Tip

CAMERA Manuals/Quick Start Guides

Most camera manufacturers only provide a quick start guide in printed form. Keep the quick start guide in your camera bag!

The manual is usually in an electronic form on the disk that ships with the camera. Most camera manufacturers also keep a manual on-line.

The following links take you the the manufacturers manual page.

  • Nikon
  • Canon DSLR
    • Select the camera (Single Click) Then choose the Brochures and Manual button
  • Canon Compact Cameras
    • Select the camera (Single Click) Then choose the Brochures and Manual button
  • Sony Consumer Cameras
    • First select the camera model number
  • Sony (alpha) DSLR
    • Select α (alpha) DSLR Cameras from the list
  • Panasonic
    • Enter your model number
  • Olympus
    • Enter your model number
  • Fuji
    • Click on Series Letter, Choose Your Camera
  • Pentax
    • Choose Type of Camera, Choose Model #, Select The Manual Check Box, Then click the Submit button, download the manual!
    • Whew!

Releases

Before you can sell a photograph, you need to have a "model release" form signed...

The release forms are in pdf format. Right click to download.
Model Release
Minor Model Release
Property Release
Media Release

What to bring to class...

  1. Camera
  2. Empty memory card
  3. Batteries. A fully charged battery should last all through the class.
  4. Manual and/or quick start guide for your camera.(see links in the left column)
  5. A USB card reader or USB cable for downloading photos from YOUR Camera to a Computer
  6. Lunch or Lunch money
  7. Dress for the weather, we will spend at least 1 hour outside.

Part 1 --Hands on with YOUR Camera

Things you need to know about your camera

Tip: Learn even more about your camera

Read the reviews about your camera at:

The reviewers are so good that they find things about your camera that you need to know. If they find issues, they publish work-arounds!


Interested in purchasing a new camera but don't know what to get? Try this on-line Product Advisor wizard What Digital Camera?

Press the Shutter Button Half Way!

Got blurry pictures?
Here's some suggestions
Blurry photos are happening because either:

  1. the lens isn't focused
  2. the shutter speed is too slow.
  3. or both of the above

Try this! Take a series of shots, each one at a higher ISO (Doing just this might solve the problem.)
Start at 100, (or the lowest ISO number available for your camera,
then go to 200, 400, 800 … at some point there will be too much noise for your liking.

Each ISO step "allows" twice as much light, as a result, when you increase the ISO two steps, also increase the shutter speed one step… Increasing ISO and Shutter speed might solve the problem.

Image is still fuzzy? Let's work on the focus…

A friend of mine (Nikon shooter) turns off AF-L (Auto focus lock) and focuses the camera with a bright flashlight, then uses AF-E to get the exposure…

Nota Bene: ETTR (Expose to the right)

  • If you Capture in "Raw" Format slightly over expose...
  • If you Capture in .jpg Format sightly under expose...
    • Here's a demonstration of why you want to capture your images in raw format and why you want to "ETTR"

Goldie Locks and the Digital Camera

How to Get the Light Right!

  • Auto Presets
  • PASM --Taking Control
  • The Histogram
  • Exposure Compensation
  • Flash Compensation
  • Exposure Bracketing
  • High Dynamic Range
  • An HDR Tutorial
  • Nikon Active D-lighting
    Nikon Website
  • AE-L (Exposure Lock) and AF-L (Focus Lock)

Part 2 --Composition

  • Use The Rules of thirds
  • Use one of the Golden Rules
  • Shoot an odd number of objects
  • Use your instinct, look for lines, diagonals, foreground/background frames, patterns...
Picture1 Picture2 Picture3b Picture4 Picture5picture6

Part 3: A Photography Safari in and around the Campus

Before you shoot… a check list

Applying Photo Techniques in and around the Clark College Campus

What to shoot? Try the following...

    • Apply the techniques and settings learned in class…
  1. Shoot a "landscape"
  2. Shoot a street scene "portrait"
  3. Take a photo of a classmate photographing
  4. Take a closeup of a flower, a tree, the ground…
  5. Pretend you are an alien, you have one hour to photograph…
  6. Shoot from different perspectives: Low, High, at an angle…
  7. Here's a bunch of ideas… A Suggested Shooting List
  8. Some more Photography Tips General Suggestions

Another Nota Bene: Be prepared!

  • Put the camera in Program Mode (It's automatic, but you can take charge and over ride the settings)
  • Always verify shooting mode when shooting a new subject

Part 4 -- What to do with the photos --The Work Flow

Now that you have pictures, what do you want to do with them?

There is a large variety of image processing software. Your camera should come bundled with a an image enhancing program. Below I have listed a few alternatives.

I use Photoshop Lightroom...

Windows Software

Mac Software

Image Processing Check List

  1. Down load and Archive
  2. Pick the Keepers
  3. Process the Images
  4. Analyze the Photo. Use the histogram and the Highlight and Shadow clipping indicators.
  5. Eliminate highlight clipping Set white balance first, then Exposure...
  6. Recovery: Recover details in the highlights
  7. Fill Light: Recover shadow details
  8. Blacks: Eliminate black clipping levels
  9. Brightness-Contrast: redistribute mid-tones around mid-gray
  10. Add Presence
  11. Fine tune the toning
  12. Target and Fine tune hue, saturation and Luminance
  13. Sharpen, If you only do one thing to your photos this is it. Sharpen
  14. Remove noise
  15. Crop to straighten horizons and eliminate distractions.
  16. Retouch, dodge and burn, lens correction, and add gradients if necessary.
  17. Move to Photoshop to merge with other photos, remove or add compositions.
  18. Archive Keepers
  19. Print it!
  20. Share

Software for output, sharing your photos.