Camera Settings – Here is the First Step to Take Control of Your Camera, Exposure Compensation

Getting a new digital SLR is the start of a whole new realm of fun, with the added satisfaction of being able to make great quality photos better than your old point and shoot ever could.

Most people, when they find that the point and shoot digital camera they have is lacking in speed, versatility and results, will buy an entry level DSLR like a Nikon D3000, a Pentax K7 or Canon 1000D. These are awesome cameras, they make it so easy, just stick it in the green AUTO mode! Well mostly, but it doesn’t always work as well as you wanted. You sometimes don’t get what you expected. Maybe the light does not look right, or it is too dark or too bright in areas. You need to be able to take control of your camera settings to be able to get the results you want.

Now don’t worry, photography is much easier to learn now and we are only doing one step just now, but you will have a bit more control over your results by the end of this page.

Lets go. Step one is being able to control exposure, how light or dark the image is. Turn your camera’s mode dial to “P”. Now check some other camera settings. Auto focus on, ISO set to auto (or set it to 400 for shady or cloudy, 100 or 200 for bright conditions or 800 and higher for dark conditions), and metering on multi pattern (Matrix on Nikon; Evaluative on Canon; ESP on Olympus). These camera settings are pretty much default, except for the ISO. The camera is still taking care of shutter speed and aperture in “P”. What we have available to us now is the Exposure Compensator ([+/-] button and command dial on Nikon). With this we can adjust the image brightness darker or lighter than what the camera thinks.

Now go and try it out. Take a photo, then adjust the exposure compensation just to see what it does. Practise with it, because when you do need it, it will be second nature to you.