Lessons
Lesson Info
Introduction & Basic Controls
As many of you know, I am a very big Fuji fan. They make cameras that seem to be really designed for photographers in their construction, their use, their layout, and everything else, and this is one of their smallest cameras that has nice SLR-style viewfinder, and this is the type of camera that I've wanted for a long, long time because I wanna serious camera that's got manual controls, but I would like it to be really small, but give me all the serious good stuff. And this is a camera that really does it quite well. So in this class, we're gonna be going through all the features and the functions of the camera and all the menus of the camera so that you can get your camera set up, understand how to use it, and know what's going on when you make all these adjustments in here. So let's go ahead and get started with this class. Alright, so what we're gonna do for the first half of the class is just basically take a tour of the outside of the camera on all the controls, so we'll talk abo...
ut all the dials, all the levers, all the buttons, what do they do, when would you use them, and how would you use them and what for. The second half of the class is going through the menu section and getting your camera set up and learning about some of the features that are kinda buried in there that you may not already know about, and then we'll finish it off with how you should set your camera up for a variety of situations and kinda the most important features that you're gonna be coming back to on a regular basis. Now the camera does come with a moderate length instruction manual, and this class I expect to be about three hours, and so there's not everything in the instruction manual that we're gonna be covering in this class. We're gonna touch on just about everything that the camera does, but there might be a few things that you wanna dig into and find out a little bit more information. For instance, you can hook your camera up to a printer and you can set what size prints and how many prints and so forth, and we're just not gonna get too into that. I really wanna concentrate on all the features that are most important for taking the highest quality photos. If there's other little games and things that you can do with the camera, we're gonna spend a lot less time on that sort of information. Now, if you're going through this class and you're kinda wondering, "John, what about composition and lighting? "Isn't that important?" Well, it is, but it's not something we have time to cover in this class. This is a class particularly on this camera. If you wanna learn about photography, I have a couple of other photography classes you might be interested in. I have a three-hour basic class called the Photography Starter Kit, and if you want a little bit more in-depth, well, maybe a lot more in-depth, there is the Fundamentals of Photography, which is a five-day class that we recently recorded here, and that really gets you into virtually everything into photography. And these are all available at CreativeLive. You can just do a search under my last name, Greengo, and that'll get you to all of my classes. Alright, so let's make sure that your camera, and my camera, is ready for today's class. Hopefully you have charged the battery up, takes about two and a half hours. You're gonna wanna have a lens on and a memory card in there, we might be taking some practice photos. Turn the camera on, and put the camera in the Auto mode. This is kind of unique with the Fuji cameras. It's got a little lever that you can flip down into the Auto mode. And this is a full, completely automated mode where the camera controls shutter speeds, apertures, and a whole bunch of other things. And you do need to make sure that the dial on the front of the lens is in one of the Autofocus modes, either S or C. I'm gonna put mine in S. And then you can go ahead and press down on the shutter release, I'm gonna do that. Kenna, I'm gonna take a picture of you in our little camera setup over here. And looks like my camera's working, so I think we're ready to go. Hopefully yours is as well. Now, Fuji, for good or for bad, has done a lot of firmware updates with their cameras. And if they find a little bug, they're gonna put out some new software and allow you to download it from Fuji's website. And so the way for you to check which firmware version you have on your camera is to turn your camera off, hold down the Display/Back button on the back of the camera, and while you're holding that button down, turn your camera on. And I'll do just a quick little demo, I'll do it here on my own camera, just to make sure that I'm running on the correct software. And so I've got my camera turned off, and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hold down the Display and Back button, hold it down while I turn it on, and we'll see which firmware my camera is running. So right now, my camera is running firmware version 1.2 on the camera and the lens version is 3.12, and that may be different according to what lens you have. So they do firmware updates for the different lenses as well. So 1.2 is what I'm working with right now. You can take a look and see where your camera is. If it is less than this, you may want to pause this video, go to Fuji's website, and download the most current firmware because they've had a few minor changes, but they are very minor at this point. So as I say, if you do need to get that software, you can go to FujiFilm's website and look for their support and contact information and you may have to type in the name of the camera and eventually you should be able to find the firmware update for this, which you will download to a memory card, put it in the camera, and there's more information at their website on the exact steps that you need to do. But that's the general gist of things. Okay, so this first section, Camera Controls, we just take a tour of the camera and talk about everything on it. So let's get started with a few of the basic controls that we're gonna use in all the different functions of the camera. So, obviously, you'll wanna have the camera turned on, and the front command dial and the rear command dial are the two main control dials. They will sometimes do exactly the same thing, sometimes they will do opposite things, like shutter speeds and apertures, and we're gonna be using these to change the functions throughout the settings of the camera. And then on the back of the camera we have our Selector, which I sometimes call the mouse or the up/down/left/right keypad on the back of the camera. And then in the middle of that we have our OK button, where we're gonna enter things. So if we go to highlight something in the menu, we're gonna hit OK to confirm that that's the setting that we want to use. So those are ones that we'll be using throughout the day.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
honolulube
I'm thinking about purchasing an XT-20, this course was very helpful to understand the camera beforehand. note: the opening slide in John's (excellent) presentation, shows an XT-1 not an XT-10... but I'm buying an XT-20, I think I got that right. - perhaps just an Easter Egg hahaha
user-98aab8
John Greengo's approach to teaching is the best. Each visual, each explanation and each example he demonstrated touched every sensory way of learning. The PDF print outs are a great bonus. Thank you for doing this video.
Dan Meylor
I purchased my Fujifilm X-T10 over a year ago and recently realized that I wasn't using it to its fullest extent. John's Greengo's video on its use opened me to a wider use. The information is clear, well organized, sequential, and helpful. I don't have the time to read a small print booklet and found the visual presentation useful because I could go through the steps on my Fuji. I'm still a little unclear on the seven custom setting and think Fuji should explain what each does. Thanks, John, for your work and encouragement.
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