If you are going to be even half-serious about making photographs, you need to learn how to use your camera.
Cameras today are loaded with a lot of options for doing things I would never think of doing. I know some pros who have programmed all their controls to do things they do repeatedly when shooting weddings or sports for example, but I shoot weddings and sports and I don't do any of those things. But then again, I'm not trying to make a living with photography, so I don't need to process images as quickly as they do.
So anyway, let's focus on the basic controls you need to master so you can turn your camera into an extension of your brain and focus on the image and not the camera.
Set the camera to Aperture priority. For most shooting, I want to control the depth of field, meaning the amount of blur in the background of my shots. Having a sharp foreground/subject with a blurry background makes a very pleasing portrait (we'll talk specifically about portraits later). In order to get such a photo, I need to set the aperture to a large opening, like f/2.8 for example.
Note on aperture settings: They seem backwards. A large aperture number, such as f/22, is a small opening, while a large opening is a small number, like f/2.8. I'm not going to get into the detailed optical explanations for this stuff unless somebody asks a specific question, but suffice it to say that if I want blur in the background, I want a setting such as f/2.8, and if I want lots of stuff at different distances to all be in focus at the same time, I want a setting such as f/16 or higher. Take some photos with different settings and develop an understanding of how this works so you don't have to think about it later.
What about shutter priority? Well, what about it? haha. Sometimes when you expect to be shooting things that move fast, such as sports or grandchildren, you need to freeze the motion. For that, you may need to switch to shutter priority and just live with the depth of field you get when the camera program selects the aperture setting. You should generally set the shutter speed to twice the focal length of the lens you are using. For example, if you are shooting with a wide angle lens, like say a 28mm, you really only need a shutter speed of about 1/60 or maybe 1/100. That's because the image details in the frame are very small, and if there is any blue due to normal motion you won't see it. On the other hand, if you are using a 200mm telephoto to shoot birds, I mean, photograph birds, you will need a faster shutter speed such as 400 or even 1000 depending on the situation, because the motion will be magnified with the image.
Set the ISO to auto. Just do it. ISO, shutter speed, and aperture together control how much light is used or available to record your image. The higher the ISO number, the more sensitive the process and therefore the less light it will take to record the image. However, due to some complicated physics of semiconductors that, again, I will not try to explain unless you specifically ask, the higher the ISO the more noise you get in the resulting image. So this is all a balancing act between ISO, aperture and shutter settings to get the best image properties. In most cameras, you can set ISO to auto and then specific the highest value the camera will ever allow, such as 12,800 for example. You can decide for yourself how much noice you will allow into the photo and set the upper ISO limit to your liking.
A note on noise. Don't be too afraid of some noise in your photos. Most of the image processing programs can remove a lot of it, and some of it doesn't hurt anyway, depending on what you are shooting. And, a cool trick with noise is this: If the image is too noisy, convert it to black and white. For some reason we don't seem to mind noise in black and white images, and in fact we often ADD noise to them. I think we are trying to emulate old black and white film which was shot at ISO 400 and then sometimes push processed to get more sensitivity through development. That made grainy photos we usually saw in the newspaper. So we think it's normal.
A final note on settings. It's great to play with your camera and see what you can make it do. But when you are out on a picnic with the family, just set it on program mode (P) and enjoy capturing the fun of the day through your images. Blur means movement, and sometimes that's ok. Noise is ok. It's all good. Have fun. Here's a shot of my granddaughter at 6 playing with her 4 year old sister. They are never still. This perfectly captures her mood and her life, and look how happy she is. This is the essence of her, and every time I look at the photo I remember her as happy and carefree. And that's what it's all about.
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