September Workshop: Knowing Your Camera
Workshop Expert Series, Knowing Your Camera
September 9/27/2011
The workshop “Knowing your Camera” was a great workshop for beginners, on up. It relied upon on using some of the most knowledgeable members, like Dave Anderson (Nikon), David Wilkins (Nikon), Nan Carter (Canon), Sue Craft (Canon), and Glenn Olson (all others brands) who all volunteered to explain what all the buttons and screens are for on the cameras. The members were reminded to bring their cameras and manuals. They were encouraged to ask any question and the teaching members answered all questions with great patience. Questions ranged all over from focusing issues, to bracketing. Below, is a short list of items that were discussed.
- Be prepared
- Shutter priority
- Aperture priority / Depth of filed
Focus alternative- AF-on
- Metering and bracketing
- DOF Aperture Preview Button
- Len choices and results
- White balance/color temperature
- ISO
- Playback and image review
- Understanding histograms
- Exposure compensation
- On Camera flash overview
- Custom Settings
- Programmable buttons
- RAW/JPG
- Video
David Anderson gave a great tip on the Dioptric adjustment in the eye piece of our cameras. The Dioptric adjustment is used because most people don’t have 20/20 vision. Look next to your view finder on your camera and you should see a little dial or perhaps a sliding adjustment. If you wear glasses and have troubles seeing through the view finder, this should help you.
Here’s what you need to do:
- Simply take off your glasses
- Hold the camera up to your dominant eye.
- Press half way down on the shutter release to auto focus the camera
- Adjust the dioptric correction dial until the data looks sharp, that’s it.
Dave’s tip was to leave the len’s cap on. That makes the data screen the only object seen and allows you to reallly dial it in for sharpness.
Overall, this night had more Canon cameras, than Nikon, but everyone had plenty of individual attention to get their questions answered. The feedback, I received from many members was that really helped them in understanding how their camera really worked and they were encouraged to go out and take more (better) photographs!