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Lesson Info

Camera Operations

the last section here. I want to talk about camera operation. And this is, uh, an area that we could kind of summarize all that we've learned about in the previous parts of the class. So first off, you're going out shooting. What's important? Charge Battery. You got a memory card that's formatted. Clear. Ready to go. The image quality is set to what's important for you. Probably raw, large quality. J. Peg, You may want to take a peruse through the menu to make sure that everything is in order and as you like it. And then if you're gonna be taking an important trip where you're gonna photograph something that's very critical, then you want to make sure that your sensor is clean as well. When you got that, then you're pretty much ready to go now with the Fuji camera, there is just so many different custom options. A lot of people get a little overwhelmed, so let me organize things a little bit for you. The camera has a lot of what I call hard controls. These air ones you don't have any c...

ontrol over. They just do the thing that they dio. There's no reprogramming them. Use them for what they are, as you need nuts. Next up are the custom controls these air all the buttons and dials and screens that you can re program to perform a certain function for you. And so you'll definitely want to go through and get thes set up for whatever it is that you need quick access to. Maybe the next quickest area is the quick menu. This short little menu allows you 16 items to put in there. Not everything is available, but I encourage you to go in and customize this with all the items that you think are important, you can save these into seven groups. And so if you have different styles of shooting, you can save these within different groups in the custom settings, and you can quickly access those through the quick menu. My menu will allow you 16 options. There are two pages that you can put in there, and this is for items that might be buried a little bit deeper in the menu that you don't wanna have to go searching for again things like formatting, the card or perfect. But in here you're not doing it every minute, but you want to be able to have access to it pretty quickly on a regular basis. And then finally, we have the entire rest of the menu all those pages and pages of the menu, And I think if you get the camera set up right, you will almost never need to go back in the menu If you have set your camera up properly. This camera has mawr secret shortcuts than all the other cameras on the market combined. There's a lot of things that you can do that are not clearly labeled on the camera. They are mentioned in the instruction manual, usually in pretty small font sizes. And so this is a little bit of a summary of the most common and popular shortcuts on the Fuji X t three. First up. Checking the firmware. You pressed the display button. Hold it in while you turn the camera on formatting the card. You compress the garbage can button for two seconds while you are pressing in on the rear. Command I'll for two seconds, and it will give you the option for reformatting the memory card. If you want to switch cards from slot 12 slot to you Holden on the playback button for two seconds. Or in the playback mode, you can just press in on the Focus joystick for changing the focus size. You press in on the joystick and turn the rear command. I'll to re program the focus stick. You're gonna press in and hold it for two seconds. Like I said before, a lot of these things are just holding buttons in for two seconds. Change the Motte manual Focus. Assist by pressing in on the rear dial for two seconds, and it will change through the four different options that are available. The function buttons, all the different buttons on the camera could be quickly accessed by pressing in on the display back button for two seconds. You can get in to re program everything the command dial reset by pressing in for two seconds, the same thing for the zoom in area with the back button rear rear dial on the camera. In play in the playback mode, you're gonna press in on the rear dial, and it will automatically zoom in on an image that you're playing back and looking at. If you want to customize the quick menu, just holding on the Q button for two seconds. The playback menu can only be accessed after pressing the playback button and then pressing the menu button. And if you want to activate the playback menu while you are in play back, all you have to do is hit the focus stick, and that will automatically jump you into the menu. Don't know why they need it. You can press the menu button. It's just one more button in one war. Easier way to get in there. So as we look at our camera from the top and from the back, what are the controls that were actually going to be using on a regular basis? Well, obviously, all the ones associated with exposure ones associated with focusing are very important. Gonna be accessing good chance. You'll be working with the drive lever on the camera, and then a lot of times you're gonna have to work with white balance as well, which is currently program on the right hand side of that selector. And so these are the buttons and dials that you're going to use most frequently. We also have our A F mode for choosing the area that we focus as the top button. So let's take a look at all of these controls and how we would set them up for some different types of photography. First up, let's start with what I call super simple set up. This might be even handing the camera to a friend or for yourself when you just want to take basic photos and you're not going to mess around with a lot of setting changes. Well, you could set the shutter speeds to the automatic as well as the apertures and the automatic. This is going to fully take care of all of the exposure for you. Exposure compensation could be left it zero until such time that you actually need to use it. White balance will be at auto until you need to change it. Focus on single that way focuses on a subject and locks. They're good for basic stationary scenes, and then we have focused area, I would say in wide and tracking will just pick up a lot of stuff very, very easily. It's little indiscriminate, but for a super simple setting, it seems appropriate. And then the drive probably gonna be in the single mode so that you can take one picture at a time. So that is my super simple set up. All right, if I was gonna take a landscape photograph and I'm talking about a subject that's not moving something I want great detail in maybe something I'm using a tripod with. How would I set this up? Well, in this case, probably the most important setting would be the I s o want to set that at 1 60 The native eso so that I get the cleanest quality information off the sensor. Next, I probably want a fair bit of depth of field F 8 11 16 Somewhere in there, I'm probably gonna end up with a slower shutter speed. Having my aperture closed down that far. That will be set mawr according to where it needs to be for the amount of light that you're given in that particular situation. Exposure compensation is going to be at zero. Doesn't really matter cause we're using full manual exposure here. Auto, white balance, adjust if necessary. My subjects not moving. So it's gonna be in single. I want to be very precise about my focusing, so I'm gonna leave that in single, and I'm going to choose where I want that focusing point by moving the focusing stick around and choosing that point carefully. And for the drive mode, I'll probably be in single cause. I'm taking one shot at a time, and you probably want to use either a cable release or is a bonus. You can use the self timer that way. You're not actually touching the camera when you're shooting it. Next up, let's do some portrait photography. In this case, we're photographing people or animals. I include Portrait's Pet Portrait SA's, Well, eso. We need to be a little bit more wary about our shutter speeds, and we're probably not on a tripod, either, so we need to be careful in that regard us well. So in this case, I want to choose a shutter speed fast enough to stop normal human motion. And so 125th of a second or faster would make sense. A lot of times I like to shoot with a shallow depth of field. That way, the subject is separated from the background that will vary according to the lens you have with the eyes so I would prefer to keep it as low as possible. But I will bump it up as necessary exposure compensation at zero because we're in manual exposure. Auto, white balance. Unless you need to change it. As long as our subjects aren't moving around too much, it's gonna be single auto focus. But I do want to be very critical about where the focus is set. So I'm probably gonna choose a single point a small single point and place it over the eye of my subject. Or I will use the face detection system, which sent tends to be very good with this camera. So that's a good other option. And finally, for the drive mode, I'll put that in single and take one photograph at a time. If they're moving around a bit, you could use it in the continues. And that's not a bad idea, either. Next up is action photography, so now we're going to be needing faster shutter speeds, and we're going to need a focusing system that's tracking our subjects. I'm going to start here with a faster shutter speed around 500 or higher, depending on how fast the action is This is where having a lens that goes down to 2. is very valuable. Let's in letting in a lot of light. Chances are with faster shutter speeds. You're going to need a higher eyes, so even under relatively bright lighting conditions, and so that will vary according to the need. But probably 400 or higher don't need to worry about exposure compensation. But I keep it at zero auto white balance unless you need to change it, focusing very important change here to be in continuous this way the camera contract subjects that are moving towards you and away from you. And it's constantly adjusting to keep them in focus. And if they're moving around a lot, it's gonna be hard to keep a single point on them. And this is where I think a large box zone area is going to be easier to work with, keeping your subject in that focusing area and depends a little bit on how many shots per second you want to get. But I would probably use that continuous high, getting upto 11 frames per second, making sure that you are able to capture those peak moments. All right, our final set up here is what I call basic photography. This is where you may not know what the next photo is, and you just want your camera set up for general photography purposes. And this is where I do like to have a bit of automation to help me react quickly in any situation. And so I'm gonna let the camera select shutter speeds, although I'm going to keep an eye on them to make sure that they're appropriate for the situation that I'm in. Modest aperture around 5.6 middle of the range for many lenses is perfectly adequate. Adjust as necessary. Start with a eso of 1 60 so that you get the best image quality as you need faster shutter speeds or working under lower light. You could bump the I S O as needed. Watch the exposure compensation. You may need to use that because you're now an aperture priority so it can make your pictures a little lighter or darker. Reset it to zero when you're done using it. White balance that auto is fine. Focus for basic subjects with single autofocus will work out, and as long as your subject isn't moving around too much. You can use the single point focus so you could be very accurate on what you're focusing on and finally in the drive setting. Normally you're just shooting one shot at a time. And that should be fine for most situations. And so I think this is a really good set up for travel photography. Having the camera in your bag ready for the next shot, which you don't know what it iss, and this will keep you able to pull the camera out. Should've picture very quickly, make a few minor adjustments and have the camera set up for a wide variety of purposes. All right, if you've made it to this point in the class, I now consider you an expert on the Fuji X t three. I hope that you take the camera out there. You get it customized, you experiment, you do some tests on things that we've talked about and get it Even mawr fine tuned for your particular needs. So thank you very much for watching the class. If you are interested in keeping up with me, you can check out my website where I have more information about my classes books and tours that I lied. I'm on Facebook and Instagram as well and would love to connect with you there. If you are interested in other classes here, Creativelive, I've got a bunch of them on. So check out creativelive. You could just put gringo into the search title and you're gonna end up with a few pages of classes, Hopefully, some of which you might find kind of interesting. So thank you very much for following along on the class. And I wish you the best of luck with your fut camera.