Digital SLR FAQ

You talked about 1/125th a lot - how do I get this ?

Alright, 1/125th is the lowest you'll be wanting your shutter speed to go when taking photographs handheld on low zoom lenses ( 18mm - 100mm ) This will always be determined by how much light you have. Cameras LOVE light so on a sunny day, 1/125th will never be a problem even at the lowest ISO setting. Only indoor photography and low light photography is going to cause you problems. If your camera is set to Auto mode then dont even worry about this as it will take care of all the shutterspeeds, ISO, F number and white balance for you. in AV mode however, indoors even with a light on at night you'll be looking at ISO 1250-1600 ( unless you have a lens which will do very low F numbers ( F1.2 / F1.4 / F1.8 ). If you still cant get the 1/125th then your options are :

1. Use a flash ( or any form of light you wish - candles, flashlight, anything at all that gives off light ).

2. Find a location with more light.

3. Use a tripod and self timer - for non moving objects you can leave your F number as high as you want, your ISO as low as you want and let the camera take as long as it needs to get the light it wants ( sometimes even up to 45 seconds ! )

When using AV mode it's important to remember you need to get the 1/125th second shutter speed with the exposure bracket marker in the middle as too far to the left it will under-expose ( too dark ) and too far to the right it will over-expose ( too bright ).

I'm going to a baptism and the inside of the church is dark, what do I do ?

If possible, go to the church beforehand and see what ISO levels you'll have to use to get the 1/125th shutterspeed you'll need. If it's very dark and you have to use ISO 2000+ I'd recommend using a camera flash as dark and noisy images arent really what you want for such a special moment - especially given if it's that dark then even in natural light no matter how high the ISO, if you cant see the details on the babies face with your eye then the camera wont be able to see them either so again - low ISO and camera flash will give you nice, well lit and clear images. Especially when the water is poured over the babies head, a camera flash will really make the water more noticeable. The built in flash is synced to 1/60th second ( usually ) so keep in mind that you wont want to be too close to the subject or it'll blow the image out ( and not too far away or it wont have enough strength to light the subject ! ) Also, make sure there are no mirrors or glass in front of where you flash is pointing ! So choose an angle where the background is glass + mirror free ! If possible find a window with light shining through it as most churches have windows on both left and right sides. And also remember if you use a flash to change your white balance to flash mode.

Check your WB ( White Balance ) and see what it is set to. Is it the right setting for the photo you're taking ? AWB ( Auto white balance ) is okay to a point, but the presets are much more accurate ( Sunny, shade, cloudy, flash etc etc... ) So I strongly recommend using each individual setting instead of just setting to AWB and forgetting about it. Sunny WB ( 5200k ) I've found to always give very accurate colours when shooing outside. Much more accurate than when using AWB so keep this in mind ! Change it as needed. It's only a push of a button and will save you hours of colour correcting later in editing.

If the little black dots are in the same place in every photo, then it's sensor dust - get used to it. You'll be seeing a lot of it during your time as a photographer ! It's nothing to worry about and very easy to fix. You can use the Giotti Rocket air blower - cheap and amazing from a number of online outlets. Grab one, you'll thank me ! But if you get wet dust I can highly recommend visible dust products which will help you get all the dust off your sensor leaving you once again with nice clear, spot free images. To help prevent this, clean both the front and rear elements of your lens often and change your lenses in as dust free environment as possible pointing the front of your camera DOWN when mounting your lenses since dust generally falls down inside of travelling upwards.

Okay, in the F numbers section you'll see for it to be effective you'll need to have a subject you can actually isolate. F numbers work best in open spaces. If you are standing against a flat wall and the camera has your entire body in frame, even at F1.2 there isnt going to be much isolation or much background to blur out. To get a nice effective background blur, you need to have nothing directly behind the subject. City lights are perfect as on even cheaper F5.6 lenses they'll be able to offer gorgeous background blur - the tiny lights will turn into huge circles of coloured light and it looks gorgeous ! Also, remember the rule that if you are using a zoom lens ( or a non zoom lens ) the closer you are to your subject, the more noticable the background blur is going to be. So, using an 85mm F1.8 lens from a long long way away at F1.8 the background blur effect ( bokeh ) isnt going to be as obvious as it would much closer up at F1.8. Just like on zoom lenses, on the Canon 70-200mm F2.8 USM L IS lens, F2.8 at 70mm isnt going to give you anywhere near as much subject isolation as the same lens in the same situation at 200mm. Just like on a 400mm lens at F5.6, the background blur / subject isolation is going to look amazing at F5.6 for the same reason - a longer reach will always be able to " pull the subject out of the picture " more effectively than a lens with a smaller reach at the same F number. Which is why 50mm F1.2, 85mm F1.2 and 200mm F1.8 / F2 lenses command such high prices purely for these capabilities. 85mm at F5.6 far from a subject will give you minimal blur, but left wide open at F1.2 even far away the difference in subject isolation will be huge. At F1.2, if you're close to a subject at 85mm the background will so easily be blurred you'll have to pick your focus point very carefully as you'll risk having eyes in focus, but the nose and ears out of focus as your DOF ( depth of field ) will be as thin as a razorblade.

I'm new to this and on a budget. Can you recommend some good starter lenses for me ?

If you bought your camera body new there's a high chance it came with the 18-55mm kit lens which is great to start with but limited in it's focal range and image quality. If you didnt get one, you can pick one of these up on ebay or in 2nd hand camera shops for next to nothing and I'd recommend you do as it's always good to have a wide angle lens for the times when you're indoors or want to capture vast landscapes.

When I started out the first 2 lenses which I bought and loved for different reasons were the Canon 85mm F1.8 USM lens and the Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO Macro Super for Canon. I bought the 85mm F1.8 2nd hand for about £180 which although not cheap is the best value for money lens I've ever used. It takes photos that rival lenses 10x the price and having a low light lens is always very useful. For portraits of people it is absolutely stunning As for the Sigma it was £129 brand new and the image quality is amazing, the macro capability at 300mm is perfect too for long range butterfly / bird photos. The only downside is it's F4.5-5.6 so it's not going to be much use in low light situations but on sunny days it'll be just fine. You can see examples of these 2 cheap but stunning lenses here for the Canon 85mm F1.8 and here for the Sigma 70-300mm F4 - F5.6

Price aside it's good to have a prime ( non zoom ) and a zoom lens in your kit as it will teach you the strengths and weaknesses of both. Prime lenses focus very quickly and are generally much sharper than zoom lenses but leave you having to use your feet as your zoom ( zoom in = walk forward, zoom out = walk backwards ( be careful ! ) ) But it can be good to know how to use a lens with a fixed length. Where zoom lenses give you the freedom of zooming in and out from standing on the same spot but will attract more attention to you due to their large size.

I'm using autofocus but there are still times my camera misses the object I want it to focus on !

Are you using the cameras multi-point focus system or single point ? In multi-point mode the camera will " guess " what your subjects are / subject is and focus on what it thinks is right. I dont use this method for that exact reason - if I'm about to get the shot of a lifetime I dont want to risk letting the camera guess where it is ! Depending on the model of your DSLR, open up your instruction booklet and look for " Selecting focal point " or something similar and it'll show how you can select individual points / 1 individual point in your cameras focusing grid. I always use a single focal point, that way when working with a model I can make sure the focal point I've selected on my focus grid is always on their eyes - when working at lower F numbers this makes a huge difference as in auto mode at a low F number if the camera focuses on the models nose or anything other than their eyes it's going to make their eyes out of focus and ruin the shot ! It's also useful because when holding the camera up to your eye you can move the individual point to where your subject is ( depending on how many focal points your camera supports ! ). If this still doesnt fix the problem then maybe your lens is not caliberated properly. If it's under warranty, get it checked out.

I'm trying to shoot HD video but the recording keeps stopping before I want it to ?

Class 4 SD cards are always going to be fine for taking and storing photographs and any other kind of data on, but for HD video you're going to find they are too slow. I would always recommend a class 10 for 1 reason alone - reliability. This said, there are different types of class 10 SD cards out there. I tried an ADATA class 10 card which also kept stopping during recording HD video which can be very frustrating. I decided to pay a little extra and went with the Sandisk 16GB Extreme HD video class 10 30MB/s SD card. I've since recorded many videos and it has never let me down once. Highly recommended.

I'm in a very dark room, I've run out of ISO levels, still couldnt get the 1/125th and switched to using flash but now the images are coming out much too bright ? Why ?

The problem here is you're using 2 tools that do the same job and are getting twice as much light as you should need. The function of ISO is to create light that isnt there to get you better shutterspeeds ( at the compensation of image quality ) so if you cant get the shutterspeeds you need and switch to using flash, depending on the capabilities of your flash unit ( build in or external whose settings and power levels will vary a lot ! ) you'll need to reduce your ISO levels a lot as it's job ( to create extra light ) is now being replaced by the flash. For individual photos of people where you can get nice and close, 1/60th ( fixed flash ) should be okay at any ISO with a lowish F number. With an external flash / speedlight you can go to 1/125th - 1/300th as needed ( depending again on the capabilitiles of your flash unit ).

Simply, use a flash like you'd use ISO. If the images are too bright, reduce the ISO / flash strength and likewise if the images are too dark, increase the ISO / flash strength ( or increase / lower your F numbers ! ).

There are a couple of ways to go about this. The question you need to ask yourself is : " How much light do I want on the model ? " And by that I mean do you want soft light, low light or bright light ? If you're shooting close to your model and head / head and shoulders only ( example, 85mm at F1.8 ) then a built-in flash is going to give you a brightly lit model. If you have an external flash unit it's not going to be a problem as you can set the amount of power on it. Try looking for a streetlight to stand under until you get as much or as little light as you want. If this isnt an option, invest in a flashlight as this can provide just enough light for the eyes and facial details. If you want the entire body in shot and fully lit and cant find a street light then the only real option is using strobe lights which are big and heavy ( but amazing at what they do ! ).