Exercise Title: Knowing your camera
Purpose: Every camera, new and old, has a multitude of ways it can be used to capture a frame of information. If a photographer is going to truly bring their vision to life then it is critical to know how and what the camera can capture
Method:
Study your manual. Read it, read it again, then read it again. Make notes of anything you don’t already know and on what page those details are. If you don’t understand the manual fully then search on Google i.e. ‘How does [my camera] use multiple exposures’.
There are some excellent Field Guides to cameras out there which show how the camera can be used in real life situations which may make the understanding of the camera easier to grasp. See if one exists for you camera. If you have an electronic book reader on your phone then they can be great to download and always have with you.
Analyse:
Make notes on:
- What can the camera do that you didn’t know
- What areas of the camera that you knew or had an idea it could do but now understand much better
- List the modes/functions of the camera that you would like to work with to understand deeper and use for your creativity
Feedback:
I’m inclined to say that we scrap this exercise as you’re really not a reading and absorbing kind of a person. Even that in itself is a good thing to come out of it.
What I will do is consider how your camera works and getting you doing some more specific exercises to get to to grips with some of the capabilities you may not have tapped into yet. Generally speaking the majority of cameras handle average light really well, it’s when light gets tricky that you need to understand how to get the most of the light with the right camera settings or technique.