Lessons

Lesson Info

Class Overview

Well, welcome everybody and let's get ready for the Sony A 63 fast start class. Now, we're gonna be going through all the buttons, all the dials, all the features, pretty much everything that this camera can do. It's a powerhouse of a little camera, it's pretty amazing and I think there's probably gonna be some very interesting things that you're gonna learn in this class and one of the first things that you're gonna learn is that I bet hardly any of you out there know the name of this camera. In fact, if you know the name of this camera, the official name of this camera, as far as what is the actual name that Sony calls this camera, I want you to write it into Kenna and I've told Kenna what the answer is and we're gonna see who the first person who actually knows what the name of this camera is. Now we call is the A but that's not what it is. It's something else and I'm gonna let you know in just a moment. Alright, so let's take a look at what we're gonna be doing in today's class. I...

've broken it up in two different sections. The first part is just kind of a class overview, especially for people who are new to Sony. We're gonna do a few photo basics for those of you who are new to photography, and then we're gonna get into the good stuff. That's gonna be the camera controls. We're gonna go around, talk about all the buttons and dials and what they do and when you would use them. And then the second half of the class is going through the menu functions. And this is the entire menu, there's a lot of items in there, and we're gonna go through and talk about when you would use them or how you would set them for one setting or another and then by the time we're done with that your camera will be totally set up for the way that you like it to work. And then we'll end it all off with some camera operations which will show you how I would set the camera up for different types of features. This is what I call my recommended settings and what I've done is I'm a very visual person and I like to be able to scan a page and look for something that I'm looking for. And what I've done is I've taken the entire menu and put it on one page so you can quickly and easily see pretty much everything that's in your menu as well as my recommendations on how I would set it for different types of users. I actually have standard recommendations and then some for slightly different for advanced users. And I decided some people might wanna put in their own settings so I did a blank page that has all the menu items but without my recommendations. And then after that on the other two pages are gonna be some settings on what I would recommend for shooting under action photography or landscape photography or other things like that. So that comes with the purchase of the class and will be real handy in the second half of this class. Alright, so let's jump into this class overview. Alright, so with the camera you get a very paltry instruction manual of 48 pages. We do have somebody who has identified what the name of this camera is. Alright, who gets the bonus point here? They say that it is ILCE. Is that correct? Well, we need a little bit more. Well you give us a little bit more then. Okay, well let's go to the keynote. So the instruction manual has A 63 or Alpha because this is an alpha series of cameras but officially from Sony this camera is called the ILCE 6300 and that stands for Interchangeable Lens Compact with an E-mount to it. So that's the lens mount that it has on it. Now there is a help guide that is available online as a downloadable PDF or something that you can search through online. And so as I was investigating the camera and putting this whole class together, I had to go through both of these manuals and things are scattered between both of them. I did find it very helpful to have PDF versions for both of these on my computer because then I could do a search for a particular word like a Google. Like if I'm looking for face detection I could just type in face and it would take me exactly to that page that talks about anything with the word face on it. And so if you were to go through both of these you're gonna spend about 11 hours. This class is five hours so obviously we can't cover absolutely everything this camera does. I am gonna be concentrating on features and controls that are most important in order to get the highest quality photos and in order to manually operate the camera. There's a lot of other fun things that you can do with the camera like you can hook it up to a printer and you can print different size prints in different quantities and you can do slideshows on your T.V. and we're not gonna really spend a lot of time on those type of extra features in the camera. So if you do want this extra support material, you can find that at sony.com through their support site and using that key ILCE because if you just type in Alpha 6300 or A you may not come up with the right results. Alright, so you might be wondering, "Well, John this is a great class and all "but what about lighting and composition "and all those other important things in photography?" And they are all very important it's just that we don't have time to cover them. In this class we are gonna be dedicated to talking just about the 6300 and its particular functions. If you are interested in a photography class, if you like my visual style of teaching, I do have a couple of other classes you might wanna take a look at. One of them's a nice three hour basics class. Another is a much, much, much more in depth class for somebody who really wants kind of the whole ball of wax and you can find those at CreativeLive. You could always just do a search for Greengo, my last name, G-R-E-E-N-G-O, and find all of my classes. Alright, a little bit of Sony history for you. We all know they've been an electronics company that have been around a long time. They are one of the first manufacturers to get into digital cameras, back with their Mavica. It shot to a floppy disk and didn't have much resolution but it was the start of the digital era. They've been using their Cyber-shot cameras, their kind of nice point and shoot cameras for quite a while and then in, where's our date here, 2006 they acquired the remains of the Minolta and Konica camera system which had interchangeable lenses. And then they kind of got into the whole interchangeable world of photography and kind of got much more serious with their cameras. They knew that they wanted to do something different to compete against Nikon and Canon and so forth so they developed their mirrorless cameras which is what we're gonna be talking about today. And more recently they introduced the full-frame, the first of the full-frame mirrorless cameras that has proven to be very popular with a wide variety of users out there. So they've kind of come into digital photography in the serious sense kind of through the back door, not quite the same way that the other manufacturers did but they do have a lot of resources behind them and they are bringing a lot of technology to the table which is making their products very impressive. So, as you go through the instruction manual you might get to the page about all the warnings and cautions about using the camera. And in general I could just replace most all of those with the phrase don't be stupid with it. Now, there is a pretty real question that a lot of people have and that is about the weather resistance of the camera. And it is designed to be dust and moisture resistant they say but it is not waterproof and splash-proof. Now what does this actually mean? Well, nobody really knows because nobody actually says but it does mean that there is a limit to how wet this camera can get and so if it was raining, I probably wouldn't hesitate to go out and get a shot but I probably would not stay there for very long. If you're gonna shoot out in any sort of wet environment, I would probably use some sort of cover for it or try to keep it under protection from the rain in some way or another. If it does shut down 'cause it gets wet, the best thing to do is turn the camera off and open up everything that you can open up. Pop up the flash, take the lens off, open up the battery compartment and just let it air dry in a warm environment. Another warning that you will see is about using other manufacturers' products with it and so there are probably aftermarket batteries. I'm not too fond of the aftermarket batteries, they just tend to occasionally have some problems. If it's a very short-term use, I can understand it but that's a very important component and I would probably stick with the Sony batteries. They of course make a lot of Sony lenses for it but there are a lot of other really nice, very good quality lenses, especially Zeiss which does have a partnership with Sony and so you'd be very safe with the Zeiss lenses but I would say with any of the other brand lenses you are gonna be perfectly safe in using them. There may be a few features within the camera that you will not be able to use because it's not a Sony camera and lens, it's some other brand of lens. But if that lens fulfills your needs, I'd say probably go for it. There are other types of flash units that you can use. You can obviously hook this up to studio strobe systems but if you're looking for an on-camera flash, I tend to really wanna stick with the manufacturer's flash. Mostly because the communication and the operation of that external flash just seems to be so much better when those are coming from the same manufacturer. But that's a bit of a personal opinion. I don't think the other one's damage it, I just think it's a better value sticking with the major manufacturers on that one. Alright, let's make sure that your camera is ready for today's class. I'm gonna kinda do my check here. I did charge my batteries up last night, takes about two and a half hours. You're gonna get probably 300, 400 shots, kinda depends on how you use the camera. You're gonna wanna have a lens on your camera, have a memory card in there so we can shoot some practice photos. Go ahead and turn your camera on, make sure my camera's turned on, and oh, it kills me to do this, but I'm gonna put the camera in the full auto mode just to keep things nice and simple right now and I'll go ahead and take a picture of our studio audience right now just to make sure it's working. My camera's firing so I think we're ready to get going with the class.