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EDITORIAL
By John Owens
Learner’sPERMIT
C’mon, take
the controls
Yes, I know, you can just
open the box, charge the battery, slip
in a memory card, and start shooting
pictures. Impressive pictures. Today’s
DSLRs are that good.
But I guarantee you even better
photos if you change just a few of
your DSLR’s fresh-out-of-the-box
default settings. Here are some that
our editors always switch before firing
even a single shot with a new camera:
•Forget Auto ISO.
Set it to ISO 400. That’s a good allaround
sensitivity and, as test results
from the Pop Photo Lab prove,
virtually every DSLR gets great image
quality at this setting. If you have
to go higher in low light, or lower
in bright light, you are, as Technical
Editor Philip Ryan points out, “just a
few clicks away in either direction.”
Why not just leave it to the camera?
Auto ISO is likely to set it too high
in normal conditions, and not go
far enough in extreme cases. With
most cameras, the Auto range is
ISO 200–800. Yet you can typically
manually dial the ISO up to ISO 1600
or beyond for low-light work, and
down to 100, where the image quality
usually is the best of all.
•Control the flash.
Auto Flash is the default setting,
and it’s soooo point-and-shoot. You
didn’t buy a DLSR for snapshots with
brightly lit, obviously flashed subjects
and completely lost black backgrounds.
Instead, do what Senior Editor Dan
Richards does: Go into the menus
and set it to Fill Flash. This means
you’ll have flash whenever you want
it—just pop up the pop-up flash. “I
also set the flash compensation to –1
EV,” says Richards. This gives you a
burst of light that doesn’t overpower
the ambient light in the frame. You
can, for instance, brighten up a face
without blowing out the subject and
forgetting about the light in the rest
of the image. The result looks more
natural and better exposed.
•Don’t be normal.
Do you shoot JPEGs? If so, check
the default setting for image size. If
it isn’t on the highest-quality JPEG,
FLASH FORWARD: Use your
pop-up on bright days for fill
flash to open up shadows and
increase shutter speed.
dial it up. Often, the default
is “Normal,” at least one step
below “Fine.” The lower the
setting, the more the image
file is compressed. As Dan
Richards points out, “The
difference is likely to show up
in images with lots of detail as
pixelation and jagged edges.”
•Color your space.
If “sRGB,” “Adobe RGB,”
and “color space” make you
want to turn the page, please
bear with me. All this means
is how many colors can be
represented in your image
files, the “color gamut.”
Chances are, your camera
is set to sRGB, a relatively small
gamut that matches most low-cost
computer monitors. But increasingly,
LCD displays can show the more
expansive Adobe RGB color space.
And your next computer monitor
probably will, too. So why not start
shooting in that color space now?
“It’s like you’re future-proofing your
files,” says Philip Ryan.
On a standard monitor, you won’t
notice much difference with Adobe
RGB; maybe just a little less pop in
the colors. But when you print these
files on a good inkjet printer (which
has a large color gamut), you’re
likely to see more range. And that’s a
good thing.
Of course, if you shoot RAW, you
can always adjust the color space
any way you want. But if you shoot
any form of JPEG, or want to save a
step in your RAW processing, go into
the menus and set the color space to
Adobe RGB.
One more thing you shouldn’t leave
to automatic? The owner’s manual.
The camera can’t read it for you.
POP PHOTO FEBRUARY 2009 WWW.POPPHOTO.COM 11
CHRIS LATHAM, WWW.CHRISLATHAMPHOTOGRAPHY.COM