I Am Talking Camera Settings!

1. I make sure that my camera is in Manual Mode (M) so that I am able to set the aperture and shutter speed myself, opposed to the camera choosing these for me. This mode lets me have full control to create the exposure that I would like! 

2. I check that my White Balance is adjusted for the type of light that I am shooting in. Each White Balance setting adjusts the temperature of your photo to compensate for warm or cool lighting conditions. There are a variety of choices you can make, and I just change it according to which light I will be shooting in. If I am outside in the daylight, I choose the Daylight setting, if it is cloudy, I may choose the Cloudy setting because it will warm my photo up a little bit, if I am indoors, I would pick one of the indoor lighting settings, and so on.  These are something you can play around with a bit to find the perfect setting for the type of light you are taking photos in.

3. I check my ISO and adjust it for the amount of light that I am shooting in. ISO is the setting that controls the light sensitivity of your camera (if you were shooting with film this would be the film speed). The goal for me is to use the lowest ISO setting possible because the higher it is, the more noise/grain your photo will have, which is not something that I personally want in my photos. 

4. Focus Modes. I make sure that my lens is on the Auto Focus (AF) setting and I check to see which focus mode in my camera I’d like to use. I normally switch between One Shot (for when my subject is still) and Al Servo (for when my subject is moving). 

5. Metering Mode (how your camera measures light). I normally have this set to Spot Metering which samples light from the smallest area that I am pointing my camera at (kind of like a little laser that measures the light). I like this setting because I feel like I am able to have a lot of control over my exposure. Let me know if you want me to go over the other metering modes!

6. I make sure I have the RAW image file format selected opposed to jpeg. I always always always shoot in RAW because it is the largest file size which allows you to capture the most information when you take a photo, which helps with editing later on! 

7. Shooting/Drive mode. I like to keep my camera in Silent Continuous Shoot which lets me hold the shutter button down and my camera will take multiple photos at one time. I like to do this because it helps me catch in between facial expressions/movements!

There are lots of other settings you can play with but these are the main ones that I use during my sessions!