Chapter 5. Really Cool Advanced Functions

Transcription

1 i

2 Chapter 5 Really Cool Advanced Functions THESE are the reasons you sprung for a DSLR! In this chapter I will discuss some of the advanced features in detail: All of the different focusing modes Spot Metering and Exposure Lock The award-winning Super SteadyShot feature White Balance The 8 different Flash modes The different Drive modes Different ways to customize the camera The infamous Histogram display The different Creative Style modes, and their associated color intensity, contrast, and sharpness

3 166 Chapter 5 Focusing Modes We talked about focusing in Chapter 2. As promised, with the Christopher Columbus model of learning, there is more to know that bears mentioning here, and I will give the rest of it to you here. Below is what all the different focusing modes mean. Single and Continuous AF with Subject Tracking The Alpha 700 has four focusing modes: Single ( S ), Auto ( A ), Continuous ( C ), and Manual Focus ( MF ). Single mode ( S ) is ideal for taking pictures of things that don t move, like statues, buildings, a posed group shot, or my investment portfolio. It behaves as described in Chapter 2: Once you press the shutter release halfway, and it achieves autofocus, it gives you a green light (at the bottom of the viewfinder), an audible chirp, and then it will not try to focus any more after that it essentially achieves focus lock. This is the default mode and is useful in most situations. Continuous autofocus mode ( C ) is ideal for situations where your subject is moving skateboarders, children running around, or perhaps small animals which refuse to hold still. When using Continuous AF mode, it s probably best to keep the camera in wide-area focus mode (see Chapter 2) and let the camera decide which focusing sensor to use as it tracks movement this method will give you the best chances of focusing success. Keep in mind that in Continuous mode, once the camera achieves autofocus, it will not give you a steady green light and an audible chirp. Instead, it will continue to track and refocus (the subject is Figure 5-1: The A700 s Focus Mode Lever Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

4 Really Cool Advanced Functions 167 moving after all, right?) in an attempt to keep the subject in focus until the final shot is taken. You can always tell when you re in Continuous focus mode, because the round focus indicator along the bottom edge of the viewfinder is surrounded by two sets of parentheses which is supposed to convey movement. As a shortcut, when you put the camera into Sports program mode, it automatically invokes Continuous Focus mode AND wide area focus for you. Finally, there is Auto Autofocusing mode ( A ), in which you empower the camera to decide whether to use Single or Continuous mode. (This is the focusing mode your camera uses when you set the exposure dial to AUTO.) Although this is a convenient setting for those who don t wish to futz with their camera settings a lot, sometimes the camera thinks that a stationary subject is actually moving, thereby complicating what otherwise should be a fast picture-taking operation. It doesn t happen often, but is truly annoying when it does. Advice: use Single mode as your default setting, unless you re shooting sports or other moving objects, in which case you should manually invoke Continuous mode. Avoid A focusing mode if you can. Real Letters from Real Readers. I want to note that I m one mostly sports shooter who seldom moves the selector off A mode. The reason is that, like you, I like to focus and recompose. While there s seldom time to do this while shooting action, I often do it in basketball timeouts. I use it more in baseball focus (and spot meter) on the base runner and then recompose to include the defensive baseman, for example. In fact it was this feature and AS that I missed most when I was shooting a D200. I find the camera like my 7D is very good at recognizing a moving subject, so I never use C mode. I switch to S when I m not shooting sports. - Gary Nelson

5 168 Chapter 5 Why Bother with Manual Focusing? You may ask yourself, Gee, with so many sophisticated focusing settings, why in the world is there a Manual focusing mode? Well, you asked a good question. The answer is, in some situations where the subject-to-camera distance is not changing (e.g., when you re shooting a portrait), you only need to focus once. The standard way is to switch the camera into MF (Manual Focus) mode (Figure 5-1) and then turn the lens focusing ring until the image appears to be sharp in the viewfinder. My personal preferred method (as mentioned in Chapter 2) is to set MENU Custom Menu 1 AF/MF control Toggle, and then just press the AF/MF button once to move the camera from Autofocus to Manual Focus mode. Prefocusing in this manner can actually make the camera respond faster and make it just a little bit easier to handle if you re the kind of person who shoots 20 or 30 portraits just to get the one perfect shot. Street or sports photography may be another venue where, if you know where your subject is going to be, you can pre-set the distance and take the picture Figure 5-2: Use Manual Focus for times when the shot won t last. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

6 Really Cool Advanced Functions 169 the instant the shot happens without having to wait for the camera to focus. A good example of this is equestrian events, where you can pre-focus on the hurdle before the horse jumps over it. (Make sure to set the camera on Sports Program Mode or Shutter Priority mode so it will favor the higher-shutter speeds needed for fast action!) The skateboarding image in Figure 5-2 is another good example I knew how far away the skateboarder would be, and so I pre-focused for the distance and then waited for the skateboarder to appear right in front of me. When pre-focused in Manual focus mode, I can get the shot before it disappears a fraction of a second later. DMF Direct Manual Focus What do you get when you cross autofocus with manual focus? The answer is the Direct Manual Focus mode, which can come in handy on certain occasions. In a nutshell, once the camera has focused on the subject and given you the focus confirmation signal, it automatically puts itself into manual focus mode and you are then free to tweak the focusing by turning the focus ring at the base of the lens. The camera stays in manual focus mode until you press the shutter release button halfway down again, commanding it to focus, find a subject, and then go back to Manual Focus mode. Figure 5-3: How to invoke Direct Manual Focus mode. First, reprogram the A focus mode lever position (left), and then move the mode switch to A (right).

7 170 Chapter 5 Since there is no switch on the A700 to invoke DMF mode, Sony (perhaps sensing that others besides me would never use the A mode on the focus mode lever ) gave us the ability to reassign the A position to DMF: MENU RECORDING MENU 3 AF-A setup DMF (Figure 5-3a). (You only need to do this once.) Then, just move the Focus Mode Lever to A whenever you wish to use this feature. TIP: Here s an unusual combination of features which can be ideal for when your camera s on a tripod and your subject-to-camera distance doesn t change much. By putting the Focus Mode lever to MF mode, and programming the AF/MF switch to be a momentary switch (MENU Custom Menu 1 AF/MF control Hold), you can just press the AF/MF button whenever you want to autofocus on something, and when you release the button the camera instantly goes back to Manual Focus mode. This can be a handy trick if you find yourself constantly going into and out of AF mode constantly. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

8 Really Cool Advanced Functions 171 The Basics of Proper Exposure Why does my camera s exposure meter guess incorrectly whenever the light is tricky? Why do we even need manual exposure mode -- can t the camera just capture the scene the way it looks? Those are excellent and essential questions that I will explain thoroughly but it will take me a few pages. Bear with me, this will be well worth your time and when you re finished you ll finally understand how your exposure meter thinks, and the differences between center-weighted, spot, and multi-segment metering. It s hard to imagine what life was like before they put exposure meters inside our cameras. Before we had such convenient light meters at our disposal, there were two basic methods of determining correct exposure: Use a rule-of-thumb chart ( Sunny day: 1/250 th of a second at f/16 such charts used to be included in every roll of Kodak 35mm film back in the old days), or a handheld exposure meter, as shown in Figure 5-4. It is interesting to note that handheld exposure meters are STILL being used today by Hollywood filmmakers and anyone serious about photography. Why? Because they tend to give consistently accurate exposure readings in the widest set of circumstances. And it is important to understand the differences and how the exposure is actually determined if you re going to Figure 5-4: This is an oldfashioned (yet modern) exposure meter. They re still being made because they still serve a useful purpose: When used correctly they will always give you the right exposure recommendations, regardless of how dark or light your subject is.

9 172 Chapter 5 rely on your camera s built-in meter to make the right choice. Handheld exposure meters work on a completely different principle than the ones built into your camera: Handheld exposure meters measure the light which is falling onto your subject. Built-in exposure meters, on the other hand, measure the light that is reflected off of your subject and back into the camera. Why two different methods, and which one is better? Perhaps this fictitious dialog taking place between two engineers back in the 1950 s might shed some light on the subject (no pun intended): Engineer #1: Engineer #2: Engineer #1 Engineer #2: Engineer #1: Well, here we are, in the late 1950 s, sitting here at this table! And we re trying to come up with the next major improvement in photography! Who the heck are you talking to? (Ignoring his colleague) What would you say is the biggest problem with using today s modern cameras? Well, focusing manually is a pain, but it ll be at least another 35 years before that problem is solved. So, I d have to say the biggest problem is trying to figure out what exposure settings to use. You said it, brother! Taking the picture might only occupy a fraction of a second, but determining the proper exposure is a genuine pain! Consider this list of steps needed just to take one picture using today s technology: 1) Carry the exposure meter and place it directly in front of the subject. 2) Take an incident light reading, measuring the amount of light falling onto the subject. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

10 Really Cool Advanced Functions 173 Engineer #2: Engineer #1: Engineer #2: Engineer #1: Engineer #2: Engineer #1: Engineer #2: 3) Decide which combination of f/stop and shutter speed to use (many different combinations will work) 4) Go back to your camera and manually set the f/stop and shutter speed according to what the handheld light meter recommends. 5) Shoot away! That does sound like a royal pain! Especially the part about having to walk all the way to your subject in order to measure the incident light falling upon it. Of course, you only have to go through this process once, right? Unless the light on your subject changes, the initial settings should be good for the whole shooting session! That s not necessarily true for example, when you re shooting sports, animals, documentaries, or any other setting where the light changes quickly. Plus, there are many times when you just can t walk up to your subject and measure the light hitting it. Because of these drawbacks, we need to come up with a much faster method that can actually measure the light hitting the subject by remote control. But how? (After careful consideration) Well, I have an idea. But I know you won t like it. Just because all of your past ideas have been stupid doesn t mean I won t like this one! What is it? Promise you won t yell at me? (Crossing his fingers) I promise!

11 174 Chapter 5 Engineer #1: Engineer #2 Engineer #1: Okay, here it is Instead of measuring the incident light that s falling upon the subject, why not measure the light that s reflected off of the subject and back into the camera? (after pondering this carefully): That s the stupidest idea I ve ever heard! For starters, the amount of light reflected back will be all over the map! What if the subject is wearing a white shirt that will reflect back MUCH MORE light than if he were wearing a black outfit! It s a completely unreliable way to measure the light falling onto the subject! Not so fast, quantum lips! While I agree that it won t be nearly as accurate as measuring the incident light by hand, I m willing to bet a month s salary that the average subject (with its wide range of colors and brightnesses) will, on average, reflect pretty much the same amount of light, which we can then use to infer the amount light falling onto the subject, which we can then use to calculate proper exposure. So if your subject isn t mostly black or mostly white, the camera will indeed be able to make the right exposure recommendation under the vast majority of snapshot conditions! Engineer #2: You re insane! You re talking about replacing a highly accurate method of determining exposure with a wildly inaccurate one, all in the name of convenience! Gary will have to write another book just to explain to people how the system works and when it will fail (and hence when to overexpose and underexpose)! Engineer #1: Engineer #2: Hey, bro it won t be the first time in history that the inferior solution became the popular option of choice! I still say you re nuts! Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

12 Really Cool Advanced Functions 175 Engineer #1: Okay, let s find out Let s go examine thousands of common snapshots and see if, on average, the subjects do indeed possess a common reflectivity! And so our protagonists did just that and returned a week later with their results. Engineer #1: Engineer #2: Engineer #1: Engineer #2: Engineer #1: Engineer #2: Well, here we are, one week later, to compare our results! Why do you always have to set the scene verbally? So what did you find? Well, I went through thousands of standard snapshot-like images, and measured the reflectivity of the subjects. And I did indeed discover that, when you average everything together, the average subject reflects about 18% of the light back to the camera. Ah HA! And I came to the exact same conclusion! So, when we re designing the in-camera light meter, if we take the average of all the light that is reflected back to the camera, and set the f/stop and shutter speed to make that average reflection look like 18% grey, then there s a high probability that the image will be exposed correctly! Well, you re correct, although I still think you re an idiot! Now if you ll excuse me, I m late for a meeting to discuss whether the film industry should move away from the 3-stripe Technicolor process toward something inferior like Ektachrome.. (Note: The above made-up conversation probably occurred in Japanese. The reference to 3-stripe Technicolor was another historical example of a superior technology (one of the best color film technologies ever the Wizard of Oz and every Danny Kaye film ever

13 176 Chapter 5 made was shot in 3-stripe Technicolor) being replaced by a poorer one (Ektachrome, whose color deteriorated quickly but was considerably cheaper.)) And so this basic principle of assuming that the average of all scenes should be rendered as 18% grey perpetuates to this day. And although it s far from perfect (i.e., a bride with a white dress will tend to look 18% grayish instead of white, and a groom s black tux will often look 18% grey instead of darker), on average most point-and-shooters have been very happy with its decisions. People in-the-know (and readers of this book) tend to be happy making the occasional override using their Exposure Compensation function when necessary, in exchange for the convenience of NOT having to use the handheld exposure meters. Multi-Segment and Center-weighted Metering Since the advent of the 18% grey principle, there have been many attempts to improve upon the accuracy of the built-in exposure meter for scenes that are not average, such as subjects that are backlit. Usually these entail dividing the picture into smaller areas (Nikon uses 5; Canon uses 35, Minolta used 14, Sony uses 40) and analyzing each of these areas in terms of absolute light measurement (with an emphasis on what s behind the focus point) and comparing the values against each other and against a tiny in-camera database of standard compositions with rules like When the metering pattern looks like this pattern, Figure 5-5: The old Centerweighted metering pattern (top) and the modern Multi-Segment metering pattern (bottom). While Multi-Segment Metering has a great track record for choosing a proper exposure, the Center weighted method is still offered for the oldtimers who don t want to 2 nd -guess their camera s decisions. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

14 Really Cool Advanced Functions 177 overexpose by ½ a stop; and when the pattern looks like this other pattern, then underexpose by 0.75 stops. This technique of dividing the frame and evaluating the exposure is commonly known as Matrix Metering (Nikon terminology) or Evaluative Metering (Canon terminology), or Multi-Segment Metering (Sony). It tends to succeed in getting the right exposure under a wider set of circumstances than the standard, average 18% grey method. Old professionals disliked Multi-segment metering at first, because they had invested a lot of time understanding their 18% exposure meters and knowing intuitively when they will make bad recommendations and when (and how much) to override them. In their mind, the problem with Multisegment metering (and this was quite relevant in the days of shooting slides) is that you can t possibly know how much to set your exposure compensation to since you don t know how the camera s meter is choosing to handle a difficult, non-average composition. ( Should I overexpose this picture of a bride in her white dress, or did the Evaluative metering take that into account already? ) And so, for these folks, camera manufacturers left the old metering system in the camera as a selectable option. It is called Center-weighted metering because the camera pays more attention to the reflected light readings from the center more than the light appearing at the corners. And aside from that slight emphasis, it made its exposure calculations based on the 18% rule, just like the cameras of the 1960 s. With the advent of digital, you re not working blind anymore, plus the Multi-Segment metering algorithms have a great track record of making the right choices in a wider set of circumstances. That s why I keep my camera set to Multi-Segment metering all the time. And when the composition is really non-average, like a predominantly dark scene, I temporarily switch to either Spot metering (explained in the next section) or manual exposure.

15 178 Chapter 5 Figure 5-6: The Partial Metering sensitivity pattern. Spot Metering The third metering mode is called Spot Metering. It only looks at the very center of the viewfinder when it determines the proper exposure, and ignores everything outside of that circle. Under what circumstances would Spot Metering be useful? I give a useful example of it in the next section. How Do You Switch Between These Three T Metering Modes? There s a conveniently-placed thumb-actuated ring surrounding the AEL button (see Figure 5-7) which has three positions: (Multi-segment metering), (Center weighted), and (Spot) metering. (The function of the AEL button is covered in the next section.). Figure 5-7: The Metering Mode switch surrounds the AEL button. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

16 Really Cool Advanced Functions 179 Spot Metering and Exposure Lock Okay, recall that in Chapter 2 we discussed focus lock the ability to tell the camera to focus on this and then don t try to focus again until the next shot. Another kind of lock that the A700 can perform is Exposure Lock. Exposure Lock will take note of a certain exposure, then remember that f/stop and shutter speed combination while you recompose. It turns out that you can combine Exposure Lock with Spot Metering to get perfect results quickly in less-than-perfect lighting situations. Want an example? Check out the difficult-to-expose image in Figure 5-8: If you had simply pointed your camera at this scene and snapped the picture, the camera would have said, Whoa! There s waaaaaay too much light here! and would have adjusted the exposure so that the white curtain looked a 18% grey (because the camera has no idea that the curtain is actually white!!), and the people would be nothing more than silhouettes (if they were visible at all). With Exposure Lock (which is sometimes called AE Lock or just AEL), you tell the camera, THIS is my subject, and I want you to meter for THIS, and ignore everything else. This brings us to Figure 5-8: A difficult-to-expose image.

17 180 Chapter 5 Basic Exposure Lock the AEL button How do you lock the exposure? Figure 5-7 (2 pages back) shows the Auto Exposure Lock (AEL) button. When you press and hold it, it remembers the f/stop and shutter speed combination of the scene you were looking at for as long as you hold the button in. If you were then to point the camera to some differently-illuminated object (like the sun as an extreme example (which is NOT recommended!!!)), the memorized f/stop and shutter speed would be what you d get when the shutter release was tripped. VERY USEFUL TIP: I have a hard time holding that little AEL button in for long periods of time, so I set MENU CUSTOM MENU 2 AEL button AE Toggle. This way, I press it once to lock the exposure, and then press it again to go back to live metering. Note that there are TWO AE Toggle settings. The bottom one (with the SPOT metering icon) programs the AEL button to switch to spot metering mode when you press it, and have it automatically default to Multi-Segment metering mode the rest of the time. (Push one button, invoke two functions. Handy!) I keep this as part of my default settings, as it lets me work very quickly for images like Figure 5-9 on the next page. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

18 Really Cool Advanced Functions 181 Figure 5-9: A complex lighting situation handled in 0.5 seconds thanks to the combination of AEL and spot metering. Spot Metering to the rescue! But for shooting a difficult white picture like Figure 5-8 above, the AEL function isn t always enough. While the AEL button remembers the exposure recommendation for the entire frame, I want to tell the camera, Only pay attention to this little tiny part of the picture (the two people in the corner) when you re assessing the proper exposure, and ignore that huge white background! This is where Spot Metering comes in handy. Recall that Spot Metering mode only pays attention to the light it sees in the center circle of the viewfinder, and ignores everything else when making its exposure recommendation. There are two ways to enter spot metering mode on the A700. The easiest and preferable method is to press the AEL button (after having set MENU CUSTOM MENU 2 AEL button AE Toggle) this instantly locks the exposure reading for the center circle of the viewfinder, allowing you to quickly recompose and then shoot. The 2 nd way is to turn Spot Metering on all the time by using the function dial (Figure 5-7) (a few pages back).

19 182 Chapter 5 So, to take the picture in Figure 5-8, all I had to do was: 1. Put the camera into Spot Meter mode. 2. Position the small circle in the viewfinder to overlap the two people in the corner (the subject). 3. Press the AEL button to lock the exposure. 4. Focus lock on the two people in the corner 5. Recompose the image so that the subjects are now in the lower-right-hand corner, and shoot. I think you ll agree that the impact of the image was worth the extra trouble of spot metering just for the subjects. And, because of the design of the camera s control, using spot metering wasn t all that much trouble! TIP: Notice that in the above procedure, locking exposure and locking focus were two separate operations. Wouldn t life be swell if they could be combined if you just put your subject in the center, focus-lock, and have the camera also meter for what is (presumably) your subject? Well, ta da! It can! Whenever the metering mode is set to Multi-Segment Metering, pressing the shutter release button halfway locks both the focus AND the exposure. Such a setting can be used to easily shoot in difficult lighting, like the image in Figure 5-9. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

20 Really Cool Advanced Functions 183 A Brief Recap Okay, so this might have been a little confusing, so let me quickly review these very important interrelated functions: Metering Types AEL Types Multi-Segment Metering - The most sophisticated takes several areas of the picture into account when making an exposure recommendation. (Recommended Setting). Spot Metering Only pays attention to the center circle of the viewfinder when making an exposure recommendation. Useful for tricky situations where you want to tell the camera Meter only for THIS and ignore everything else! Center-Weighted.- It s there for older photographers. Multi-segment tends to produce better results in difficult light. Auto Exposure Lock locks onto the current exposure reading (not focus!) and doesn t change it even if the light or the subject change. There are 4 modes which can be changed via MENU CUSTOM MENU 2 AEL button [Pick One]: AE Hold remembers the current exposure recommendation for as long as you hold that little button down. AE Toggle remembers the current exposure recommendation until you push the AEL button again. AE Hold - Same as AE hold, except that it only takes the viewfinder s center circle into account when remembering the

21 184 Chapter 5 exposure. AE Toggle Same as AE Toggle, except that it only takes the viewfinder s center circle into account when remembering the exposure. (Recommended Setting) Best combination If you adhere to the recommended settings above (Multi-segment and [Spot] AE Toggle), you can have the best of both worlds and be able to switch VERY QUICKLY between the two: Multi-Segment metering will be in use most of the time Pressing the AEL button instantly changes to SPOT metering mode for difficult situations. (Pressing AEL again goes back to Multi-Segment metering.) Very handy! Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

22 Really Cool Advanced Functions 185 Super SteadyShot In Chapter 1, it was revealed that the Super SteadyShot feature sets the Sony A700 apart from most other DSLRs. When shooting at telephoto settings in low light, it will deliver sharp pictures up to three stops slower (Sony s press release says up to 4 stops slower) than what a conventional camera can deliver. This means you can shoot at telephoto in lower light and still get sharp pictures as compared to most other cameras. The way it works is very innovative: motion sensors in the camera s body can sense certain kinds of acceleration in the X and Y directions (or more accurately, Pitch and Yaw directions) and then move the image sensor by an equal and opposite amount, in real time, to compensate. But, as also mentioned in Chapter 1, having Super SteadyShot does NOT mean that you never need a tripod, or that your pictures will never turn out blurry. It will help you out only in borderline situations, like the two examples of Figure In fact, the camera tells you when the feature will be most effective using the LED scale on the Figure 5-10: Super SteadyShot can help handheld shots in low light. The top image is with SSS off; the bottom image is with it on.

23 186 Chapter 5 lower-right-hand-corner of the viewfinder. In use, as you look through the viewfinder to focus and compose your image, the green LEDs on the right-hand corner (Figure 5-11) will all glow in proportion to how shaky the camera is at the time the more LEDs, the shakier your hands presumably are. (Using long lenses, like 200mm and greater, magnifies any shakiness your hands naturally have, causing the number of LEDs to increase.) The shakiness display is provided for you to give you the opportunity to dampen the camera perhaps hold it differently, or re-position your arms so they won t shake so much as well as give the camera a chance to adjust to the shakiness. If you can get the number of LEDs down to just one or two bars, the Super SteadyShot feature will have a much, much better chance of being effective. In my experience, unless you are a mime, when you constantly see more than 4 LEDs in the viewfinder, it s time to turn Super SteadyShot OFF and break out your tripod. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

24 Really Cool Advanced Functions 187 Figure 5-11: The Super SteadyShot scale in the lower-right-hand corner of the viewfinder shows you how shaky your hands are, and therefore how hard the system will have to work. For best results, wait a few moments until the number of bars is reduced (showing how the system adapts) before shooting. TIP: The owner s manual says that Super SteadyShot should be turned off when the camera is mounted on a tripod. This is because control systems are inherently imperfect, and if there is no movement to counteract, then the actuators will likely react to some phantom noise coming from the pitch and yaw sensors, and otherwise move the sensor at times when it shouldn t. This rule only applies to rock-solid, really good tripods, though. If you happen to own a cheapie tripod and use it with the center column all the way up and it s a windy day, your image might just benefit a little by having it on. To be safe, try it both ways.

25 188 Chapter 5 TIP: While Super SteadyShot is a great stabilization aid for handheld shots, you can increase the chances of a sharp picture under borderline conditions even further by shooting in Continuous Advance mode, and take a sequence of 3-5 shots. Just hold down the shutter release button and remain as steady as possible. With this technique, both you and the Super SteadyShot mechanism will have a little more chance to adapt. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

26 Really Cool Advanced Functions 189 White Balance Have you ever taken a picture indoors at night using a film camera (without a flash), and were surprised to see your results come out looking a little yellowish? Or have you ever taken pictures under a fluorescent light, only to step back in horror when the pictures turned out sort of a ghoulish green? If so, you inadvertently witnessed evidence that all artificial light is NOT the same! It turns out that, while sunlight contains all seven colors of the rainbow, incandescent light (that which comes from light bulbs) and fluorescent light radiate only 2 or 3 colors out of the spectrum. Our brains do a wonderful job of adjusting to this different light, but alas, one of the biggest drawbacks of film is that it cannot automatically correct for indoor light. The result is often strangely colored snapshots. This is where digital cameras are a huge improvement they have the ability to sense what kind of light they are shooting under, and correct for it automatically! Every pro in the world salivated over this feature when digital cameras started to appear. The ability for the camera to adjust to any kind of indoor light is called White Balance it means that if you take a picture of a white wall, it will come out looking white even though it is being illuminated by something other than pure white light. Figure 5-12: White Balance Examples. Photos taken under normal light bulbs can turn out yellow-orangish, but the proper white balance setting can make it look the way we remember seeing it.

27 190 Chapter 5 Auto White Balance and Pre-Set White Balance The A700 has the ability to look at a scene and figure out what kind of light is being used, and to adjust for it automatically a feature called Auto White Balance. This feature is turned on by default, and under the vast majority of circumstances it will make good decisions and you will never have to worry about it. BUT, just as no camera can always guess what exposure is right for the kind of picture you want to take, no camera can guess the correct White Balance 100% of the time. Sometimes there is a mixture of incandescent (yellowish) and fluorescent (greenish) light. Or, what if you re taking a picture of a yellowish wall; how can the camera know that the color is due to the wall and not the kind of light that s illuminating it? It is for tricky situations like these that the A700 allows you to specify what kind of light you re shooting under. To choose a pre-set white balance, press the WB button (Figure 5-13) and use the Multi- Selector s UP and DOWN to select from one of the following options (detailed below). Figure 5-13: The White Balance button and its associated screen. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

28 Really Cool Advanced Functions 191 The Pre-set White Balance functions are: Daylight the sun is shining, the grass is green, and your subject is being illuminated by all seven colors of the rainbow (i.e., white light). This White Balance setting is designed to render images correctly under this full spectrum sunlight. Shade the light in open shade is kind of like light on a cloudy day, but even bluer. (You d never guess this by just looking at a shady spot, but if you took a scientific instrument which measured the color of the light in open shade, you d see the difference!) The Shade setting provides even more yellow to the image than does the Cloudy setting, plus some magenta. (See Figure 5-14.) Cloudy although it s not artificial light, a cloudy day tends to be just a tiny bit bluer than a full sunshiny day. This setting adds just a touch of yellow to the picture to compensate. Tungsten another word for Incandescent (which in turn is another word for light bulb ). Incandescent bulbs give light that is predominantly yellow-orange. Setting the camera to Tungsten mode lends a compensating bluish cast to the image. Fluorescent the long, tubular lights have a tendency to look green to a camera. This setting gives the image a compensating magenta cast. Figure 5-14: An open-shade portrait taking using the Daylight setting (left) and the Shade setting (right).

29 192 Chapter 5 Flash -- the camera s electronic flash is designed to send out all seven colors of the rainbow, just as daylight does. Setting the White Balance to Flash is the same as setting it to Daylight NO color compensation takes place. Tweaking the Pre-Set White Balance When choosing a pre-set white balance as described above, the A700 gives you the opportunity to tweak the amount of warmth (or lack of it) of each setting by moving the Multi- Selector LEFT and RIGHT after making your selection (Figure 5-15). This essentially goes from a little bluer (-3) to a little redder (+3). (-2 to +4 for the florescent setting.) Although this feature might appeal to those who are obsessed with accurate color, there are actually two much better tools for color accuracy within the A700: the absolute color temperature setting, or the custom white balance, both of which are described on pages 195 and 193, respectively. Figure 5-16 shows an example using the various settings for Tungsten balance. Figure 5-15: You can tweak the Pre-set White Balance settings by moving the Multi-Selector LEFT or RIGHT when choosing a pre-set. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

30 Really Cool Advanced Functions Figure 5-16: Examples of tweaking the pre-set white balance. This shows 3 of the Tungsten Pre-set hues, starting from -3 (left, bluish) to neutral (center) to +3 (right, reddish). The correct value very much depends on the kind of light source you use. Custom White Balance Custom White Balance is the control you use when you have a non-standard lighting source (such as halogen), or a mix of white, incandescent, fluorescent, ultraviolet, and you-name-it type of lights illuminating your subject. Or when you re under fluorescent lights that are a non-standard shade of green, or under a soft-white bulb which is a non-standard shade of yellow. The way Custom White Balance works is pretty ingenious: you aim the camera at a nearby white object (that is lit with the same light that is falling on your subject), preferably a wall or a piece of white paper. The camera can measure which of the rainbow colors it sees, and then it can compensate automatically for the rainbow colors it doesn t see. It will make the right choice every time. To Use Custom White Balance

31 194 Chapter 5 1. On the White Balance screen, go down to the last option as shown in Figure 5-17a, and choose the rightmost option, Setup. The screen in Figure 5-17b appears. 2. Do as the screen says! Fill the viewfinder s center circle with your white surface and press the shutter release button. 3. Use the multi-selector s LEFT and RIGHT to choose one of three possible Custom White Balance Memory settings, and then press the center button to confirm. Notice that the screen in Figure 5-17c actually gives you the values of the correction it is about to store ( 2900K M4 ), and also shows you the values that you are about to overwrite ( 5500K ) on the screen. From then on, the corrections you just set will be employed in all future images (until you choose a new value, of course!) If you want to recall a previously-stored white balance setting, just return to the Custom White Balance menu (Figure 5-17), select and choose from Custom 1, Custom 2, and Custom 3 and press the center button to select it. Figure 5-17: The Custom White Balance Control and its associated screens. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

32 Really Cool Advanced Functions 195 The Color Temperature setting The next-to-the-last option on the White Balance menu (Figure 5-18) is designed for professionals who prefer to work in terms of exact color temperature instead of vague terms like cloudy or shade. Professionals measure the whiteness of their light by using Color Temperature readings, measured in K (Kelvin). For example, an incandescent bulb (yellowish) registers on color temperature light meters as 3400K, whereas daylight is 5500K. And the A700 now allows you to tweak that temperature a little bit by specifying a Color Filter value, anywhere from G9 (greenish) to M9 (magentaish). Chances are, if you had to read this paragraph, you re not in need of this feature. (I find it faster and easier to use the Custom White Balance function described on the previous page.) Figure 5-18: Absolute color temperature can be dialed in via the Color Temperature and Color Filter screen.

33 196 Chapter 5 Flash, Fill Flash, and Wireless Flash Why are there so many flash modes? The short answer is because with the extra modes, your flash pictures can look more natural. There are no less than EIGHT different modes for the flash (nine modes if you count flash exposure compensation). In my mind, the most useful flash mode is Fill Flash, which can be invoked via MENU RECORDING MENU 2 Flash mode Fill-flash (Figure 5-20). This tells the camera s flash to behave as the all-purpose, built-in flash that we ve come to expect from point-and- Figure 5-19: Portrait with and without fill Figure 5-20: Selecting Fill Flash flash. These shots were taken about 5 from the Recording menu. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary seconds L. Friedman. apart, All rights demonstrating reserved. that using flash also has an effect on ambient exposure.

34 Really Cool Advanced Functions 197 shoot cameras. Let s discuss the differences between the eight flash modes in detail, in the order that they are presented to you in the A700 s Recording menus 1 and 2. 1) ) and 2) ) Auto Flash and Fill Flash The first option is Auto Flash, which is so close to Fill Flash (the 2 nd option) that we will discuss them both in the same section. Auto Flash is what all point-and-shoot cameras use. Unbeknownst to you, however, the camera actually uses the flash very differently in this mode, depending on how much light there is in the scene. Normally, the camera makes the assumption that the flash (either the built-in pop-up flash or a larger flash mounted on the hot shoe) will be providing the only source of light. If you are shooting a dance party in a darkened room this is not a bad assumption and the images will come out well-exposed. But, when the majority of the subject s illumination comes from another source (usually the sun), then the flash gives only a Figure 5-21: Flash can also be used to better capture action and to give your subjects better illumination. (Birds are usually not this well lit!).

35 198 Chapter 5 tiny burst of light, just enough to lighten the shadows a little bit (see Figure 5-19). The A700 automatically switches between these two modes when in AutoFlash and Fill-Flash mode. The best time to use it is when your subject is too dark (even if it s bright outside!) For example, in Figure 5-19 earlier, the light was poor and the subject (the face of the fisherman) was in shade, under his hat. Another fill-flash example can be found in Chapter 6. What s the difference between Auto Flash and Fill Flash, then? One difference only: When in Auto Flash mode, even when the flash is up it will only fire when the camera thinks it s necessary; whereas when Fill Flash is selected the camera will ALWAYS fire the flash. (Hence Autoflash was designed with a point-and-shoot mentality in mind perfect when using AUTO exposure mode!) Fill Flash is the preferred mode because, when you re shooting up close and want to lighten the shadows in your subject s face, you don t want your camera second-guessing you whether to fire the flash or not. TIP: AutoFlash is NOT selectable from P, A, S, or M modes. Instead, use Fill Flash and then just pop the flash up whenever you want it to fire. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

36 Really Cool Advanced Functions 199 Flash Exposure Compensation Just as you can control how light or dark a picture is by adjusting how much light enters the camera (+/- control), you can also control how much illumination can come from the flash via the Flash Compensation screen (Figure 5-22). I have found that by using a flash exposure compensation value of 1.7 (that is, 1.7 stops Figure 5-22: The flash compensation screen. less than normal), you can add just a touch of light to your subject to help fill in the shadows without having it look as if you used a flash. (This is only when shooting outdoors in full daylight, of course. When shooting indoors where the flash will act as the primary source of light, you ll want to set flash compensation back to +0 (no change) for the best exposures.) The flash compensation screen is sort of buried in the menus: MENU RECORDING MENU 2 Flash compens. [choose a value between -3 and +3]. (Don t forget to reset it to 0 after you re done!) Since I access it so often, I have found it convenient to assign this function to the C (Custom) button on the back of the camera: MENU RECORDING MENU 1 Custom button Flash compens.

37 200 Chapter 5 Figure 5-23: It doesn t have to look like you used a flash. Comparison of Auto Flash (left), and No Flash (center). Some people feel that the best result can be had by placing the flash on Fill Flash and setting Flash Compensation to 1.7 stops, as in the right picture. TIP: Sometimes, even when the flash is set to Fill Flash, the image can still look as if a flash had been used. (See examples in Figure 5-23.) If the Fill Flash sometimes goes a little too far and tries to be the main source of illumination, you can correct for it beautifully by using the flash exposure compensation. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

38 Really Cool Advanced Functions 201 3) ) Rear Sync Flash Rear Sync is an indispensable tool for certain kinds of shots where ambient light (with longish shutter speeds) is combined with flash. The classic image is a person running in a marathon, with a ghost trail behind them. In order to explain what it does, let me first explain the mechanics of taking a flash picture with long shutter speeds: A camera s shutter is comprised of two pieces (often called curtains ): The one that covers the sensor before exposure, and a 2 nd one that moves in and covers the sensor again after exposure. During normal flash photography, the first ( front ) shutter curtain moves away, exposing the sensor; the flash fires, and then the second ( rear ) shutter curtain closes, cutting off all light to the sensor. Normally, all of this Figure 5-24: Examples of Normal (left) and Rear (right) Flash Sync happens within 1/125 th of a second or so. But, what if you kept the shutter open for several seconds and The idea is that you can control leading or trailing light when you re using both long shutter speeds (ambient) and flash on a moving subject. Rear sync (right) allows the pedestrian s trail to show up behind him, whereas with normal settings (left) the trail appears in front of him! Who wants that? For this shot, the shutter speed was set to 1.5 seconds to capture the motion, and the flash still went off to freeze the subject hence we have both a blur and a frozen subject all in the same shot.

39 202 Chapter 5 you wanted to use the flash? When should the flash fire at the beginning of the exposure (coinciding with the front shutter curtain), or at the end, coinciding with the rear curtain? Most cameras will only fire the flash at the beginning of the exposure. The Rear-Sync function tells the camera to select the second option: fire the flash near the end of the exposure, at a time when the rear shutter curtain on a film-based camera would close. When would you want to do this? See Figure You can invoke Rear Sync Flash via the Flash Function Dial (See Figure 5-25). 4) ) Wireless Flash Figure 5-25: Invoking the Rear Sync function. Wireless Mode was designed around this simple concept: flash pictures can often look much more dramatic and professional if the light is coming from someplace OTHER than where the camera is. In the old days, having a flash work properly while off the camera involved a lot of hocus-pocus and technical mumbo-jumbo. In the early 1990s, Minolta developed a brilliant system where the flash could be removed from the camera and placed elsewhere in the room, pointing toward your subject, and firing automatically as if it were still attached to the top of your camera!! (See Figure 5-26.) Combined with the Super SteadyShot feature and Dynamic Range Optimization, the Wireless Flash feature makes your Sony camera quite a unique bird in the vast flock of look-alike digital camera competitors. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

40 Really Cool Advanced Functions 203 How does it work? When in Wireless mode (Figure 5-27), the built-in flash doesn t even attempt to illuminate the subject. Instead, it sends out tiny little bursts of light of negligible brightness kind of like a Morse code to tell other flashes (which are sitting off-camera), when to turn on and off. This is such an important and useful feature that I have actually dedicated an entire chapter to this subject. Please see Chapter 7 to understand the realm of possibilities that this innovation enables you (and how to use it). Figure 5-26: Sample of Wireless Flash image. With the flash offcamera, you can produce shadows giving dramatic results! Figure 5-27: Invoking the Wireless Flash function.

41 204 Chapter 5 5) and 6) ADI and Pre-Flash TTL These two are very similar, so before I talk about the differences let s briefly discuss how the camera decides on the amount of light to output for each shot it takes. Once the camera has focused on the subject and the shutter release button has been pressed, the camera s flash first outputs a very low-level pre-flash and then measures how much light bounces off the subject and back to the camera. The camera uses this measurement to calculate the proper amount of light to output, and then a fraction of a second later, it dispenses just the right amount of light, based on the measurements of the pre-flash. Since the pre-flash light must pass through the lens before it can be measured, this method is referred to as TTL (for Through The Lens ). The great advantage of TTL is that it will calculate the right exposure regardless of whether you have filters in front of the lens, or you are zoomed in all the way (changing the maximum f/stop of the lens), or you are bouncing the flash off the ceiling. And for many years, TTL was the best way to do automatic flash in the 35mm film camera world. (You can invoke TTL mode by MENU RECORDING MODE 2 Flash Control Pre-Flash TTL.) TTL will do an outstanding job of giving you perfectly-exposed pictures in all situations EXCEPT those where the flash happens to bounce off a Figure 5-28: ADI at work. ADI helps to expose the subject properly in situations where the background is too reflective. mirror or window in the background. In cases like this, the camera measures the light that is bouncing back off of the mirror, and says, Whoa!! That s WAY too much light coming in! I d better put out Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

42 Really Cool Advanced Functions 205 much less light in order for me to expose this scene correctly! Therefore, in situations where you were using a flash and a window or mirror was in the background, the subject would invariably come out underexposed. This is why ADI (Advanced Distance Integration) was invented. ADI works exactly like TTL, except it also takes the distance the lens is focused at into account when calculating the flash exposure. By incorporating the distance information into the intensity-calculating algorithm, you can have the best of both worlds the accuracy of TTL without its Achilles heel. (See examples in Figure 5-28 and Figure 5-30.) In order for ADI to work, however, you must use one of the newer Figure 5-29: ADI and Pre- Flash TTL can be invoked from Recording Menu 2. breed of autofocus lenses made after the year 2000 that have the D (Distance Encoding) designation. Mounting an older lens onto the camera will automatically default the flash mode to Pre-flash TTL. Figure 5-30: ADI at work, Part II. The left was shot using TTL; the right using ADI. (I will admit that most people should never shoot framed items under glass using a direct, onboard flash but it sure does show off what the feature does!

43 206 Chapter 5 7) Manual Flash Mode Manual flash mode was designed for special situations like shooting in a studio. It outputs only a fixed burst of light in increments of FULL power, ½, ¼, 1/8, and 1/16 th power. It can be used in the creation of moody, underexposed subjects; or you can set it to 1/16 th power to Figure 5-31: Manual Flash can dispense a fixed, pre-set amount trigger a 3 rd -party slave flash in of light no automatic flash exposure takes place. a studio. (A slave flash is designed to fire once it sees the flash from a camera, and is a feature in some professional flash units. The drawback of using studio flashes is that there is NO auto flash exposure capability you set their light output once (using a handheld flash meter) and that s it. The Minolta flashes use the more sophisticated Wireless mode which provides automatic exposure. To invoke Manual mode: MENU RECORDING MENU 2 FLASH CONTROL Manual flash. To change the intensity of the flash burst while in Manual mode, go to MENU RECORDING MENU 2 Power ratio [Choose from 1/16, 1/8, ¼, ½, or 1/1 (= FULL power)], then press the center button of the Multi-Selector to enter the setting. Notice that this menu setting ONLY applies to the camera s pop-up flash. To get Manual mode on an accessory flash (that you mount to the top of the camera), you have to put the camera into M (Manual) Exposure mode and then put the flash into manual output mode separately. (Chapter 7 deals with this issue ) Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

44 Really Cool Advanced Functions 207 8) ) Red-Eye Reduction Mode The last flash mode is for slightly abnormal situations. For example, there is nothing more unnatural than red-eye in flash pictures. As you probably know, red-eye often occurs when the flash sits too close to the camera lens part of the light goes right to the subject s retina and then bounces right off again, like it was a mirror, back to the camera lens. But because the retina is not white (it is, in fact, red for humans, and a greenish white for many animals), the color of the reflection back to the camera is red, not the white of the flash that illuminated it. This is the cause of the dreaded red eye effect, and a nice sample of it appears in Figure There are two ways to fix red-eye. One way is to move the flash so it s not so close to the lens. This can be accomplished by using an Figure 5-32: The Dreaded red-eye!l This image was taken with a competitor s camera with the red-eye reduction feature turned off. (Ahhh I simply must return to Mars someday!) accessory flash, either a Sony HVL-56AM or HVL-36AM, or a Minolta 3600HS-D or 5600HS-D (See Figure 5-33) mounted in the hot shoe on top of the camera. When in place, the distance from the flash to the lens is large enough to ensure that the light from the flash will bounce out of the eye at a different angle (if at all), eliminating red-eye altogether. (That is probably the best strategy for getting rid of redeye not only does it solve the problem, it also allows you to shoot a greater distance away because the

45 208 Chapter 5 accessory flash can output more light.) The drawback to this approach, of course, is the added expense of a flash and that you need to carry it with you everywhere you go. The other way to vanquish red-eye is to fool the eye into thinking that it s bright outside. When it s bright outside (or when the brain thinks it is), then the eye s pupil closes down, leaving a much smaller opening for the light from the flash to come in (hence, a smaller opening for the reflection to get out of, as well). This is the principle behind Red-Eye reduction the built-in flash sends out a few pre-flashes which your nervous system responds to and very quickly closes the pupil, then the final flash illuminates the picture. To activate Red-Eye Reduction mode, go to MENU ON. Figure 5-33: The Sony Accessory flashes HVL-36AM and HVL-56AM, which are identical to the Minolta Flashes 3600HS-D and 5600HS-D. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved. CUSTOM MENU 3 Red eye reduc. The drawback of Red-Eye Reduction mode is that it takes a little longer to shoot your picture. The flash must go off no less than FOUR times before the image is captured, and the whole process takes almost a half second. Why four times, you ask? 1) The first (and brightest) pulse is the pre-flash - the camera sends out a test flash burst of a known amount of light, and measures the amount of light reflected back into the camera. 2) The second through fourth are smaller bursts designed to have your pupil react and close down. 3) The final large flash burst illuminates the subject while the picture is taken. Turning Red-Eye Reduction OFF reduces this process to only two flashes (steps 1 and 3) (although to you they may look like one).

46 Really Cool Advanced Functions 209 Drive modes The term Drive harkens back to the days of film cameras and motor drive, a motor that attached to the bottom of the camera and automatically advanced the film. In the 1960s it was a favorite for sports photographers. Fortunately, your Sony DSLR has similar features for rapidly capturing a sequence of images. Figure 5-34: The drive mode button and screen. To select the drive mode on the A700, press the Drive Mode button (Figure 5-34) which displays the drive mode screen. You can then use the UP and DOWN of the Multi-Selector (or the front control dial) to select from the following options: In some cases, once you choose a drive mode you can tweak its characteristics by using the LEFT and RIGHT Multi-Selector positions. The various modes are described below. Single-Shot Shot Advance This is the most basic mode, which works like a point-and-shoot does. Single Shot will take only one picture, no matter how long your finger stays on the shutter release button.

47 210 Chapter 5 Continuous Advance You can think of continuous advance as a modern-day equivalent of a motor drive if you hold the shutter release button down, the camera will continue to take picture after picture after picture as fast as it can until the memory card is full. Continuous Advance mode will capture images as fast as 5 pictures per second for as long as there is room in the camera s memory card. (Well, that s not entirely true If you re shooting in RAW mode (Chapter 8), it will take a few images fast before having to pause to dump its buffer onto the memory card, depending upon the speed of your memory card. Shooting with most DRO modes enabled will slow it down too.) If autofocus is enabled, the camera will autofocus before each image. When you select Continuous Advance, you can use the Multi-Selector s LEFT and RIGHT position to choose from either Hi (up to five frames per second), or Lo (up to 3 frames per second). A sports photographer can tell you that there will be times when shooting more slowly is more advantageous, and is in better keeping with the pace of activity. Self-Timer The self-timer (both the 10-second and 2-second varieties) were covered earlier in Chapter 2, page 82. Bracketing In a hurry? No time to futz around with making sure the exposure is dead-on accurate in a tricky lighting situation? Have no fear! The Bracketing function was designed just for you! Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

48 Really Cool Advanced Functions 211 Figure 5-35: Exposure Bracketing Example. Automatic bracketing can help you make sure you have the best exposure when you don t have a lot of time. It is also very handy for High Dynamic Range (HDR) images (see text). The Bracketing function automatically takes a sequence of 3 or 5 shots whose exposure is tweaked by either 1/3 of a stop ( 0.3 EV ), ½ stop ( 0.5 EV ), or 2/3 of a stop ( 0.7 EV ). (A stop means twice as much light.) In the days of shooting slide film this was an important function, but in the era of digital (where you can examine the results immediately afterward) it s most useful only when you re in a hurry and don t have time to review your images for exposure accuracy. (See Figure 5-35.) While in bracketing mode, when you take three pictures in a row, the first will be exposed according to the camera s recommendation; the second will be underexposed by the amount chosen, and the third will be overexposed by the amount chosen. Taking five pictures does the same thing in the same order, except you are shooting two more images, whose exposure tweaking is a bit more extreme. Bracketing mode remains in effect until you turn it off. You ll notice that the A700 has TWO bracketing modes one labeled BRK S (Single) and the other labeled BRK C (Continuous). For the Single, you must depress the shutter release button three

49 212 Chapter 5 separate times in order to capture the three bracketed exposures. For Continuous, press and hold the shutter release button, and the camera will take three bracketed pictures as described above. So, to summarize, when choosing a bracketing mode you have three different parameters to specify: Single or Continuous 0.3, 0.5, or 0.7 EV bracketing (Note: Firmware Version 4 offers brackeing in 2-stop increments as well!) 3 frames or 5 frames And that is the reason so many different permutations appear to you as you select from the Bracketing mode menu (Figure 5-36). To choose among them, first use UP and DOWN to select either BRK-C or BRK-S, and then use LEFT and RIGHT to choose the icon containing the other two parameters. A word about the new feature in firmware Version 4: Sony has added the ability to do automatic Figure 5-36: So many permutations of the Bracketing function! Really, you are selecting the icon which specifies these three parameters: 1) Single or Continuous, 2) bracketing amount (0.3, 0.5, or 0.7), and number of frames to bracket (3 or 5). Version 4 adds 2.0EV3 to the BRK-C and BRK-S screens. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

50 Really Cool Advanced Functions 213 bracketing using a much greater range 3 pictures, each spaced two full stops apart in either Bracket- Single or Bracket-Continuous mode. Why is this useful? There is a kind of photography called High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging, which is a technique for taking a scene with extereme brights and extreme shadow areas and render them as looking normal, just like the eye sees them. (I talk more about this subject two sections from now.) With this kind of photography, you put the camera on a tripod and take three pictures, each two stops apart, and then you merge them on your computer once you get back home using special software. HDR photography is a large subject, and I talk about itmore in my upcoming Advanced Topics 2 e-booklet, which will be available in December, 2008 at

51 214 Chapter 5 Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

52 Really Cool Advanced Functions 215 White Balance Bracketing Just as it s tough to assess whether the exposure is perfect out in the field (driving the need for exposure bracketing), so too can you sometimes be unsure about the Auto White Balance setting. White Balance Bracketing will take ONE image and store it three different ways: Normal (the way the camera would normally shoot the image), a little on the blue side, and a little on the yellow side, as shown in Figure Figure 5-37: White Balance Bracketing Examples. Top row is Low bracketing (Normal blueish yellowish]; and the bottom row is High Bracketing. The difference is High bracketing will shift the color twice as much in either direction.

53 216 Chapter 5 Advanced Topics: The Histogram Display Brightness range, sensors,, and the human eye Have you ever seen something which looked really cool, only to take a picture of it and have it come out looking darker (much darker) and muddier than the way you remembered it? Why wouldn t the picture look exactly the way you remembered seeing it? It turns out that the answer to this question is far from easy. But the short answer is: cameras (film or digital) see light differently from the way the human eye and brain do. To understand this difference, have a look at the picture in Figure When I took this picture, the scene didn t look like this to the naked eye. I could see the skateboarders quite plainly, right down to the color of their clothes and the stickers on their skateboards. But film and digital cameras cannot see the same range of light as the human eye can. In the vast majority of cases you can either capture the sky, or the foreground, but not both, as illustrated in Figure Figure 5-38 Limited Brightness Range can lead to artistic images. You can create silhouettes on purpose by exposing for the sky (via AEL and Spot metering) and then recompose, focus, and shoot. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

54 Really Cool Advanced Functions 217 So for the skateboarding silhouette above, I chose to expose for the sky, intentionally leaving the subject to be rendered as a black outline. Figure 5-40 gives a good comparison of the range of sensitivity of the human eye, color negative film, and digital cameras. In the figure, a stop means a factor of two in light intensity. So when it says a digital sensor can sense a range of brightness of 8 stops, it means that the brightest part of the picture is no more than 2 8 = 256 times brighter than the darkest part of the picture. Put another way, if you were using the spot meter feature of the camera and Figure 5-39 A real-world example. Unlike the human eye, with digital cameras you can either capture the sky (left) or the subject (right), but not both. you were to measure the brightest and darkest parts of your scene, and the brightest part reads 1/1,000 th of a second, then the darkest part must read no less than ¼ of a second (8 stops away) for everything to be visible.

55 218 Chapter 5 Figure 5-40: The light-capturing ability of several different sensors. The 8 stops applies to.jpg images from the camera; RAW files can capture up to 10 stops. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

56 Really Cool Advanced Functions 219 This is a really, really important concept to understand. Your eye can see a greater brightness range than can film or digital. Film or digital can see a greater brightness range than the camera s LCD. This means when you look at a scene using the LCD, you re not seeing all the detail that the digital sensor can capture! In reality, you re seeing about 90% of the light range, and for the vast majority of shots, this is great and useful and wonderful. Once you understand the important concept of reduced brightness sensitivity range, it becomes easy to understand why Fill Flash is sometimes used to make the subject look good on film (or digital) even though they look perfectly good to the unaided eye. It also explains why the motion picture industry uses gigantic studio lights in their productions, only to have the scene look perfectly normal when you see it in the theatre. It is because for an image to look normal, the brightest part of your scene must be no more than 8 stops brighter than the darkest part of your scene. If it is more than 8 stops that is, if the brightest part of your picture is more than 8 stops brighter than the darkest part of your picture, the camera will not be able to capture it all, and some information will be lost perhaps areas in the darkest part will become deep black, or the lightest part will blow out and be so white that you can t make out any detail. In the previous silhouetted skateboarder image, the range of light in the scene was indeed greater than 8 stops, and the information in the darker parts (where the skateboarders were) was lost, resulting in the darker parts looking black. (So, sometimes the limited range of a sensor can be used for artistic purposes. But far more often it results in frustration because the camera was not able to capture what you saw.) In the days of film, such loss of information usually came as a surprise to the photographer after the developed film came back. But, at least with digital cameras you can get a good idea of whether or not the camera captured the brightest and darkest parts of your scene.

57 220 Chapter 5 Using the Histogram for a Fin iner Degree of Control So, all of the above was a prelude to the Histogram function. The histogram display simply shows you where the brightness in your image falls within the 8-stop range. It is useful when you are shooting subjects that are predominantly white (like a bride in a wedding dress) or black (like portraits of black cats on black backgrounds), and you need to know if the sensor is capturing the detail that the LCD cannot show you. The histogram shows you the range of brightness values in your image, rearranged in order, with the most frequentlyoccurring brightnesses being taller. Figure 5-41 shows an illustration of how histograms relate to the scene being captured. Let s say that the collection of black, white, and grey boxes in the upper-left-hand corner represent the pixels of your (very lowresolution) digital camera. The histogram Pixels from Original Image Darkest Lightest Histogram of Brightness Values Figure 5-41: Simplified view of how histograms work. simply re-arranges the pixels in order of ascending brightness; the brightest to the right and the darkest to the left. Pixels with the same brightness value get stacked on top of each other. The resulting graph shows the brightness Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

58 Really Cool Advanced Functions 221 distribution of the image; where the brightest parts and darkest parts fall within the camera s sensitivity range. Notice that the examples used only pixels that were black, white, or shades of grey. It turns out that for most images, it is often most useful to Figure 5-42: Histogram screen. Press the C button in Playback mode and see lots of technical information about the picture. convert the entire image to B&W inside the camera and then show the resulting histogram just of the brightnesses, without color information. Other folks prefer to know What does the histogram look like if you break it down by primary colors? And so the A700 shows you 4 different histograms when you press the C button in playback mode: A Brightness histogram (top right), and 3 Primary Color histograms below it. (I personally prefer the brightness histogram the information it provides is more useful to me.) Okay, so how do you use this information? Remember that the right edge of the histogram represents the brightest value the sensor can capture, and the left edge represents the darkest value the sensor can capture. It is important that the tallest parts of the graph (representing the dominant shades in your image) are not clumped up at the left-edge or right-edge; for if they are, it means that the brightness

59 222 Chapter 5 level of these pictures is exceeding the sensor s brightness range. It s also important to remember that there is no such thing as a standard-looking histogram for all pictures you use the histogram to make sure that the brightnesses in the image fall where you want them to fall for the kind of image YOU intend to create. You can view an image s histogram while it is still in the camera. While in Playback mode, hit the C button to get the histogram playback screen (Figure 5-42). Hit the C button again to revert to fullscreen playback mode. Let s start with some simple examples: Here s a picture of a Cuban boy against a dark-ish background. Since there is more dark than bright in the picture, this is reflected in the histogram, which shows more dark pixels than light ones. Notice that the blacks are not SO black that they bump up against the left edge this is perfect for this shot. Black, but not TOO black. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

60 Really Cool Advanced Functions 223 Here s a truly average scene, with brightnesses spread out pretty evenly across the horizontal axis. The black spike you see near the left-hand edge represents the black in the roadsign. As you can see, the tall spike means there are more black pixels than of any other single color. (There are many different shades of blue, which is why there s no large spike in the center.) Here it is OK if the blacks are outside the range, for we don t need to see detail in the black part of the sign. Here s a picture of a grey piece of paper. Here the histogram looks exactly as you expect it would all grey pixels stacked up high, with no lighter or darker pixels anywhere (i.e., nothing to the left or the right of the spike) (well, nothing significant, anyway).

61 224 Chapter 5 Here is an image comprised entirely of black, white, and grey. Here, we expect to see 3 spikes: Black on the left, white on the right, and grey in the middle. And we do. Oh no! I just took this picture, and the camera s LCD screen makes the white building look washed out and overexposed! Is it?? Let me check the histogram. WHEW! According to the graph on the right, the vast majority of the white in the image is within range. Only a tiny white spike on the rightmost edge represented by the whitest part of the clouds above is blown out, which for this picture is acceptable. (How do I know it s the clouds and not the building? Because in Histogram Playback view, the blown out part of the clouds blinks every ¼ second.) Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

62 Really Cool Advanced Functions 225 Another real-world situation. I had just taken the picture of this bird, and I couldn t tell by looking at the LCD screen whether the whites were blown out or not. A quick histogram check indicated that they were indeed blown out! (See circled area plus, the blown-out parts of the image were blinking in Histogram view.) I immediately set the camera to underexpose by ½ stop and shot again. All of the histogram shifted to the left (thus the entire picture got darker), and now the blown-out portion is safely captured within the camera s available dynamic range. Hooray! Luckily the bird was still there when I took the 2 nd shot. It s situations like these for which auto bracketing was invented take several at different exposures NOW; I ll edit at the computer later. It s hard to see the difference in these tiny thumbnails, but if I were to make an enlargement of this picture,

63 226 Chapter 5 the lack of detail in the bird s feathers would definitely have been noticeable! Here s an example using a black subject on a black background. As you can see, the large mass in the histogram shows that the camera opted for a dark grey; whereas I wanted black. (Plus, some of the whites are being blown out on the right side.) So So I set exposure compensation to -1 stop. A little better, but some highlights are still being blown out (as you can see by the right-hand edge, circled). Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

64 Really Cool Advanced Functions 227 I set exposure compensation to That s better! Remember, there is no such thing as an average-looking or correct histogram shape each will be different and depends entirely on the kind of image you were looking to create. For this picture, it was perfectly OK to have some blacks be so dark that there s no detail, as long as the highlights on the face were captured properly. As you can see in the histogram, the face details were captured just fine and there s no blow out of the highlights.

65 228 Chapter 5 TIP: There is a quick and easy way to tell if your image contains any blown-out highlights or toodark shadows. When you playback the image in histogram mode (by pressing the C button during playback), the parts of the exposure that are off the scale will blink. A VERY useful feature!! Image Styles and Creative Styles Image Styles is Sony s term for their pre-set color tweaks. Creative Style is a catch-all phrase which means A collection of tweaks the camera can make to the image tweaks like Image Style, sharpness, contrast, saturation, plus others. The degree of change you can invoke by these settings is very small (see comparison shots in the next sections), however you can achieve noticeable differences by combining several of these variables together and storing them in one of seven spaces ( Creative Style locations ) the A700 provides for you. I give examples of such combinations after the settings are demonstrated. (And as you ll see shortly, the last three Creative Styles slots are more customizable than the first four.) Note that these settings only affect pictures taken in P, A, S, or M exposure modes. This feature might appear confusing at first, since the names of memory slots are also names of Image Style color biases and are also sometimes the names of Scene Selection modes on the Exposure Mode dial (confused yet?), so please allow me to walk you through it. The first thing I ll explain is the concept of what Sony calls an Image Style. Have a look at Figure 5-43 (next page). You can have your camera automatically apply these color tweaks in-camera. You can even have the camera generate in-camera B&W and Sepia-toned images without you having to futz with your computer afterwards. (I ll talk a bit more about exactly what these settings do in a moment ) Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

66 Really Cool Advanced Functions 229 Standard Vivid Neutral AdobeRGB Clear Deep Light Portrait Landscape Sunset Night Autumn B/W Sepia Figure 5-43: The 14 color Image Styles built into the A700. (We don t have autumn here in California, and so in order to get this shot I had to fly to Boston.)

67 230 Chapter 5 Lest you think that this is akin to a blender with too many choices for speeds, let me remove all doubt by giving you my personal analysis of some of these Image Styles: Image Style Standard Vivid Neutral AdobeRGB Clear Deep Light Portrait Landscape Comments This is the normal mode against which all other modes are compared. It is an excellent general-purpose setting from which I rarely deviate. All colors and contrast are enhanced slightly. All colors are muted slightly. This can capture significantly more colors, but requires more postprocessing on your computer. (See page 245) More vivid than Vivid. Darkens the image a little. Lightens the image a little. Similar to Neutral, it gives soft, warm colors which traditionally work well with portraits. (This is the color mode used when you set your camera to Portrait Mode on the Scene Selection dial.) Similar to Clear; it enhances the colors and contrast slightly. This is the color mode used when the Landscape scene selection mode is chosen. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

68 Really Cool Advanced Functions 231 Sunset Night View Autumn Leaves B/W Sepia Adds reds and yellows to the image. The colors are untouched; Night View simply lowers the contrast. Hello, Reds! Removes all color from the image. (Note: It s really gone! You can t get it back later on!!) Removes all the color from the image, and then turns the black parts into a beautiful light brown, reminiscent of 1800 s-style photos. (See note above regarding color not being recoverable.) Frequently Asked Questions Q: Are all these choices really necessary? Which ones do you use? A: The great thing about the A700 is that it gives you choices. (Lots of them!) And some people love the fact that you can do all these neat things without ever having to visit your computer later on. I will say that, when combined with other settings (keep reading!), you really can tailor a kind of emotional feel to your subjects using these combinations of settings. Image Styles are only one component of these combinations. Okay, so those are the 14 Image Styles (color tweaks). Now pick up your camera go to MENU RECORDING MENU 1 Creative Style. Here you ll see you ll see the screen in Figure 5-44b, and on the left-hand column you ll see the 7 different memory spaces for your settings. (Notice that the names of these spaces are identical to some of the Image Style names.) You can use the Multi- Selector s UP and DOWN buttons to see them all. Here s what you re looking at:

69 232 Chapter 5 Name of Memory Slot Image Style Standard Other Parameters you can change in this Memory Slot Vivid Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness Neutral Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness AdobeRGB Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness Choose from any of the 14 image styles Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness Image Style, Contrast, Saturation, Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

70 Really Cool Advanced Functions 233 Choose from any of the 14 image styles Sharpness, Brightness, Zone Matching Choose from any of the 14 image styles Image Style, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness, Brightness, Zone Matching Image Style, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness, Brightness, Zone Matching While it might have been easy and logical to just have 14 memory slots (each with the name of an Image Style) in the left-hand column, for some reason Sony chose instead to have 7 slots, the first four having a fixed name (and Image Style) of Standard, Vivid, Neutral, and AdobeRGB, and the last three being completely customizable you can set them to ANY of the 14 Image Styles, plus there are more parameters that can be tweaked!

71 234 Chapter 5 Okay, time for an example. Let s say you want to modify the Creative Style called Vivid so that the images it produces have a little more punch right out of the box, so they will look most impressive when you plug your memory card directly into your inkjet printer and say Here, print these!. To achieve this effect, you might want to set the Contrast to +2, the Saturation to +1, and the sharpness to +1 (in addition to getting Vivid s enhanced colors) to all the pictures you take. Here s how to achieve this step-by-step: 1. MENU RECORDING MENU 1 Creative Style [Hit Enter ]. Figure 5-44b is seen. 2. Move DOWN one until Vivid is highlighted. Use the Multi-selector to move RIGHT. The first parameter you can adjust is Contrast ( ). Once the Contrast icon is highlighted, move the Multi-Selector UP twice, and watch the icon icon s value change to Move to the right again, and move UP to change the Saturation icon ( ) to Move to the right again, and move UP to change the Sharpness icon ( ) to Then hit the shutter release button halfway to save your settings and return to shooting mode. You can see the changes you ve Figure 5-44 The Creative Styles allow you to set your own unique style comprised of a collection of image-tweaking variables: color space, contrast, sharpness, color intensity (saturation), plus others. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

72 Really Cool Advanced Functions 235 made to you Creative Style by looking at the main display screen (Figure 5-45a). And just for fun, Figure 5-45 b and c shows a before and after view showing that indeed, a collection of tweaks really can make a subtle yet visible difference. Figure 5-45 Your current Creative Style and its associated tweaks are visible on the main screen (highlighted in yellow). And here is a before and after shot showing the collective impact of these tweaks.

73 236 Chapter 5 Changing the last three Creative Styles (numbered 1, 2, and 3) is worth learning, because you can assign ANY of the 14 image styles to these memory slots, plus there is more you can adjust. Basically: 1. MENU RECORDING MENU 1 Creative Style [Hit Enter ]. 2. Use the Multi-Selector to scroll down to Creative Style 1, 2, or three. (There will already be a name associated with it, such as landscape or B/W ; however you can change this.) 3. Move to the RIGHT, and then use the UP and DOWN controls to choose from any of the 14 Image Styles discussed earlier. 4. Keep moving to the RIGHT. You can change the contrast, saturation, and sharpness as before. (Examples of these changes will be shown in a few sections.) 5. Keep moving to the right. You can also adjust the brightness, and a setting for Zone Matching. (Zone Matching is covered fully in Chapter 10.) So that s the story behind Image Styles and Creative Styles: Image Styles represent color tweaks to the image, while Creative Styles are the camera s 7 memory locations in which you can store (and instantly recall) combinations of image tweaks, including Image Sytle, contrast, saturation, sharpness, and others. On the next page I ll show you some examples of what the others do. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

74 Really Cool Advanced Functions 237 Contrast Setting The first variable you can change after selecting an Image Style is contrast. Contrast is a difficult thing to describe, but you know instantly if your pictures don t have enough of it. Basically it is how white are the whites, and how black are the blacks? If you are going to have your pictures processed at a 1- hour photo lab, then they almost always adjust the contrast for you and there should be no need to change this setting. Figure 5-46 gives examples Figure 5-46 The Contrast setting from -2 to

75 238 Chapter 5 Saturation Setting This setting increases or decreases the intensity of the colors, adjustable from 2 to for examples. See Figure Figure 5-47 The Saturation setting from -2 to +2. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

76 Really Cool Advanced Functions 239 Sharpness Setting If you think all these comparison shots so far look alike, just wait until you see the comparison with the sharpness settings in Figure 5-48! To make the differences visible, a small portion of the images presented for comparison have been greatly enlarged. (See next page.)

77 240 Chapter 5 The yellow square shows the zoom area Figure 5-48 The Sharpness Contents setting of this from book Copyright -2 to These Gary L. are Friedman. enlargements All rights reserved. from the small yellow rectangle in the first image.

78 Really Cool Advanced Functions 241 Combining Settings As alluded to at the beginning of this section, you can combine these settings for good effect. (In fact, I already gave a mild example of this Figure 5-45.) What are some other things you can do with these settings? Here are some ideas and suggestions: Image Type Suggested Settings Children & Birthday Parties Children and bright colors go together. Try this combination of settings: Image Style: Clear Saturation: +1 Contrast: 2 Sharpness +1 Sports & Photojournalism Portraits & Weddings Travel Photography Most newspapers can t reproduce the fine nuances of a quality photographic print. Here a gritty, high-contrast look will be a good fit for the printing medium: Image Style: Standard Saturation: +1 Contrast: +2 Sharpness: +2 Softness and tonal range is best here. Image Style: Portrait Saturation: -1 Contrast: -2 Sharpness 1 It all depends upon the country you re visiting. If you re visiting a land filled with bright colors (Nepal or China,

79 242 Chapter 5 for example), use the same settings as Children and Birthday Parties above. If you re in parts of old Europe or the Middle East (where the colors of Agfa film used to reign) then try something more subdued: Image Style: Neutral Saturation: -1 Contrast: -1 Sharpness: 0 ( Standard ) Low-key artistic avant-garde Of course these settings only serve to reinforce a preconceived stereotype. It s best to put your camera away for awhile, look with your eyes, absorb the mood, and then choose settings that reflect that mood. All settings at minimum value (except Image Style, which should be either Clear or Sunset (for interesting effect) ) If you re not sure what settings to use, or are overwhelmed by the sheer number of permutations, you do have another option available to you: Shoot in RAW mode (Chapters 8 and 9) so you can make all of these choices later, by the comfort of your computer. Ain t it great to have choices? Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

80 Really Cool Advanced Functions 243 B&W Mode Once upon a time (back in the days of film) I was shooting a wedding, and the couple requested that I shoot black-and-white in my famous wedding photojournalism style. Sure! I said, but it would probably be much easier and cheaper to shoot everything in color, and then just convert selected pictures to B&W in the computer. Absolutely not! the bride insisted. Black-and-white must be black-and-white from start to finish! The engineer in me, who has learned that the results are more important than the process, acquiesced to this very common mode of thinking in the art world, where process is just as important (or perhaps more so) than the results. (This is why darkroom-processed fiber-based prints are allowed in art galleries, but inkjet prints containing the same quality image are not. Go figure.) Figure 5-49: B&W can save a shot that has poor lighting. Also, most non-photographers tend to regard Black-and-white shots as being more artistic.

81 244 Chapter 5 Rightly or wrongly, this is the perception and paradigm that we all must live with. And while Sony graced the A700 with a B&W and Sepia mode to save you the trouble of creating the B&W image on your computer, I ll bet it could also be used for wedding couples with a degree in art. B/W mode has other practical applications too. Besides taking pictures which others perceive as being more artistic, it can also save you from Bad Light in some circumstances. For example, Figure 5-49 is a shot of a Chinese boy on his father s shoulders. The child is backlit, with little direct light hitting the boy s face. This light is just awful, but when shot in B&W mode the poor lighting hardly gets noticed. TIP: I have found that I m able to get very pleasing B&W shots by setting the B/W (or Sepia) Creative Style to Contrast: +2 and Sharpness: +1. Want the best of both worlds? Earlier in the book I mentioned that if you shoot in B/W or Sepia mode, then the color is gone forever and it can t be recovered. UNLESS, that is, you choose MENU RECORDING MENU 1 Quality craw & JPEG, in which case the camera will record 1 color and one B&W image for each picture you take. Kind of like a safety net! craw & JPEG is covered in Chapter 8. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

82 Really Cool Advanced Functions 245 AdobeRGB This is a big topic to go into for an introductory book, but in a nutshell: Just as the brightness range in the real world is much larger than can be captured by a sensor, so too is the real range of colors significantly larger than can accurately be reproduced by modern printing presses, inkjet printers, or computer monitors. And so, the concept of color space (or gamut ) was invented a finite set of colors which the printing mechanism has at its disposal to render the image. You can see a good example of a color space for a computer screen (courtesy Microsoft Word) in Figure As you might expect, different printers (and different monitors, and different digital cameras) do not always share the same color space capabilities some might be stronger on greens, some might have orange-ish reds, etc. Early in the development of digital imaging several color spaces were developed and agreed upon by industry players in order to have some hopes of interoperability. The first of these, srgb, has been adopted by nearly everybody, including Sony, who uses it as the basis of ALL their Imaging Styles EXCEPT the one labeled AdobeRGB. The AdobeRGB color space is by far the most difficult to explain (a topic for an entire book!), but at the risk of oversimplifying the concept, it is a much larger color Figure 5-50: An example of a color space: All the possible colors that can be represented by a program or printer.

83 246 Chapter 5 space than srgb, and is favored by professional graphic artists who have $10,000 printers and for whom color matching is of paramount importance. If you choose to shoot in AdobeRGB format you will have to convert back to srgb in an external program editor like Image Data Converter or Photoshop if you want to share the file electronically with non-professionals, or send it to most 1-hour photo printers. In addition, AdobeRGB almost always requires additional post-processing on the computer, and so the benefits of shooting in this mode for beginners are difficult to articulate (probably because there are none!). You can see a comparison of 3 color modes in Figure Standard Vivid AdobeRGB (after conversion) Figure 5-51: Color modes: Standard, Vivid, and AdobeRGB. The differences can be very subtle try it for yourself! TIP: If you choose to shoot in AdobeRGB mode, you ll notice that the file names begin with _DSC, whereas with any other color mode the file names begin with DSC0. This is a visual cue to the folks in charge of post-processing images (in the unlikely event that that person is not you) that they still need to be tweaked into a more universally accepted color space so that they can be easily shared with others. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

84 Really Cool Advanced Functions 247 Customizing the Camera The A700 is customizable to accommodate the way you like to work. Switching ing the control dials The single most useful customization in my mind is the ability to reassign the functions of the front and rear control dials to new functions that suit you. By using MENU CUSTOM MENU 2 Dial Exp. Comp. Front dial, I was able to re-assign the front control dial so that whenever I rotated it in P, A, or S mode, it would activate exposure compensation. VERY, VERY HANDY and a time saver if you like to tweak the automatic exposure readings a lot!!! (This leaves the rear control dial to change the shutter speed in S mode, or the aperture in A mode.) With this new setting I never have to remove my eye from the viewfinder or push many buttons or turn many dials. The two other dial reassigning functions are: MENU CUSTOM MENU 2 Ctrl dial setup [Choose one], which allows you to swap the functions of the front and rear control dials. Normally the front dial handles shutter speed and rear handles f/stop (or in my case front handles exposure compensation and the rear handles f/stops or shutter speeds; depending on the mode); with this mode set to f/no SS those roles can be reversed. (The half-circles in the menu screen are supposed to represent the front control wheel and the rear control dial.) MENU CUSTOM MENU 2 Ctrl dial lock On will prevent the control wheels from being accidentally adjusted unless the camera s metering system is active (i.e., unless the display is lit and the green information in the viewfinder is visible).

85 248 Chapter 5 3 Memory positions A very handy feature that can save a lot of time is the ability of the camera to memorize a group of settings so that they can be recalled all at once. For an example of why this can be a good thing, let me review the camera settings I normally need to set when taking time exposures (which were discussed in Chapter 4): * Manual focus * Aperture priority mode * Set f/stop to f/8 * Overexpose 2 stops (this works best for me in low light) * ISO set to 100 * White Balance set to Florescent * Self-timer (2s) * Super SteadyShot OFF With the memory feature, all I have to do is configure these camera settings once and then tell the camera to memorize them for instant recall later. This feature saves even more time after the photos have been taken, since I don't have to un-do all of these parameters one-at-a-time to return the camera to "normal" (and risk forgetting one, potentially affecting a future shot). So let s say I wish to have the camera memorize the above settings. I just set the desired modes and switches and then MENU RECORDING MENU 4 Memory [Enter], which brings up the Save To Memory screen shown in Figure The display shows all of the parameters that are Figure 5-52 Total Recall. By committing these settings to a memory location, setting up shots like this can take as little as two seconds. Contents of this book Copyright 2008 Gary L. Friedman. All rights reserved.

86 Really Cool Advanced Functions 249 Figure 5-53 The Memory Store screen. These settings are optimized for time exposures. Here you can choose which of 3 memory registers to store the settings in for later instant recall. being stored, and the very top has numbers 1-2-3, asking you, In which of these three locations would you like me to save your settings? You can select a number by scrolling right or left with the Multi-Selector and then press the center button to complete the save. To recall the settings at a future time, just turn the Exposure Mode dial on top of the camera to MR and then select setting 1, 2, or 3 via the multi-selector. I configured Memory Register 2 to help me quickly move into I-don t-know-what-dro-level-to-use-so- I d-better-play-it-safe-and-bracket-everything mode. The settings are: DRIVE MODE: DRO Bracket Hi 3 ( BRK D-R+ Hi 3 ) Quality: craw & JPEG ISO: 400 And my third memory register is my normal shooting mode (so I can get back to it quickly). The gory details are listed starting on the next page.