One tip to taking sunsets is to use the “Shade” white balance. When the sun is low, the light is much warmer (with an orange hue) than when it is high up in the sky. However, the human eye is able to adjust the colours that we see such that they do not look very different from other times of the day. With “Direct sunlight” or “Auto”, the camera may attempt to over correct at times and the overall photo …

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The white balance setting is used to achieve accurate colour reproduction, or to remove unnatural looking colour casts from your photographs. Most of the time, the “Auto” white balance takes care of most situations, but in tricky lighting…

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The minimum shutter speed depends on a few things: the focal length of your lens, whether it has Vibration Reduction (VR) technology, and on the ISO value.

Ideally, the shutter speed should be…

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ISO refers to the sensitivity of your camera’s image sensor to the amount of light present. Generally, the higher the ISO value, the faster your shutter speed will be, and consequently the increased ability to work in lower amounts of light. When do I increase the ISO? Is it better to use higher ISO values? What do I do when there is insufficient light?

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Primes lenses are lenses with fixed focal lengths. The minimum aperture values for prime lenses are normally lower than that of zoom lenses. Also, prime lenses produce images that are sharper and of higher quality.

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What do the numbers 1:3.5-5.6 on my lenses mean? They refer to the minimum aperture values that your lenses can go. The lower the aperture value, the more “blurred” effect (bokeh) you can achieve for your background, which means better isolation of the subject. On the other hand, the higher the value, the larger your Depth of Field will become and …

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M stands for Manual. In this mode, as the name goes, everything is placed under the control of the photographer, from the aperture value to the shutter speed, ISO, flash and white balance. This is particularly useful in challenging situations where a certain exposure effect or artistic effect is desired…

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S stands for Shutter. This mode is used often when shutter speed is of utmost concern, for example when shooting moving objects such as birds or even water. The silky effect that you often see in images of waterfalls or rivers is achieved using this technique.
For sports and wildlife, the “ideal” shutter speed will depend on the movement speed of the subject and also the photographer’s response speed. It can range from 1/200 secs to as high as 1/500 secs.
For …

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A on the mode dial stands for Aperture. Most of the time, Aperture mode is suitable for taking landscapes or when you want to achieve that “blurred” background effect that you often see in flower and portrait shots. It is suitable when you want to have full control over the Depth of Field view…

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What’s that round thing on top that turns and has tiny pictures and alphabets that make no sense? That is called the mode dial. The tiny pictures that you see on one side are the modes that you can switch to quickly when you can’t be bothered to tweak your settings manually. The other half of the dial goes like this: P, S, A, M (for Nikon. Canon uses P, Tv, Av, M). What do each of them mean?…

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