The first thing I learned that helped me significantly was “F8 and be there”; basically, if you have your camera on manual then set your shutter speed to 1/80 and your f/ stop to F8, you have a pretty good chance of getting a decent picture – as long as you are there to take the picture. I try to remember to reset my camera to ISO 800, F8.0, and a shutter speed of 1/80 before I turn my camera off – that way, when I turn the camera back on, I have a really good chance of getting a usable picture even if I’m in a hurry and forget to check all the settings. Another thing you can do, if you want to make sure you can shoot from the hip without thinking about anything, is to set your camera back to automatic when you are done shooting in manual mode. One other thing to remember is to check your image preview after every shot, this will let you see whether you need to adjust any settings before you take your next picture.
Basically, there are three things you have to balance when taking a picture and there are trade-offs to each one: ISO, f-stop, and shutter speed.
ISO defines how sensitive the “film” is to light, the higher the number,the more sensitive to light the “film” is but the image will be grainier. if you set your camera to ISO 100, you will have to expose it to a lot of light to get the picture you want but you will have a lot of very fine detail in the picture (hair is a good example – portraits are taken using avery low ISO so that details like strands of hair are well defined). If you set your camera to ISO 800, you will not have to expose your camera to nearly as much light but the image will not have fine detail; sports photographers will use ISO 800, 1600, and even 3200 so they can capture action quickly without any motion blur. My personal preference is to use ISO 200 and 400 because I like the finer detail in my pictures. A wedding photographer I work with uses ISO 800 and 1600 so he can capture moments quickly. I’m going to base my tips onusing a lower ISO because that is what I tend toward; you will have to play with different settings then decide for yourself where to set your ISO.
Aperture defines how large an opening the camera uses to let light in and is referred to as an f-stop. The lower the f-stop number, the larger the opening, thus letting more light in. The higher the f-stop number, the smaller the opening, thus letting less light in. If your f-stop is set low to something like “8″, less of the picture will be in focus. If you are taking a picture of children in front of a pier on the beach and you have your f-stop set to 8, the children will be in focus but the pier will not be in focus. If your f-stop is set higher to something like “22″, more of the overall picture will be in focus but it will take a longer exposure to light to get the picture. If we use the same example of taking a picture of children in front of a pier but this time you set your f-stop to 22, more of the pier will be in focus along with your children. In photography, this is referred to as “Depth of Field”, the lower your f-stop, the narrower the depth-of-field (only the subject will be in focus, the backgroundand foreground will be out of focus), the greater the f-stop, the wider the depth-of-field (more of the overall image will be in focus along with your subject). I like to think of depth-of-field as a slice of the picture that is in focus; sometimes I was to obscure the background (like a parking lot) behind the subject I’m photographing so I will use f/5.6 which will cause thebackground to blur. Other times I want some of the background (like a decorative fountain) in focus along with my subject so I will use f/22 which will get more of the overall picture – subject and background – in focus.
Shutter Speed defines how long the shutter stays open to let light in – your camera displays this as a fraction like 1/80 which is one-eightieth of a second. The faster the shutter speed, the crisper the picture will be because there will be less time to introduce motion blur into the picture. Action shots need a faster shutter speed -something like 1/600 (I think your camera will go as high as 1/4000) while a more staged picture – like a family portrait – can use a slower shutter speed -something like 1/80.
There are a number of other settings you can tweak while using manual mode on your camera but, since ISO, f-stop, and shutter speed are a lot to take in all at once, I will not address them until later.
The first thing I would suggest doing would be to set your camera to manual (that should be “M” on the dial) then press the ISO button (it should be just behind the wheel that is behind the shutter button on the top of the camera), use the wheel to set the ISO to 800, then press the ISO button again to save that setting. Now, if you look at the display on the back of the camera, you should have two boxes at the top – the left box is your shutter speed and the right box is your f-stop. If you move the wheel on the top of the camera, your shutter speed will change -go ahead and set it to 1/80. Now if you press and hold the Av button, which is the top button just to the right of the display, then move the wheel while holding the Av button down, you’ll see the f-stop value change – go ahead a set that to F8.0. Now see if your children (or any other subject) will cooperate with you – head outside, pick something to take a picture of (your kids would be great here) then press the shutter button half-way down; just under your shutter speed on the display you should see a gauge that starts with -2 and goes up to 2, this is your exposure meter – dead center on the meter is “perfect” so you want to adjust either your shutter speed or your f-stop to get as close to the center as possible – if you shoot a tad high or a tad low your picture will probably still look great however, if you are past the -1 or the 1 on the meter, you’ll want to tweak the shutter speed or f-stop or your picture will either be too dark (if you are closer to the -2) or too light with blown highlights (if you’re closer to the 2). Once you take the picture, look at it in the preview window and see how you like it.
While you are outside in the sun, I would set your ISO to 100, your f-stop to 5.6, and your shutter speed as high as needed to center the marker on your exposure meter then snap a picture and preview it; the subject of your picture should be in crisp focus while the background should be out of focus. Now set your f-stop to 22 and adjust your shutter speed to center the marker in your exposure meter and snap the same picture again; this time, when you preview it, most of the picture should be in focus. When you’re done, set your ISO to 800, your f-stop to 8.0, and your shutter speed to 1/80.
From here the best thing for you to do is to play with each setting, see what it does to the picture you are taking, and come up with the look in your pictures that you like – there aren’t really any “right” or “wrong” settings as long as you’re keeping your ISO, f-stop, and shutter speed in balance so you get good exposure. It can also be fun (in my geeky opinion anyway) to play with under-exposed and over-exposed pictures –you can get some interesting looking shots that way. You also have a good flash – you can use that with a fast shutter speed to completely black-out your background, it takes a bit of practice to get that to work but it makes for some really cool portraits – try ISO 800, f-stop 10, and a shutter speed of 1/100 with your flash pointed directly at your subject while shooting indoors, the background should be pretty dark if not completely blacked out. Oh, when you use the flash, you can usually ignore the exposure meter since it is measuring the available light not the light that will be provided by the flash – with a little practice, you’ll know exactly where to set your camera setting to get a perfect picture using your flash.
I’m not sure what else to suggest from here; I hope this is all helpful and not too overwhelming or too simple or more than you wanted. Ifyou have any questions at all, please ask! Writing this has helped me understand what I’m doing better just trying to figure out how to explain what I know to you.
*These suggestions were made for an aspiring photographer who was using the following:
Canon EOS Rebel T2i
Canon EF/S 18-55mm IS IILens
Canon SpeedLite 430EX II
