A Crash Course in Camera Settings and Shooting Manually

This is a short course for the beginner photo enthusiast designed to help you understand the many advantages of shooting in the manual mode.

You'll learn all about camera settings that can help you get the proper exposure and give you creative control in your photographic images.

One of the greatest advantages in understanding what your camera settings can do is how they affect your images. As an example, say you're doing a portrait and you want to isolate the subject by having your background go out of focus, or you may want everything in the image to be as sharp as possible. Even when photographing action or sports, there may be situations when you want to show a little bit of blur to denote action or you may want to freeze the motion and stop the action.

There may also be certain situations when shooting in the auto mode has advantages. However, unless you understand what your camera settings can do and how they affect your images, shooting in the auto mode can be frustrating. I'll cover these topics and more:

1. Introduction to Course & Assignments

2. Advantages of Shooting in Manual Mode

3. How ISO Affects Image Exposure

4. How ISO Affects Image Quality

5.  Assignment - ISO

6. Matching Aperture to ISO for Correct Exposure

7. Understanding the Aperture & Shutter Speed Scale

8. Controlling Depth of Field with Aperture

9. Assignment - Selective Focus & Depth of Field

10. Let Shutter Speed Control Degree of Motion Blur

11. Use Panning for Sharp Subject & Blurred Background

12. Three Factors to Consider in Recording Motion

13. The Lost Art of Holding Your Camera Steady

14. Assignment - Let Shutter Speed Control Degree of Motion Blur

15. Metering for Correct Exposure

16. Setting Your Focus/Metering Point

17. Live View on How Focus/Metering Points Affect Your Exposure

18. I Know What You're thinking

19. Assignment - Metering Points

20. Exposure Compensation

21. Bracketing

22. One Final Assignment

23. Plus "Bonus" Added in a demonstration in Image Editing as we look at an "Evolution of an Image".