Sunday, July 30, 2006

Nikon d70 lesson 2

If you want to learn all about digital cameras, cameras, digital ttl camera, and digital camera reviews, this is your blog!
Nikon D70 and Nikon D70s modes are todays topic. Here is where you will learn what the symbols on the dial mean, and how to use each one!
To start out, we should discuss the easy one first! Auto is spelled out in green letters in order to stand out from the rest. It can not be missed, nor can it be ignored. Let's face it, we all love to use the automatic mode. But what is automatic? Everything that has to do with photography, well with the camera's inner workings anyway, is automatic! The focusing, the aperature, the shutter speed, and alot more, is figured out by the camera, in order to obtain the best results for a paticular shot.
Does it always work? The answer is no, it sometimes does not read our minds and supply us with exactly what we want to see, but thatr is to be expected, right? For everything else, there is seperate modes on the dial.
The auto mode is by far the failsafe mode. You can bet that the results will be dead on, or darn close to what you had in mind. The few exceptions are that the camera may read for exposure off of a sky, and under expose the person in the image. The cameras choice of shutter speed may be too slow and the jogger is blured. The focusing might focus itself on the trees in the background, while the bear that is in your tent is out of focus. These things are sometimes inevitable, but there is a mode for everything that you wish to shoot!
The next setting as the dial is turned is the "portrait" mode. Much like the "other picture modes", is desighned to best capture a certain type of shot. Portraits are a sort of image where the subject is important, but the rest of the image may not be as important. If you want to blur the background subject matter, than this setting will asist you in doing just that. The Nikon d70 does this by using a low F-stop. Think of F-stop as your eyes. To look at a mountain top, we close our eyes in a squint. To see close up, and to blur far away, we open our eyes wide. The Nikon d-70 does this too. This mode will alter the iso and the intesity settings before it will alter the f-stop.
Next on the setting dial is the landscape mode. This is represented with a scene of a mountain. Once again we are dealing with F-stop. The higher the f-stop setting, the further away will be in focus. The manual bosts that color is also boosted in the camera, which is news to me. Be aware that the flash is turned off in the landscape mode, and will not fire. The reason for this is that a flash would not reach a far away subject such as a landscape, and a flash would onle render the resulting image under exposed.
The next mode that I wish to cover is the "macro" mode. This mode has a flower as a symbol, and for a good reason. Most often we want a close-up shot of a butterfly resting on the petal of a flower. This is a macro shot! Macro is used in order to be able to focus on very close objects. The camera selects a center only focus reading since that is most often where the eye will rest in a close-up image of a small item.
Night landscape photography is what the moon and the blocks stand for, or the next picture on the camera dial. Next is night portraits, which is a picture of a star and person on the dial. When photographing night landscapes, you do not need a flash, and you will want the shutter to remain open longer, which means the use of a tripod is requried. If you are leaving the shutter open for long amounts of time you will want to make sure to turn on noise reduction, which is found in the Nikon d-70's menu system.
Night portrait settings are for low light photography, and this is more interesting than the modes up to this point. This is more interesting due to the flash settings that work with this setting. As you may have read in one of my other photography blogs, the front and the rear curtain syncs can be used to either make or brake your image. The Nikon d-70 alows for everything in a low level picture to come through. What I mean is rather simple if I explain a certain shot.
This shot is of Aunt Mary, at night, in a parking lot that is very dimly lit. A rear curtain sync is usede here to let the cars in the parking lot come into the image, and then the flash goes off, and captures Aunt Mary; as she poses. A front curtain sync is simply the oppisate.
The flash fires, and then the shutter remains open for a little longer in order to capture the parking lot, and its contents of automobiles. With just a little play, you will get to become quite good at night photography, and using front and rear curtain syncs.
The last section of settings are sort of related to each other in that they are manual and/or semi-manual settings. They are the "M" or Manual setting, the "A", or the Aperature priority mode, "S" or Shutter priority, and lastly "P" or Program, which will alow multi priority settings.
The easiest way to explain how these modes work is again to explain a picture that we will take in our minds. Lets say that our image is outside, and it is a portrait of a girl in front of some trees. If we select "M" or manual mode, we can set the exposure by changing the f-stop or the shutter speed. The bar in the view finder will tell us if we are under or over exposing for this made up image. After you choose the settings you want, and the meter bar reads a "perfect" exposure, we can play around with the shot.
If we choose "A" mode, the aperature will remain unchanged while we are able to alter the shutter speed. If we choose the "S" mode, the shutter speed remains constant, while we can "blow out" or brinng the trees out of focus as we adjust the f-stop. Try these out for yourself, so that it is no longer confusing for you. Once you play with these modes, you will become a great deal better at taking photographs, I promise!
Keep in ,miund the shooting mode, or the setting mode that you choose will depend on the image that you desire to capture. Do you want the background in or out of focus? Do you want to include the dark background in your low light portrait, or do you want to only capture your subject? The finished image will show in your image review screen anyway, so you realy can play with the settings, and instantly see what the different adjustments of the manual settings can and will do for you.
Have fun, and keep shooting!
Check out my site, at WWW.steveRamsdell.com and you can E-mail any questions at Steve@itmaine.com !

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