Fuji HS10

casados

Hi, I bought a second hand Fuji HS10 Bridge camera. It's my first ever Bridge camera, as I'm new to photography, so looking for tips for using the M mode manual. I have used the Auto up until now, but want to start using the camera to its best ability. Hope you can help, cheers.

bruto

Since the focus of these forums is on Canon and Nikon DSLR's it will be difficult to get very specific as to settings.

I suggest that the first thing you do is to find some resources on the general theory of exposure. e.t.a. actually the second thing (see the end of the post!). There's a web site called Cambridge in Colour which has some pretty good tutorials. In particular, you need to learn what difference some settings make, with regard to depth of field, stopping motion, and so forth.

Second, if your camera has some mode between auto and M, such as Aperture priority, that might be a better place to start, as the camera's exposure meter will still make final decisions while allowing you to set more options. Again, this undoubtedly varies with camera models, but in the Nikon, for example, the four modes, P, S, A and M (program, shutter priority, aperture priority and manual) allow many more options such as focus points, ISO, metering, and whatnot, which are taken over in Auto mode. But in all those modes except for M, the camera's meter still fine tunes exposure. In M, the Nikon has an exposure meter that recommends settings, but you can override it.

Remember that a digital camera allows you to experiment enormously. Do not be afraid to take a few thousand bad pictures and erase them. If you don't quite know what a setting will do, change it and see. You can erase the mistakes. Learn the mechanical functioning of your camera before anything else, so that you know just how to change settings, and how to get to the settings you want to change; how to erase, how to find viewing options and so forth. Make especially sure that you learn what options exist for reviewing a shot. Most good cameras allow a selection of image review views, including a histogram, which is a graph showing the exposure. The histogram, when you learn to read it, is a powerful help to getting the exposure you want.

So, in short, my first tip on this is to make sure you get the manual. Download it if you did not get it in paper, and perhaps even if you did (so you can put it on your computer or smart phone and have it available), and go through it. If you learn your machine well, it will be much easier to apply photographic knowledge as you acquire it.

PBked

Hi @CASADOS,
Many people do not realize that when Moose started Cameratips it was to cover the Fuji HS10 and other cameras. I don't know if @Moose can help here, but the HS10 forum contained a wealth of information.
I joined Cameratips because it was the only forum to cover the HS10 at the time. I know it is considered old technology and had a lot of critics, but it is still a good piece of kit. I still use mine on a regular basis.
I agree with the advice given by @Bruto, but for the time being switch into P (program) mode which gives you more options than the Auto setting.
If I can offer any advice, please feel free to contact me on this forum by addressing your query to @PBked.
Regards,
PBked