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Top Deck: Mode Dial

the mode. Dial the big old dial on the top of the camera with the big graphics and letters on it has a dialled lock on it, and I got to MIT. I worked with a lot of cameras, and I really like First off the way that this feels it's got a really good locking. It's not gonna accidentally get bumped. It's got a good, solid feel to the way it turns. And it has the best type of locking system, cause I know a lot of other manufacturers and users of those cameras don't like the fact that they have to press the lock in to turn the camera. Will this you can either lock it in or you can unlock it. It's kind of like, Ah, pin that you can click on Click Off And so I usually leave it unclipped because it's got a pretty solid turning mechanism. So this is our next subject. Is the mode dial? All right, we're going to start off with the simplest mode, which is the I auto mode you can follow along with your camera, and in this case, the camera is what's called an intelligent auto mode, where it's gonna b...

e looking what the cameras pointed at in trying to judge what the best exposure is. And so it's going to set shutter speeds, apertures and a bunch of other things whatever they you want it to dio and so very simple device in that regard. Now, what you can do in this region with this is that if you hit the okay button, you're gonna get a live guide and so on the back of the camera and continuing the keynote here for a moment, you can also do it on the touch screen will be a little tab on the side, a little drawer that pulls out, and this will allow you to make basic changes in the camera itself. And so let's go ahead and do a little experiment here with our camera here in front of us, and we'll use the little Cuba in front of us. So I've got my camera in the eye auto mode. So it's I auto appear on top, and we're gonna point it down here, and I'm gonna hit the okay button, Get this over here and so I can use the touch screen if I want over here on the sides to use this, or I can use the up down controls of the four way pad in the back of the cameras. So if I want to control brightness, I can come here hit, okay, and then I can make it brighter and I can make it darker. And wherever I find that I like it, I can just hit, OK, OK again. And we can change the image color if we want. And so we can make it warmer, more yellow or down on the cool side. We can make it more blue. And so there are limited numbers of controls that you can make. And so let's change the saturation here. Let's see how this changes the colors on this cube. So we get very saturated and then very not quite monotone, but much less color in it, in that case, and so it allows you a very small area in which to be creative in the camera, and so we're not gonna go through all the other functions, but there's a few others in there that you can play with, but it is a very limiting way of using the camera. I would imagine that anyone who is willing to watch an entire class on how to use this camera is gonna grow well beyond the I auto mode. But if you're gonna hand the camera to someone else, it's a great simple mode to put it in to get basic, simple, reasonable photos and without having them the giving them the ability to mess up all the controls on your camera. And so it's a good Moto have. But it's not something that I'm gonna recommend that a lot of people shoot in for a long period of time. Next up is the movie mount, and so on the top of the camera, right next to the shutter release, you'll see a small button with a red dot on it. That is our movie recording button. And so, if you want to just start recording movies, all you have to do is just press that record button, and it will automatically go in and record movies. So I'm gonna be giving you throughout this class a number of shortcuts so that you can go in and make adjustments right away into the menu system that we are currently talking about. Now for those of you who don't want toe divert from what we're doing right now, not to worry, we will eventually get there and I will go through all of these features. But if you do want to jump ahead and you want to adjust the image quality of the movie settings in the camera, you would go into shooting menu number one. You would look for image quality and then the setting called Movie. And once you're in there, you will be able to choose between a full HD movie standard HD movie. You'll be able to shoot it different frame rates like 30 60 anything up to 120 frames per second in a very special mode. Albeit. And we're gonna talk more about the video as we go along in this class. But that's probably enough for right now. We're gonna talk more about it right now. I forgot. OK, so we do have to video formats. We have IMovie files and we have a motion J peg option. Depending on what files you like to work with, we have full HD which is 1920 by 10. 80 the standard HD, and then we also have a standard definition. If you need a lower resolution one, the frame rates will range between 24 60. There is, Ah, 120 frames per second option, but it lowers it down to the standard resolution, which is a 6 40 by 4 80 resolutions. So it's gonna be very compromised on the total number of pixels, but you'll get a lot of frames per second. We do have a number of movie effects that you can add in some kind of instagram type filters, if you will, that you can add in with those movies, and we'll talk a little bit more about those as we go along the way. There are also ways of doing slowing quick motion. It's kind of like time lapse, but you can, you know, over crank and under crank the shutter so that you can have videos that are either speeded up or slowed it down. When you play him back in camera or on your computer, we can also use the touch screen for racking focus forward and back on the camera. And as always with most of these cameras, the maximum file size is gonna be four gigabytes. If you do shoot for a longer period of time, it will just create another file and you'll be able to take those two files and put him seamlessly together. They don't lose any frames, and we also have a 29 minute time limit on this. And that is for tax and tariff reasons on the cameras that makes him a little bit less expensive does not put him in the camcorder category. But in any case, you will be limited to a total of 29 minutes of continuous recording. Now, because this is a still camera and not a video camera, you can shoot a still photo at any time you want by pressing down on the shutter release. And if you're not in the movie mode and so we're talking about being in the movie mode, the camera will automatically throw it into a program mode. And so if you are in the manual mode and you hit record, you are not gonna be recording the specific shutter speeds and apertures you have set. The camera kicks it over into an automatic program out. If you do want a record in manual, you should put it in the video camera mode. But then you'll also need to go into the menu system to specify that you want movies to be recorded in a manual style. This is something that we will continue to cover as we get into the menu system on the camera itself. All right, time to move on to the program mode. So P stands for program. And that means the camera is going to set shutter speeds and apertures for you. It's not going to do much else as faras esos air focusing or anything else. It's kind of like the auto mode, but it allows you to have a lot more creativity when it gets when it comes to accessing the rest of the features of the camera. So as you look through the camera or you look on the back of the camera, you'll see API for the camera being in the program mode, you'll often see the shutter speed and then the aperture listed, and then we'll talk about the exposure difference in exposure compensation here in just a moment. So let's get out our camera here, and so one of the things that you can do is you can do program shift by turning either the front dial or the back down. So let's take a look at our camera here in front of us and give it a little play. So in the program will let me get this set up so we can see our numbers pretty clearly. You can see. Right now the camera is recommending a here. Ah, shutter speed of 1/30 of a second in 2.8. If we said I really don't like that combination, you can turn the front dial or you can turn the back dial and you can see it changes the combination of all of these. And so at any one of these, let's get this in here where we can focus and so I can shoot at 1/ of a second at F 10 and I'll get a decent exposure. Let's go ahead and adjust this to another setting 40th at F 2.8, and I'll get a decent exposure there and let's go to the other extreme. Let's go F 16 take a picture here, and if I play back these images 123 they all have the same exposure but you'll notice the depth of field is different between these, and this is something that you can have very quick, creative, creative control on it Now, one thing to note and let's just do a little test here. I currently have it F 16. Let's say I wanted lots of depth of field, but I turn the camera off and I turned the camera back on. Where is the camera now? The camera is no longer at F 16. It's been reset. And so this is not something that you would want to use if you know you have a very specific shutter speed and aperture that you're gonna wanna have for a long period of time. This would be great for travel photography or if you just don't know what your next photo is going to be, and you want it to be correctly exposed and you're not too particular about what exact shutter speed or aperture you're going to use. And so it's a good, simple, quick mode for being able to just whip the camera out and shoot a photo and get a decent exposure. And if you're willing to put a little bit of time into adjusting that program shift. You can really get it to where you want it to be. But just be reminded the camera does reset if you turn the camera off. And so it's not good for really serious situations where you want consistent exposures one after the other. Next up is aperture priority. And so let me switch my camera over an aperture, and now you have specific control over the aperture, and you're gonna want to do this for times were Depth of field is important. So in a case like this at F 22 we're getting lots of depth of field. We have everything and focus from the foreground to the background. This would be a good use of aperture priority because we want depth of field. Nothing's moving, at least not very quickly. So we don't really care too much about shutter speeds in this case, the cameras on a tripod, which means we don't have to worry about shutter speeds and aperture, is by far and away the most important thing. And so that is aperture priority. Now, one of the things you'll notice is that when it's time for you to set something manually, those numbers will be in green. And so that means that you are in control of those settings very similar to aperture. Priority is shutter priority, and this is where you get to select the shutter speeds on the camera. And so once again, you those numbers will be in green. But you do have to be concerned about anything that is blinking. And so let me just give you a little demonstration here in the class. And so let's look at the back of my camera. And so right now let's go toe kind of a reasonable shutter speed. So we're at 1/30 of a second on the camera at F 3.2, and so if we shoot a picture, we're going to get a decent exposure on that. And I can adjust this down slower and within a range. But if I go too fast, let's say I want to shoot it. 5/ of a second will notice. The F 28 is blinking. So up here at 5/100 of a second in a 2.8 with the camera is saying is OK, I'll let you shoot a picture at 5/ of a second. But the aperture on this lens is not big enough for me to get a proper exposure, and it will allow me to shoot a photo. Let's, uh, focus your set, right? And so it's sort of picture and see what this picture looks like. And so back here it was fine, which is, I think, was 1/30 of a second. And here at 5/100 of a second, it's, Ah, 5/ of a second. It's dark, so it allows you to shoot a photo, and you have to be aware that it is blinking. And so if you use shutter priority, you got to be really on top. Is it? That number is blinking because if it's blinking, that means your lens does not have the range Now. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have something wrong with your lens. It just means that you're not in range. There's a lot of different shutter speeds, and, uh, the lenses have a very limited number of apertures. So the time to use shutter priority is when you know you need a specific shutter speed. So in eagle going into the water, you're gonna need a fast shutter speed like 1000th of a second or maybe even faster. And depending on the type of subject you're shooting, you may want different types of shutter speeds. And so I'm not a big fan of shutter priority because of all the mistakes that could be made. And so one of the things I do recommend for anyone who does like shooting and Cheddar priority because it conceptual is a good way to shoot. I think for many things is to use auto eso and we'll talk about Theis own upcoming section. But if you have shutter priority and auto eso set that auto, I s Okun, start bumping up the I s O when you don't have enough aperture on your lens to let in light, and it can kind of come in at the last minute and save the exposure for you. So that's kind of a good combination that works. All right. Next up is full on manual exposure, So manual exposure is my favorite way of shooting with cameras because you get consistent results from picture to picture. And so if you have the time to set up a shot, if you have tricky lighting situations. If you want consistent results one shot after another, you don't have the shutter speeds and apertures changing. And so, in a tricky lighting situation like this that I have a little bit of time to set up, I would prefer to choose my preferred shutter speed. My preferred aperture used the light meter and get my photo that way, and that way I get very consistent results. Now, as you change shutter speeds on the camera, they will start up at 8/1000 of a second. That's 1 8/1000 of a second. They'll go down to 60 full seconds, and then, as you dial down even further, you'll get to something called Bulb. So here's what bulb is. Bulb is a longtime exposure, and it's a press and hold technique to keep the shutter open. So when you press down on the shutter release, it opens the shutter and it leaves it open. As long as your finger is on that shed a release and then when you release it, the second shutter closes, and that is your exposure. So this is used for things longer than 60 seconds in general. Then there is something called live time in time. Exposure is a variant of the bold exposure. And so, for time exposure, it's one press to start and one press to finish. And so, in this case, we don't have to leave our finger down on the button. We can relax if we're going to do a five minute exposure. We don't have to keep our hands on the camera. We can come back when it's time, and we can finish the exposure. And so you would use these time exposures for very, very long exposures. Now, as you continue to continue to change your shutter speeds down, you'll eventually hit something called live Compensation. This is something that will talk more about in the future, but it's a combination of multiple exposures and time lapse all in one. And there isn't any other camera on the market, or at least no other manufacturers that are making this particular mode. And it works very well for anybody who does night light painting at night time. It's some very interesting results. I'll be showing some of those later in the menu section, so if you want to use the bold one time exposure, a good place to use. It is when you want to leave the shutter open for a long period of time. Here in Rome, I wanted to get as many car lights as possible. There just weren't a lot of cars in 30 or 60 seconds. And so this is a two minute exposure, getting lots of car lights. And so using the bulb or the time exposure for this would be a good choice. And actually here is the live composite. So the live composite, as I said, is a mixture of time lapse and multiple exposure as it leaves, rather than just doing a 2nd 62nd exposure on the left. What happened there is the car headlights on the left side of the frame. Just were too much there, too much brightness. But the city in the background kind of required 60 seconds. So in the live composite, what it does is it does an eight second exposure in this particular case, and then it does another eight second exposure, and it kind of says, Well, where do I need more light? And we're doing not need more light, and it makes an intelligent choice on wording. Add that light to it. And so the headlights of the car's coming towards us did not over saturate those pixels with brightness. And this is it's a tricky mode to use. This is kind of new and photography, and as I say, there are no other manufacturers doing this. And so it's going to require a little bit of practice for anyone who's into nighttime photography. But it's a fun little feature to work with. All right, so there is something about the manual dial that's a little bit awkward, and let's take a look at the back of my camera and see if I can show you what's going on here. So as you will see, we have 1/30 of a second in F eight and we're currently under exposed. Now the dials indicators kind of off to the left, and I want to get it back to the right. So as I change the dial on the camera, I pushed the style to the left to make the indicator go to the right. And so it's exactly doing the opposite. That my mind would think it would dio and let me try the front dial. So if I go to the left. The indicator goes to the right. If I can adjust this even better for you guys to see here. And so it's going the exact opposite direction. Now. If I work with the back of the dial, then it's a little bit more intuitive. But that's not where it's easiest to grab the dial. So I think the dial's are reversed on this camera. And if you want to get in and reverse them from their native state, you can do that by going into the menu system, custom menu button and dial and dial direction and change it on. This is something that I think will make working the camera, working with the camera in manual. Ah, lot easier to do. And so I recommend doing it. And once again, we'll talk more about that when we get to the menu section. All right, next up we have our custom menu C one through four, and these air modes that you get to customize set the camera up as you would want to use it. So let's say you're going to shoot sports photography and you're going to do it in shutter priority 5/ of a second with auto isso, with a particular focusing system in a particular metering system and a number of other settings. You get that all set upon the camera, and then you would go into shooting menu number one, and you would assign that to see 12 or whatever number that you want. And so these get to be quick ways for you to adjust the camera to a completely different style of shooting. And so, if you were going back and forth between a couple different types of photography, let's take a landscape photographer who's out shooting a landscape. But they also like to shoot birds in flight, and that's gonna be a very different type of scenario. Landscapes from bird and fly. They could just quickly have it set on C one C two, and the camera has dozens of changes that it would go through that you might you would have to preset in there. And so the real key to this is just simply figuring out how you want to have these set up. You set the entire camera up with all the different settings that you want to go into those menu, says settings and you assign it to one through four. Now, numbers three and four are a little bit different, and so they could be assigned to whatever you want them. But there's also another setting that you can put to them. One of them or the number three, I should say, can be turned over to something called Photo Story. And this is something that other Olympus cameras have on the dial that have it in their menu system. And I think on this camera they wanted to make it more manual on the outside. And so they kind of buried this feature in the camera so you can assign it to custom number three so that when you turn it to custom number three, you can then go in and you can activate it with the menu system, and you can select from the different options. And so I shot a bunch of photos using the photo story motive, and what it is, is it's just kind of a fun way of doing collages, and this is where you get to take multiple photos and it combines portions of those photo into one photo, and so you end up getting one photo, but it took me five photos to get it or four photos to get this one. And so you can play around in many different ways and there's lots of frames, and this is definitely not for serious photography, where you're trying to get a single great image. But if you just want a little collection of images on one frame, this is something that might work to help tell a story. If you're just gonna post a picture on Facebook or something like that, and you only have one frame in which to tell that story here, you can use multiple photos with multiple effects. And so here we have kind of, ah, lighting de saturation effect that we can use in here. We have a black and white mode that you can use in here. And so there's all these different photo story modes that you can use in there to kind of go through and play around and figure out what you want to dio. In fact, let me let me do a quick little demo on that if I can. And so I think what I have to do is I don't know that I have that programmed right now. Let's take a look. So no, I don't have this programmed in my camera. So let me go in and I need to go into the custom menu. And I believe this is on button and dial, and I'm gonna program the mode dial on my camera, and I'm gonna have C three become the photo story mode. And so now, as I change from C two on the top of my camera to see three, I can now have all these different modes that I could go into. And so one was this one right here. If I hit, OK, then I'm going to be able to shoot a photo here, and that's their screen over there and see where's what's in front of us. Here are really X cube and what's over their hand, my notes in front of me. And so then I end up with five different photos in this one different little frame. And so now I got one photo that is all combined into one, and I could go back and play it, and I could see it right there. And so there's all these different ones that you could go in, You just simply hit. Let's see back and hit the menu. And then we can go up and down to scroll through these things and be aware anytime you see an arrow off to the right because that means you can go over and you can start selecting different versions and different ways of controlling it. And so once again, this is not for serious photography. This is not how I'm going to use the camera on a regular basis. But if I want to create something in camera that looks different than all the other cameras, this is kind of a fun way to do that. So that is the photo story mode. All right, Next up is C four and this one could be adjusted to the scene mode. And I think I've already got this one set up on this. And so this allows you to set the camera up for simple for basic types of photography. Let's take a look on the back of the camera here. And so when when we're here, we can just hit the menu button, actually hit the okay button. I'm sorry, and we can scroll through. So for instance, there's a sport mouth. And so if you didn't know how to set your camera for a particular type of sports, you could just put it. Once you have C four programmed for scene modes, then you could hit this and choose the sport mode. And this is gonna change shutter speeds, apertures focusing metering and a variety of other features in order to get thes mounts. And once again, for anyone who's serious into photography, they're not going to use this. But if you need a little helping hand to get the correct settings, you can use this and it is a little bit buried in here. And so it's not something that I think most people are going to be be doing. But it is an option now. There are some options, like the fisheye effect. You don't actually get the fish effect. You have to be using the Olympus external lenses that come with it. Eso some of these air designed for their extra wide angle lenses that screw on on top of the lenses. So it's not just interchangeable lens. It's an add on lens, which is a slightly different thing. In fact, even made Ah three d lens and you would have to have 33 D lens. This camera will not shoot three D on its own. And so a lot of other basic ones in here. And so if you want real, simple basic setting, this will work. But I'd say Watch the rest of the class and hopefully you'll be able to tune the camera and exactly the way you want it to. So that is the mode dial on the camera. Lots of great options on their. Normally, I would probably pre program that on your own to see Ford, whatever it is that you like to dio, all right, the buttons and dials the way that they work on the camera. They set cheddar speeds, apertures, and they do exposure compensation, which we'll talk about in just a moment. And if you don't like the way that the buttons work on this camera, you can customize this camera almost more than any other camera I've ever seen. And so if you don't like well, I don't like using that dial to change that feature. Will. You can change it to the back dial. You can change the backed out of the front. You can change which way they turn. And so there's a lot of different customization is that you can do, and we will continue to talk more about this as we get into the menu system.