you decide this is something you would like to do often, I would advise you get yourself a 50mm f/1.8. I bought mine used for $90, and it is just great for making portraits with a nice blurry background.

When I take pictures of moving subjects such as kids, or of dark scenes while handheld, I take several shots, not just one, thereby increasing the probabilities of having a keeper in the lot.

Here's a little trick you might find interesting. When you take pictures with your camera and store them as JPEGs, some information is stored directly in the jpeg file. This is called the Exif data (see wikipedia). The exif data contains the date and time the picture was taken, the camera make and model, the lens, focal length, iso, aperture and shutter speed among other things.

So, while in full automatic mode, you could take pictures with your camera inside, outside, in bright sunlight as well as in a dark room, with and without flash. Then, inspect the exif data to discover the settings that the camera chose for you. That could give you hints as to which settings you can use under certain circumstances. \The exif data can be viewed in PhotoShop, or by using the following web page: http://regex.info/exif.cgi

When your son starts doing sports you could use the shutter priority mode.

Here is an interesting article describing both aperture priority and shutter priority modes:

http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com/tip/1330/which-mode-is-better-aperture-priority-or-shutter-priority/