Learning Photography- Make a Checklist

We bought a new Olympus E-M5 digital camera, and I've been struggling a bit learning how to use it.  There are so many settings and choices to make that I decided to make a checklist for myself to remember to look at some key settings before I shoot.  This checklist is tailored to our lenses and the location of settings on our camera.

Camera Checklist

1. PRIORITY MODE

P= program/point-and-shoot, camera sets aperture and SS based on subject brightness

Aperture priority- depth of field

Shutter priority- for fast action or blurred motion

Scene- lots of possibilities- portrait, panorama

Art- funky filters to try, including vintage, soft focus, art bracketing allows to select different filters

Info button on back of camera shows/hides info on display

Red button on top of camera is movie- press to record, press to stop

Hitting the OK button brings up the super control panel, touch the item to change on the screen and adjust with front dial

2. LENS:

A short focal-length lens produces greater depth of field than a longer lens

Short lens is 14-42 mm, F of 3.5-5.6

Longer lens is 40-150 mm, F of 4-5.6

3. SHUTTER SPEED

If you wish to capture action you will need to use a fast shutter speed or, alternatively, if you wish to blur motion you will need to use a slow shutter speed.

For sports/wildlife, think 1/4000 to 1/500

Typical is 1/250 to 1/60

To show motion and in low light scenes, think 1/30 or longer

4. F-NUMBER

The f-number controls depth of field (DOF). Small apertures will result in a large DOF, while large apertures (lower f-number) will result in a shallow DOF (blurrier background)

5. EXPOSURE COMPENSATION

Make sure that this is set to zero to begin with.

6. ISO SPEED

Check the ISO setting. You may have been using a high ISO previously. Set the ISO to ‘auto’ or a low value (e.g. 200) to begin with.

National Camera recommends: Outdoors 100-400, indoors with flash 400-800, low light without flash 800-6400

7. AUTOFOCUS MODE / AREA

Hit OK to get to super control panel, can do autofocus with manual adjust

8. HDR-button to top of camera

Four shots are taken, each with a different exposure, and the shots are combined into one HDR image inside the camera.  HDR2 provides a more impressive image than HDR1. ISO sensitivity is fixed to 200. Also, the slowest available shutter speed is 1 second and the longest available exposure is 4 seconds.

9. WHITE BALANCE

Most of the time when shooting outdoors you can use Auto White Balance (AWB). However, you may wish to use one of the set WB settings, such as ‘cloudy’.

10. FILE FORMAT (JPG or RAW, or both)