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Program Your Way To Perfect Exposures
Photographers: How To Point, Shoot & Get Perfect Exposures
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Program Your Way To Perfect Pictures
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Wouldn't it be nice if you could just point your camera, snap your shutter and get perfect exposures nearly every time?
Pros generally use manual controls, while many amateurs hope that they can set their cameras on "A" and have their cameras do all the exposure calculations for them.
Here's a middle ground approach...a simple technique for using your camera's Program "P" mode to get sharp, pro-quality images with point-and-shoot simplicity.
Pros should stick to full control when shooting critical events. But...for the rest of us...an intelligent use of our camera's program mode can work very well for the split-second grab shots that we all want.
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Tips For Using Your Camera's Program Mode
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The trick is to
preset your camera’s ISO and white balance for your lighting conditions just before you shoot. Then, you can just fire away and get great professional-quality images picture after picture. |
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Here are the easy steps for Programmed Automatic shooting:
Step #1 - Set Your Camera' Rotator Dial to the Program (P) Mode
Step #2 - Select the Closest White Balance For the Light You're Shooting Under
- Cloudy or Daylight will work best for most outdoor shots and flash.
- Use Incandescent where you see reasonably correct color on your camera’s monitor under artificial lighting.
- Set to Auto White Balance (AWB) for stage lighting or other fluorescent lights.
Step #3 - Set Your ISO High Enough To Automatically Achieve Sharp Pictures
- Your Goal: The shutter speed your camera automatically chooses should be as fast or faster than the millimeter zoom setting of your lens.
Examples:
- If you're zoomed to 50mm you need at least 1/50th of a second for sharp images.
- For a 400mm zoom you'll ideally want a minimum 1/500th of a second exposure.
- If your shutter speed is too low for the zoom you're using you should raise the ISO setting so that your images
won't be blurred by camera movement.
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Is depth of field important? Consider using Aperture Priority rather than Program. Adjust your ISO at your chosen aperture so that you’ll have a fast enough shutter speed for sharp pictures.
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Are you taking action photos? For sports or dance...where you must have fast, motion-stopping shutter speeds...you'll probably want to use Shutter Priority.
Step #4 - Take a Few Test Pictures To Be Sure of Your Program Settings
- View the photos on your camera's monitor, with the camera's settings and a histogram showing. Looking at the histogram and the brightness of the image will show you if your camera's auto exposure is correct.
- Zoom in on your test images to be sure they're sharp.
- Adjust your white balance or ISO as necessary and take a few more test shots if your images don't look sharp and properly exposed.
When You're Shooting...
- Most of the time this Program Shooting technique will give you sharp, well-exposed images. You'll just compose your pictures, snap your shutter and get perfect shots.
- But, scene content such as light or dark areas may fool your camera's exposure meter. If that happens...and you get an under or overexposed picture...use the +/- exposure compensation or ISO setting on your camera to improve your exposures.
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In Our Lab...
We have the ability to correct all but the most extreme exposure or white balance settings...and we will make your pictures look as good as they can be.
Color correction is important to your print's quality. In our "good enough" era most other labs just don't provide this service. We do...and that makes all the difference.
If you have any questions on this shooting technique...or
any photo issue...please call us at (800) 327-1776. We'll be glad to offer you friendly advice.
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