Digital SLR Photography

KEY CAMERA FUNCTIONSYou maYthinkYou know everYthingaboutYour cameranow, butthereare stilla fewinvaluable featureswaitingto be discoveredTo round off this bumper guide tomastering your camera, we’rededicating the lastfew pages to takinga lookat someof the handyfeat ures andfunctions your camera has that don’t fall intoa specific category, but are well worthgetting to know and using.from LiveView to``````noisereduction, viewfinder spirit levels togrid screens, they’re here. not allof them willbe relevant to you, but some certainly will,so insteadof turning the page,read on andyou may just discover something new aboutyour dSLr that will help you take even betterphotos than you are already!74 Digital slr PhotographyNove mber2016TheBeginner’sGuideLIVEVIEW:In Liv eView mode the imageyou’d normally see through the viewfinder isshown on the preview screenof your dSLrinstead because thereflex mirror is flipped upso the image is projected straight ontothe sensor. Some digital compactsystem cameras also haveatouch-sensitive previewscreen alowing you tofocusand even trip the shutter bytouching the screen whenusing LiveView.A practical applicationfor LiveView is to aidcriticalfocusing whenshooting static subjectssuch as landscapes orarchitecture, as you canzoominto the image andfocus manuallyor using Af on a specific spot. It’s also handyfor aligning nd grads and polarising filters,and if you use a ten-stop nd filter, you mayfind your dSLr’s LiveView is sensitiveenough to see through it so you can leave it``````on your lens when you move the camera totake a different shot.If you need to set-up the camera in anawkward spot where you can’t get your eyeto the viewfinder, LiveView will let youcompose the image on thepreview screen. If you shootwith your dSLr’s PictureStyle set to Mono andcompose using LiveView,you’ll see a mono imageon the preview screen,whereas the viewfinderwill still give you a colourimage. Video shooting witha dSLrrequires the useofLiveView too.The main downsideofLiveView is that in some situations,such as bright sunlight, you won’t be able tosee the screen properly. A rubber hoodloupe that covers the preview screen to cutout stray light will solve this problem.LiveView also drains batteries much faster.``````DIGITALFILTERS & EFFECTS:one of thegreat things about digital imaging is that itoffers limitless ways to express yourselfcreatively.You needn’t wait until yourimages are downloaded to a computeranymore either, because many effects canbe added to those images in-camera.All sortsof filter’s areavailable dependingon the camera – colour sketch (whichdetects and colours subject outlines); highkey (overexposes images to addatmosphere); selective colour (recordssome colours in black & white but leavesothers unchanged); lowkey (makes imagesdark and dramatic); and miniature (makesscenes look like miniature scale models) arejust afew examples. There are also grain, oldfilm effects, cross processing, bleachbypass, negative colour, silhouette, nightvision and more! CompactSystem Camerastend tooffer more effects than digital SLrs- olympus cameras are knownfor their artfilters, but the gap is narrowing. Are they anygood? In most cases, no, but afew are worthexploring when you'refeeling creative.PICTURE STYLES:dSLrs have a PictureStyle menu that allows you to achievecreative effects in-camera. The mostpopular PictureStyle is Monochrome,which allows you to shoot images in black& white and also add the effectof differentcontrast filters (red, orange, yellow, green,blue) as you would when shooting black&white film, or tones such as Sepia, Blue,Purple and Green.There are other styles too such asfaithful,natural, Portrait and Landscape, and withineach you canoften adjust sharpness,contrast, saturation and colour tone to getexactly the effect you want – then save it asa user defined picture style to use as andwhen you fancy it!If you shoot in rawformat, the effectofany PictureStyle used will only beavailable ifyou process the raw file using the cameramaker’s own raw conversion software. Ifyou use Photoshop or Lightroom to processyour raw files, the PictureStyle will be lost.To avoid that, you need to shoot in JPEG.