ABOUT YOUR CAMERA...

What is it about your camera that you know?

This step will "Focus" on focusing. Where and when to focus, how to focus and recompose your image, what focus area and meetering mode to use. Paired with this are discussions on white balance, exposure compensation, bracketing and something called a histogram. Lets discuss focusing first. Your camera will likely have the following options for the focusing mode:

Your camera will likely have the following options for the focusing mode:

Continuous - Single - Automatic - Manual

Many people tend to pick Automatic mode and never think about focus modes again. Most of the time this will work fine. For fast moving subjects, or panning (following the subject with your camera), Automatic may not give ideal results. For this you will need Continuous mode. Continuous mode will keep refocusing on the subject as the subject moves. Cameras use contrast to find the subject. If you are trying to photograph a subject that blends with the background, your camera will struggle to find the focus and you could end up with blurry or out of fucus images. Single focus will work well with subjects that don't move, like portraits or still life. Single focus will only focus one time until the shutter is pressed again. Manual focus, as the name implies, is all manual. In Manual mode the camera will not automatically focus for you, you will have to turn the lens barrel yourself to bring the subject into focus. This is the way it always used to be, but with today's cameras, autofocus is not only faster, it is more precise. Still there are times when the camera's autofocus just can't find the right area to focus on. For this, manual focus will help.

When and Where To Focus

For many, the where is easy. Point the camera at your friend and click the button. The camera focuses on your friend and you end up with a picture or selfie. Most of today's cameras have an AE/AF button to lock the exposure which is also used to lock the focus. Cell phones too have an option for this.

For cameras: To lock the focus and exposure point, press and hold the AE/AF button while pressing the shutter button halfway down to focus. Once the camera has locked on to a subject the focus and exposure settings are locked on that part of the scene.

For cell phones: To lock the focus and exposure point, simply tap and hold on that part of the screen for a few seconds. When you see AE/AF Lock in a yellow box at the top of the screen, release your finger. When AE/AF Lock is activated, the focus and exposure settings are locked on that part of the scene.

For both cell phones and cameras, change where you are pointing the camera and then take the picture. The camera will remember where you focused using the AE/AF lock and the new scene will be captured using that focus and exposure setting. This can be helpful when wanting to show what is also in the background. Focus on a subject, use AE/AF lock and recompose the image by moving the camera a little to one side or the other then press the shutter button. The result will be that your subject, what you focused on initially will be properly exposed and there will be space in the image to show what was in the background.

When to focus

There are times when you do not want to focus especially with today's autofocus systems. They can be unreliable when it comes to images where there is not a distinct separation of the subject and the background. A bird flying from branch to branch in a tree can be hard for the camera to track, especially if the bird is a similar color as the branches. You will want to wait for the bird to land, and sit for a moment. Similarly, too much contrast can also confuse the autofocus system. Think about many people moving around in a room or busy street. Your camera will not always know who your friend is and you may get a perfectly focused image of a complete stranger. You will want to wait until you have a clear line of sight and use focus lock (AE/AF) to take the picture.

Focus Area

This is the area in the view finder that your camera will use to find the focus. You can choose to have the camera use the entire area in the view finder to focus and let it decide what the subject is or you can set a point to force the camera to focus on one part of the image.

For cell phones, simply tap on the screen where you want the camera to focus and the camera will use that to also set the exposure.

Different focus areas can include:

Single Point - Dynamic Area - Auto Area

Which mode you choose will vary depending on your subject and environment.

In Single point, you select the area of the image that the camera uses to focus on. This is good for stationary subjects.

In Dynamic Area, you select the area of the image to focus on, but if the subject leaves that area, the camera will use information from the rest of the area focus. This works well for subjects that move unpredictably.

In Auto Area, the camera does everything by itself. This is the default mode for cell phones. Some cameras may have other focus modes as well.

Meetering

Today's cameras have a few different options for finding the correct exposure. In the past, the meetering was largely taking the entire scene into account. Today, cameras can predominately focus on certain areas of the scene. Check your camera for the options available, but many will offer the following:

Matrix Mode - Center Weighted - Spot Meetering

Matrix Mode will pull exposure information from many areas of the scene. This is general use meetering.

Center weighted meetering will give more preference to what is in the center of the scene while still accepting values from the other areas.

Spot meetering will only use information from the very center of the scene. Choosing a bright or dark item to focus on when using spot meetering will give very different results.

White Balance

White balance is used to adjust colors to match the color of the light source so that white objects appear white. Subjects may be lit by a number of different light sources, including sunlight, incandescent bulbs, and fluorescent lighting. Although to the naked eye all of these different light sources may appear colorless, in fact they emit light of different colors. The image sensor in a digital camera will reproduce these color differences just as they are. The result would appear to change the color of the image according to the light source. Auto white balance automatically processes the image to remove unwanted color casts by changing the overall color of the image. An example would be making photographs taken under incandescent bulbs more blue to correct the reddish cast of this type of lighting. Normally, auto white balance will produce the desired results. You can choose from a number of fixed white balance options according to the light source. You can also choose to introduce a deliberate red or blue cast to see the effects.

Exposure Compensation

Exposure compensation is used to alter exposure from the value selected by the camera, making photographs brighter or darker. In modes P, S, and A, the camera automatically adjusts settings for optimal exposure, but this may not always produce the exposure the photographer intended. For Cell phones: tap on the screen and when you see the sunburst symbol, use your finger to swipe up or down to lighten or darken the image.

Bracketing

In short, bracketing is taking the same photo more than once using different settings for different exposures. Why would you do this? If you know about exposure, you'll know the different ways to adjust your camera settings to manipulate your exposure. One way is to change the aperture, another is the shutter speed and the third is ISO. Your camera will have a setting to automatically bracket for you. It's called Auto Exposure Bracketing. Automatic Exposure Bracketing is a function most DSLRs have to take three photos with only one click of the shutter, each in different exposures. The result will be one photo a bit too bright, one just right (depending on which part you're looking to expose properly) and one a bit darker.

Histogram

A histogram is a graphical representation of the tonal values of your image. In other words, it shows the amount of tones of particular brightness found in your photograph ranging from black (0% brightness) to white (100% brightness). It's easy to use once you understand how it works. Before digital photography, we had to wait until we developed the film to know for sure whether we got a good exposure when we made an image. Now, by using the histogram, this information is at your fingertips before you take the shot (in cameras with Electronic Viewfinders), after you take the shot, and during post-processing as well.

How to Read Your Histogram

It's easy: the blacks are on the left, the whites are on the right, all the mid-tones are in between. The most important thing to know about the histogram is that a spike on the right, that touches the edge of the graph, is a problem. That means that there is a portion of your image where the highlights are "blown out", or completely white with no detail. The reason this is such a big problem is that an area that is blown out contains no data at all, so you will not be able to do anything in post-processing to adjust it. This only applies if the spike touches the edge of the graph. If it spikes before the edge, that's okay. If there is a spike on the left edge, it means part of your image is completely black. You may want to use your exposure compensation to adjust the exposure to the right to make it brighter. But remember that having part of your image completely black, especially for a night shot, is okay. There is no such thing as a perfect histogram. It's just a graphical representation of the tonal range in your image. It's up to you, as the artist, to decide what to do with this information. Having solid blacks and bright tones (provided they are not blown out) is not necessarily a bad thing.