Lessons
Class Overview
10:11 2Photo Basics
07:01 3Top Deck: Mode Dial
27:20 4Top Deck: Custom Settings and Focus Mode
16:55 5Backside:Camera Controls
09:01 6Backside: Function Button Part 1
18:28 7Backside: Function Button Part 2
13:05 8Backside: Control Wheel &
10:53Left & Right Sides
06:19 10Bottom & Front
28:50 11Camera Settings: Pages 1-3
13:02 12Camera Settings: Pages 4-6
24:31 13Camera Settings: Pages 7-9
07:38 14Custom Settings: Pages 1-4
23:12 15Custom Settings: Pages 5-8
24:11 16Wireless Settings, Applications & Playback Menu
10:21 17Setup Menu
20:21 18Camera Operation
15:04Lesson Info
Backside:Camera Controls
Alright, so we are on our tour of the camera controls and it is time to kind of move onto the next section which is the back side of the camera. So, clearly dominated by the large LCD on the back where you can view and focus and frame your images. We also have the EVF which is a higher resolution monitor, by the way, so it is probably best to hold that up to your eye for most of your shooting. And so, that also makes it easier to see under bright light conditions and also enables you to see the screen with a little bit more detail for better sharpness, especially if you are trying to manually focus. The camera will automatically switch back and forth because it does have an eye sensor that can detect any time anything physical is fairly close to the camera and will switch over to the EVF. Now, if you want, you can manually go in and have a button dedicated to turning either the EVF on or the LCD on. There is a diopter which controls the focusing of the EVF and so, if you wear eyeglasse...
s and you wanna use the View Finder without your eyeglasses, or just anyone else, what you need to do is you need to look through the View Finder, turn that little diopter until the screen and the information on that screen is good and clear. That does seem to get bumped from time to time on many cameras and so, just be aware that you do need to adjust that. Now, in the Custom Setup is gonna be a Finder/Monitor option which allows you to turn on or off the LCD or EVF. And I was out shooting with, be honest with you, it wasn't this Sony camera, it was another Sony camera, and there was a very, very light rain and what happened is a raindrop landed on the eye sensor, and so the eye sensor thought that something was very, very close to the sensor. And so, it was turning on the EVF, but I wanted to look at the back of the camera and I couldn't reach that little raindrop in there to turn it off. And so, on some cameras, it might just be easier for you to physically go back and forth by having a little toggle switch to go back and forth between the two. And if you wanna do that, that's the feature in the menu system, but that can be assigned to one of the custom menus. Now, the Live View Display, what you are seeing, and as we saw an example earlier when we were doing the manual exposure section where the back of the camera, the LCD, was showing us a real-time view of how bright and how dark our picture was going to be. And this, I think, is probably the best system to have for most photographers. But if you were working with flash photography, it doesn't work out so well because a flash is firing when you're actually taking the photo and so it's hard to preview what that's going to look like. And so, there will be an option that we will be talking about in the menu system and it is the Live View Display where you can turn the setting effect on or off, and that just depends on if you want to see exactly what your exposure is going to be as a preview. Alright. Next up, we have our Flash button and that simply pops the flash up, and there will be additional Flash Modes that we talk about in the menu system, called Flash Mode in the third page of the camera settings. And there's a variety of things that you can go in, you can adjust it, put it on its Auto Flash Mode. You can force it on, you can do rear synchronization and we will talk a little bit about that as we get into the menu system, but be aware that there is various controls that you do have over that. Next button is your Menu button and that is the second half of this class, so we'll be talking about that in depth at the second half of this class. Next up, we have a toggle switch and so, this is kind of an interesting, unique switch on this camera. And for the most part, it's a button, but the button has two different positions, the upward position, which deals with Auto Focus and Manual Focus, or if it's in the downward position, it deals with Auto Exposure Lock. And so, right now, the AF/MF portion of it is for what's called Control Hold, which is gonna hold the focus for you. And so, if we want, we can go do a little demo here. I'm gonna turn my camera on, I'm just gonna throw it in a program mode just to keep things real simple for us. Actually, I'm gonna change our focusing. Remember we had our focusing earlier? I'm gonna change that into Continuous Focusing right now and I'm gonna give a little zoom in. Actually, I need to grab a little prop, so I'm just gonna set this here and I need to come over here and grab a prop and put this on the table in front of me to show you a little bit about the Continuous Focusing system. So, if I focus it here in front, it focuses and I go back here, it focuses on the background. Well, if I have this toggle switch in the upward position and I press and I hold this button, it will, hopefully, and it does, hold the focus. When I release the button, give a little half press on the shutter release, it focuses on the background. I can then hold that focus as I recompose my subject, even though this is filling the frame. And now, press halfway down, it's gonna refocus. And so, it's a focus lock system that we can use. And if I want to switch the focusing system into AFS, let's try this again. So, I'm gonna focus on the foreground. Alright, and if I focus in and I lock in, focus is locked here, but if I raise up and press back down, it's gonna refocus. Now, I focus in on my subject, I'm gonna press in on the back button and now when I press back down on the shutter release, the camera does not focus. And so, this is just another way of controlling focus and locking it in. Now, it does need my finger to be pressed down to remain locked in because as soon as I raise it up and press down, it's gonna look for a new subject to focus on. And so, it's a way to lock in focus for a short period of time when it's in that upward position. Now, when it's in the lower position, it is doing something called Auto Exposure Lock and that is not controlling focusing at all, that is dealing with exposure. Let me put the camera in Aperture Priority. We're at f-5.6 at 1/8th of a second. Let's take a look at our background wall. So, right now I'm at 1/13th of a second and as I move over to our light wall, we go down to 1/3 of a second. Well, if I want to lock the exposure in, I can press in and hold this button as I move over here. If I release, it goes back to its normal reading. And so, I can press in, lock the exposure, move the camera over, and then take the photo. It's just a way to lock in the exposure as you move the camera from side to side. Give you two instances in which that might be handy. One might be if you were gonna be taking a photograph of a person standing beside a very bright window and it's very bright out behind them, you set your exposure for them. So, you focus on them, you lock in the exposure on them and then you recompose to include the bright window behind them. Another example would be shooting a sunset. You've got the sun in the frame, off in the distance, and you're gonna get a little bit odd exposure with that because the sun, which is very bright, is gonna be right in the frame. Your camera's gonna wanna make it very dark. What you should do is point your camera a little away from the sun, get the sun out of the frame of the camera, lock in the exposure, but then bring it back and compose it the way you want and take the photo. And so, it's a system that some people use, but not everyone. Myself, I've gotta be honest with you, I don't use this very much and that's partly because I use Manual Exposure a lot. If you use Manual Exposure, you won't be using Auto Exposure a lot. It is something that you'll use in the program, the Aperture Priority and the Shutter Priority modes. Now, the great thing about this camera is that the button, which is really two buttons, it's either in the upward position or the downward position on the toggle, can be... Where's my little shortcut? Here it is, the Custom Key can be directed to do something else that you might want it to do. So, if you want it to do back button focusing, that's one of the options you can do. If you do a lot of manual focusing, you can have it automatically zoom in and magnify your subject. And there's obviously a lot of different things that we saw earlier that you can program these buttons to do. And so, this is just the default system, feel free and I encourage you to reprogram it to do something that you find useful on a regular basis.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Cassandra Mcd
This was so much better than having to read a manual that often times is not helpful in terms of pointing out tips on when would be the best time times to use a particular function. Love the graphics, the recommendations provided for both new and advanced users and mostly I love the fact that I can go back and watch different segments as I get more use to shooting with this camera. Great Course and I'm really glad I bought it! Thanks John!
Priscilla Read
I'm still working my way through the lessons, trying out everything as I go. I like how John shows everything with great visuals and demos. Also like that he explains when to use the various options available on the camera. Really great! Thanks!
a Creativelive Student
I wanted to learn more about using my SONY. I was not disappointed in this fast-start class on how to use this camera. Jon is a great teacher. He answered my question about photo problems. He also had some great graphics that reinforced what he was teaching. TY! Rosa
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