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Time & Aperture Value On Mode Dial

Lesson 6 from: Canon EOS M5 and M6 Fast Start

John Greengo

Time & Aperture Value On Mode Dial

Lesson 6 from: Canon EOS M5 and M6 Fast Start

John Greengo

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Lesson Info

6. Time & Aperture Value On Mode Dial

Next Lesson: Manual Mode Dial

Lesson Info

Time & Aperture Value On Mode Dial

Alright let's get into the more serious manual photography section. And we're gonna start with the simplest of these which is the Program mode, and this is where the camera will figure out shutter speeds and apertures for you, which is very much like the Scene Intelligent Auto mode, but it does not throw the child safety locks on the rest of the features of the camera. What it's doing here is it's just setting shutter speeds and apertures based off of the light metering, going through the lens, and then it kinda lets you decide everything else. Where you want the ISO, the focusing system, and everything throughout the menu system in its entirety, and so. When you're using the Program mode, you can look on the back of the camera or in the viewfinder and you will see your shutter speeds and apertures as the, leftmost number and then the next number. On the bottom of the screen you'll see the light meter, the ISO, and you'll see a magnify option on the back screen of the camera. Now, this...

is a great mode for anybody who knows a bit about photography, and kinda wants the camera to take care of most things, but every once in a while, would like to jump in and make an adjustment themselves. And so if you would like to make an adjustment yourself when it comes to shutter speeds and apertures, you can do so using the Program Shift option. And the way it works on this camera is you press the star button, and you turn the dial in the front. Let me show you what that looks like on my camera, first thing is for me to get my camera into the Program mode. And wake the camera up by pressing halfway on the shutter release. And the camera is gonna give us a specific set of shutter speeds and apertures and I'm just gonna change the ISO right now real quickly just 'cause the room is not the brightest that I'm in so I'm just gonna set this at 1,600. And you can see that I am getting 1/25 of a second at F6.3, and if I said, do you know what? I really want more depth of field. What I can do is I can press this star button on the back of the camera, and turn the front dial. And you can see this indicator down here, showing me now I'm at F11 at an 1/8 of a second. Or I can go to F16 at a quarter, or F22, or F32 at one full second. And so what it's doing is it's keeping the correct amount of light hitting the sensor and so I'm gonna get a proper exposure here. Let the camera take a photo, and then I'm gonna change this back to another setting. And we'll shoot this one at F8, right here. And so we're gonna have two photos that exposure-wise, are gonna look nearly identical. Let me pull up some more information here. So this one was done at 1/15 of a second at F8. Took two of them there. Then I took this one at one second at F and as we go back and forth you can see it's the same brightness, but very different settings. Now if you don't know much about photography, this is changing our shutter speed and our aperture which can change our depth of field, and how frozen anything that's moving in the frame and so, there's many different reasons why we would change this and that's more the topic of a general photography class but the fact that you can change it and do so relatively easy is a good thing on this camera. And so once again you're gonna hold in on that asterisk button, and turn the front dial in order to do that Program shift and so if you wanna make just a little adjustment, but playing in a very safe environment it's an easy way of doing it. Next up is Time Value, so this is for people who have a very specific shutter speed that you wanna set. So for instance if you wanted to capture an eagle coming into a river you're gonna need a fast shutter speed, perhaps 1/1000 of a second so that you can stop that motion. If you want to use a slower shutter speed to show some scarves blowing in the wind, you might use a one second exposure. Also helps to use a tripod on this case just as a little side note there. So if you know you want a specific shutter speed or time, you can dial that in my turning the front dial, and setting it as you want. One thing to be aware of is that there are a lot of different shutter speeds that you can choose, and the camera has to choose an accompanied aperture that's appropriate for that shutter speed. And so if you're not letting in much light with the shutter, your aperture's gonna have to let in a lot and sometimes there isn't an aperture available. And so let me show you on my camera. Gotta turn it to the Tv mode here. And so on the back of the camera you can see that I can control my shutter speeds by turning the dial on the top of the camera. So let's see if I go to 1/15 of a second and I press down halfway on the shutter release, the camera tells me you need F8 for this. But if I said wait, I want a really fast shutter speed, let's go to 1/1000 of a second. You can the image has gotten very dark and as I press down on the shutter release, it gives me an F6.3 in red, now 6.3 happens to be the maximum aperture on this lens, and when it's in red it says it's not good enough and if I take a photo, which I will do. I am going to get a very black photo as you can see in this particular photo. And so be aware that if you have it in the Time Value mode, anytime you get a red number, you're out of range and you need to change your shutter speeds back down to a range, still not in range. Still not in range. Should be in range here, there we go. And so I had to go all the way back down to 1/25 of a second to get that back to down to the white setting so that I can get a normal exposure here. And so I try not to use the Time Value mode except for in very special situations when I am very closely paying attention to that aperture number. Because I wanna make sure that I'm not getting overly dark or overly bright photos and so, it's a good mode but you have to be very careful about using it. Next up is the Aperture Value and this is just the opposite of what we were talking about, this is where you get to choose the apertures, and it will show you on the back of the camera and the camera will figure out the shutter speeds. Now the apertures are gonna control the amount of light coming through the lens and the amount of depth of field that you're gonna get. If you choose F22, you're gonna probably get lots of depth of field, so things in the foreground are in focus, as well as things in the background are in focus. Choose F1.4 if you have a lens that allows it, you gotta have a lens that allows you to do that, not all lenses have that. You can shoot with very, very shallow depth of field. And so this is very easily done by turning the front dial and looking at those apertures it'll give you an accompanied shutter speed. Be aware of what that shutter speed is and if it gets too slow for handholding which might be somewhere below 1/16 of a second. But there's a lot of different shutter speeds so it's hardly ever that you will go wrong choosing aperture priority when it comes to getting the correct exposure. As I say, do keep an eye on the shutter speed to make sure it's appropriate for the types of subjects you are shooting.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Canon EOS M5 and M6 Recommended Settings

Ratings and Reviews

Susan Clarke
 

John did an outstanding job explaining every part of this camera. As a newbie, this course is exactly what I needed to understand this camera. Thank you, John. Now, I'm going back to watch through 1 more time!

Michael Simpson
 

John Greengo is probably the best instructor I have come across in my short photography journey. I learned a lot about the camera, something that would have been difficult without the help of the M5 course. Thank you.

Annelie
 

This course is so well presented. Could not be more clear or better. It is extremely well done.

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