Short Tutorial for a Quick Snap!

I initially planned for a video tutorial but decided it would take way too long to produce. (my inner perfectionist self won’t allow a poor production :p)

Today I’ll be focusing on a quick tutorial to get you start snapping photos by maximizing the ability of the camera. I have with me a Olympus EPL-1 and i’m gonna use it to show u how to use some of the more interesting functions. Along the tutorial, i’ll be using some previous snaps i took. (NOTE: the button may look slightly dissimilar on different models, but the same priciple applies).

MODES

there are 4 important modes which allow us to take very different sets of photos

1. SCN
2. iAuto
3. M (manual)
4. ART

SCN

SCN (Scenic) mode have most of the preset for different situation, so if other modes does turn out good, try use SCN and select from it. Though beginner-proved, i find most photos from this mode isjust acceptable quality.

iAuto

iAuto is one of my favourite mode to use. It allows some fine-tuning wihout needing too much control. Most of my photos are taken in this mode. And the most used “option” is the ‘brightness‘ and ‘blur‘ control.

Brightness:

Particularly useful in most scenarios. Giving a quick setting of brightness.

to get to this mode, turn the dial to “iAuto” then press “OK” and the OPTION menus will appear along the right side of the screen.

Click “OK” again, and you will be able to use the “Simple brightness” control. Use the “up” and “down” arrow to adjust brightness accordingly.

At this point, if you press the < left arrow, an “Extended Brightness” control will appear. This will allow finer control like “brighten the dark area” or “darken the bright area”.

Blur:

Useful mostly for my playful macroshots. I’d push the blur to the highest, then focus and snap!

The effect, as shown on this test-shot. A clear object with blur-out background 

M (manual)

In low light condition, i would sometime prefer the M mode. This is what the professionals are playing with their DSLR. In this mode, you are allow to change many settings, todays’ focus are: aperture, shutter speed and ISO. These will determine the amount of exposure for the shots. (in simple term, the amount of light captured)

To adjust the settings, turn the dial to “M” mode and press up button. This will allow you to adjust “Aperture” (by moving left and right) and “shutter speed” (by moving up and down). Note that after setting at certain value, you may click to shoot immediately.

(1) Aperture

in order to get a good low-light photo, i recommend to open the aperture by adjusting the F(focal length) to the lowest number. For Olympus 14-42mm lens, that would be F/3.5.

(2) Shutter speed

The shutter speed determines the time we allow the camera to capture the light. The faster the shutter speed, the less time it have to capture the light, hence a dimmer shots. However, at slower speed, the shots will become blurry, because we moves while the camera still trying to capture the light.

For low-light condition, turn the shutter speed to around 1/20 of a second (equal to the value20). Some people with steady hands can actually go up to 1/8 (value 8) or less. But once your hand shakes, the shots became blurring and unusable.

This sample shot is done with shutter speed of 12 seconds! (with a tripod of course :p) See how much light it captured causing a very bright shot

(3) ISO

ISO can be simply explained as light absorption. The range for this camera is 100 – 3200.

To adjust ISO, turn the dial to “M” mode and click “OK”. Select the ISO option and adjust accordingly.

Ideally, lowest ISO is best! (at higher ISO, more light will be captured, but the shots become “noisy”/ grainy) . I use this to compensate for the amount of light in the room. Usually at low light, ISO 800 – 1250 will be suffice. In broad day-light situation, i’ll stick to 100 – 200instead.

By this fine tuning, i was able to capture night scene better. And the shot will turn out with better details!

ART

I seldom use ART mode as most of the effect can be added afterward using computer software. So, i’ll just take the shot by focusing on clearness and proper lighting and add on the art filter using photoshop, lightroom or picasa 

If any, i’d be using the diorama or dramatic option because it is plain fun 

A foggy morning at the hospital. After applying the monochromatic effect, the “feel” of the photo give an air of eeriness

TIP!

1. First tips is to press the capture button half-way in order to focus the object you would like to capture.
2. play with the angles 
3. capture the photo like it is your own eye. Candid shot are the best!
4. use “2 seconds delay” shooting mode if you deliberately need to decrease the blurriness due to slow shutter speed.
5. shoot towards light sometimes :p this will give u the Bokeh effect (see photo below)
   
6. be playful! remember the subject you are trying to capture is not only the people, rather the emotion they potray 
   few years back, there is a trend to capture jumping shots. And now a new trend called planking, which is rather silly.
   Recently, there is also a surge of people trying to re-create old shots. I think it is rather brilliant 
7. Shoot video sometimes  Olympus is a great camera to shoot video. If you intend for a full documentary, shoot short videos and perhaps you could stitch them into a video slide-show later
8. Fish-eye lens is fun too! if u put it near your head, then the rest of your body will appear shrinked.  (Note: zoom out the lens to see the fish-eye effect)

Otherwise, if you are taking scenery shots, using a horizontal line to make the fish-eye effect stands out.

last but not least, don’t be too busy shooting! Be part of the event and enjoy the night-out. Don’t hide behind the camera instead of being in-front of it!