aceman215 wrote:
Thank you for everyone’s response. I so appreciate it. Srt101fan: I went all out and purchased the Canon 5D Mark Iv. (It was kind of a present). And yes, I would love to take the camera to London. I’m usually a quick learner so...I also figured that London would be a great place to use the camera. So having such an expensive camera I hope you understand why I want to get the full use out of it. Otherwise I would have gotten another point and shoot.
I’m a Nikon guy so I’m not familiar with your camera. But if it’s a high end model you probably have a lot more buttons, menus and bells & whistles than you can learn in one month. So you need to identify the most important features and learn them well. Make sure you take your manual along.
A few thoughts:
When hand-holding your camera, you need to have a feel for how low you can go with shutter speed before “camera shake” blurs your picture. This will vary depending on the lens you are using. Someone gave you a rule of thumb based on lens focal length. That’s a good starting point. For me it gives shutter speeds that are too low for my ability to hold the camera steady. You need to experiment. You mentioned shooting a picture at 1/10th of a second – that’s way too low for handholding for most people.
The other issue with shutter speed is, of course, subject motion. But if you’re not going to be shooting humming birds, racing cars, sports, etc., this may not be an issue for you on this trip.
If either camera motion or subject motion are an issue, you may want to set the shutter speed yourself and not let the camera do it. For that you could use the Shutter Priority mode or the Manual mode and set the shutter appropriately high.
If you want to control the depth of field (e.g., blur the background), or you want to use the lens at its best aperture (I think they call it the “sweet spot”?), you may want to consider taking the aperture setting job away from your camera and set it yourself by using either the Aperture Priority mode or the Manual mode.
I think most people here would agree that, for image quality, the ISO should be set as low as possible. But don’t be afraid of shooting at higher values; just learn what your camera will do if you push ISO up. I generally feel that it’s well worth going to high ISOs if the choice is no picture or picture with noise! But here it depends on what kind of image you’re shooting – for some noise is a problem for some it isn’t, just like grain wasn’t always a problem in the film days.
Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority are still auto modes because the camera will set one of the exposure variables. And it may get the exposure wrong, as it could in backlit subjects. So I suggest that “exposure compensation” is something you should learn early on.
For my own general photography I have learned to like using the Manual mode with Auto ISO. This is because in most situations I want to set the shutter speed and aperture but am willing to let the camera set the exposure by adjusting ISO. There are limits to this approach, of course, and it is not appropriate for all situations. One thing to watch is when you have set your shutter speed and aperture for a low light level interior and then you go out into bright sunlight! The ISO will peg at its lowest setting and you’ll get overexposure. If that happens you can just kick up the shutter speed and/or close down the aperture.
As others have suggested, you might also explore the P mode.
Maybe most importantly, go have fun and enjoy your camera and trip!
PS – If you’re interested, also take a look at these UHH topics: Camera Settings for Tour Travel Photography and Observations from the lower rungs of the digital photography learning ladder…
Edit: Sorry, here are the links:
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-480983-1.html http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-510011-1.html