Hi and welcome to Episode 103 of the Photography Explained podcast.
I’m your host Rick, and in each episode I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 10 minutes (ish) without the irrelevant details. What I tell you is based on my lifetime of photographic experience. And not Google.
Before I go on I need your help. I need your questions to answer. This is why my podcast exists, so please get in touch with your question and get a shout-out from me in a future episode. Just head over to photographyexplainedpodcast.com/start.
OK – thank you and I really look forward to hearing from you.
Here is the answery bit
The camera settings that I will check, and change if needed, before taking a photo are these
- Aperture
- Shutter
- Focus point
- Focal length
- Exposure compensation
And that is pretty much it – everything else is already sorted. Which leaves me to concentrate on what I am photographing.
This is the third episode where I break down how you can use the endless array of camera settings that are available in cameras these days. I know that when you get a camera and look at the camera manual (if you do that is), it feels overwhelming.
You can listen to the episode here
Or keep on reading. Or do both. Entirely up to you!
The manual that comes with my Canon 6D has over 400 pages. 400 pages. Really? Who is going to read that?
Well, I did. Once.
And that is how I ended up with these three episodes. I will tell you what you have missed later, but first I want to get into this little lot.
As I said, these are the settings that I will check before I take a photo. I will check them and have a think, and change them if I need to. And this only takes seconds so this is not a lengthy process.
Aperture
My go-to aperture is F8. I will change this if I need more, or less, depth of field. I probably use F8 for about 95% of the photos that I take though. F8 gives me the highest quality image capture, being the sharpest aperture on my Canon 17-40mm lens, along with the right depth of field for the photos that I am taking.
Shutter
Not critical to me as most of my photos are taken with my camera securely fixed to my tripod. If I am shooting handheld though I will check the shutter speed and make sure that it is fast enough. If not I will probably increase the ISO (making the camera sensor more sensitive to light (in theory) allowing me to select a faster shutter speed) rather than select a smaller aperture and have less depth of field.
Focus point
My Canon 6D has, wait for it, 11 focus points. And do you know what – I am fine with that. The Canon RP apparently has 4779 focus points. Now I cannot get my head around this, as I only use one at a time!
So I am happy with my simple little world but do have a nagging doubt that I am missing out somewhere.
I normally select the one below the centre focus point – it is simple and it works for me.
Focal length
For my architectural, construction and real estate photography my starting point is 17mm. I will zoom in a bit to exclude stuff but not too much. But I will use the best focal length for the photo I am taking.
Exposure compensation
A quick fix to get the correct exposure is the wonderful tool called Exposure Compensation. I have just added this to my never-ending list of episode titles. Basically, I can use the wheel on the back of my Canon 6D to quickly adjust the exposure of the images, applying a positive or negative adjustment to the exposure quickly.
I do this either when I am not happy with a photo that I have taken, or when I know before I take a photo that I will need to do this.
Quick and extremely useful. So much so that I will cover this in a separate episode all of its own.
Check the photos
I do not check every photo on a shoot. Not every photo.
I will check the first photo, or the first couple of photos, and then after that, I will have a look when the lighting changes or when I complete say the exteriors, before going on to the interiors.
And at the end, a quick check that all looks OK and I am good to go.
But I do not check every photo.
What do I do?
There are things that I set and forget, things that I might change during a shoot, and things that I will check and change if needed when taking photos.
The talky bit
This is what I do. This is not a thing. This is how my photography has evolved.
I am not saying that you should do the same as me, but in these three episodes, I wanted to get this over to you.
Do not be overwhelmed by your camera manual and the number of settings. Work through the manual when you get your camera and learn what all this stuff does. This is the only way to get the best out of that expensive camera you have spent so much money on.
And when you do this you will find a load of settings that you
- Set once and forget
- Might change when you are out and about taking photos
- Check and change before you take a photo
I have given you things to think about, but I do need to say this. Because someone will raise this if I do not.
There are numerous other camera settings that I have never used, that I have never changed, and that I have not mentioned. I am aware of them but have not felt the need to use them.
And the settings that you will want to change and the settings that you will just ignore will be different from mine – I just want you to know that this is fine.
Think about it – how many things do you change when taking photos with a phone? Possibly none ever. I know that I rarely do.
So why should we be constantly changing things on our cameras?
My answer is that we should not. Of course, we have to take photos correctly, but that is by concentrating on the important stuff.
I have told you how I work on my commercial photography work, but for my personal, landscape and travel photography work not much changes to be honest. These things all work for me for pretty much all of my photography.
Big takeaway
Loving this term, so I am going to add it to all episodes.
The big takeaway is this, learn your camera, get it set up so it works for your photography and be aware of the things that you can change and when you might want to change them. And get out there and take photos, concentrating on what you are photographing.
Related episodes
Episode 100 – Why Are There So Many Camera Settings? I Am Confused – Help Me? This is what started this sequence of episodes. And there is episode 101, Camera Settings 1 – Things That You Can Set And Forget. And the last episode, Camera Settings 2 – Things That You Might Change When Out Taking Photos.
Next episode
OK, it might not be 10, it might be more, it might be less – let’s find out next week!
Shout out
Shout out to me and my new course – find out more at rickmcevoyphotography.com/courses. Well if I can’t promote myself here where can I?
OK – I’m done
Thanks for listening to my small but perfectly formed podcast. To find out more about my podcast and do stuff to help me check out Photographyexplainedpodcast.com/start.
Brought to you by
This episode was brought to you by lovely tea.
I’ve been Rick McEvoy, thanks again very much for listening to me and for giving 10 (ish) minutes of your valuable time, and I will see you on the next episode.
Cheers from me Rick
OK – that was the podcast episode.
Want to know more?
Head over to the Start page on the Photography Explained Podcast website to find out more.
And here is the list of episodes published to date – you can listen to any episode straight from this page which is nice.
Let me know if there is a photography thing that you want me to explain and I will add it to my list. Just head over to the This is my list of things to explain page of this website to see what is on there already.
Let me send you stuff
I send out a weekly email to my subscribers. It is my take on one photography thing, plus what I have been writing and talking about. Just fill in the box and you can get my weekly photographic musings straight to your inbox. Which is nice.
And finally a little bit about me
Finally, yes this paragraph is all about me – check out my Rick McEvoy Photography website to find out more about me and my architectural, construction, real estate and travel photography work. I also write about general photography stuff, all in plain English without the irrelevant detail.
Thank you
Thanks for listening to my podcast (if you did) and reading this blog post (which I assume you have done as you are reading this).
Cheers from me Rick
