Samsung SLRS User Manual

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THE COMPLETE GUIDE

TO DIGITAL SLRS

• MASTERING THE MENUS

• METERING AND EXPOSURE

• FOCUSING MODES

• ISO AND WHITE BALANCE

• FLASH MODES

• CHOOSING LENSES

I N AS S O CI AT IO N W I TH

GETTING TO KNOW

YOUR DIGITAL SLR

Your Digital SLR (DSLR) has a host of controls and functions that will enable you to take complete control of almost every aspect of your picture taking. We will start by looking at some of the key controls you will ﬁ nd on your DSLR and what they do

THE FRONT

Lens

Each make of camera has its own type of lens mount, for which there are a vast number of lenses available. These can go from very wideangle to super telephoto.There is also a wide choice of lenses from third-party companies that can be used as well as the camera manufacturer’s own.

Pop-up Flash/ Hot Shoe

All but the top pro DSLRs feature a pop-up ﬂ ash which, depending on the camera, offer varying degrees of control. Accessory ﬂ ashguns lock onto the hotshoe and provide greater ﬂ ash power and extra features.

Control Wheel

Adjusts the shooting modes and/or settings. Some DSLRs have a control wheel on the front, some on the back; some have both. Their functions can often be customised via the menu, allowing you to tailor control of the camera to your way of working.

RC Receiver

A receiver for the remote control for remotely triggering the camera from several metres away. It also doubles as a self-timer lamp, and ﬂ ashes to indicate that the timer is on.

THE BACK

Optical Viewﬁ nder

Allows you to compose your images accurately by seeing, via a series of mirrors and a pentaprism (or penta mirror), directly through the lens. Some viewﬁ nders provide a 100% ﬁ eld of view; others slightly less, typically around 95%.

LCD Display

Provides information on the camera’s settings and allows reviewing of images. It may also host other useful information, such as histogram displays, overexposure warnings, etc.

Menu Button

Activate the camera’s menu system to control the camera’s core options (may include some accessed by external buttons on the body as well), such as setting the date and time. (Also, overleaf for more detail.)

Four-way Controller

This button pivots on its centre allowing it to be pressed upwards, downwards, left and right. It’s used for changing ﬂ ash and other settings, and for scrolling through images or menus (often in conjunction with a control wheel).

Mono Data LCD

Used to keep you abreast of camera settings such as the focus points, mode selected, number of images left on the card and remaining battery power. Some DSLRs have abandoned this display in favour of presenting this information on the large colour screen.

Flash Activation Button

Pressing this button activates the camera’s built-in ﬂ ash. On some cameras, it is also used to change the ﬂ ash mode in use, such as ﬁ ll-in ﬂ ash, for example – often in conjunction with a control dial.

Metering Mode

Allows you to alter the metering mode (eg, from Matrix/Evaluative to CentreWeighted or Spot modes). This is almost always an external control but can sometimes be found in the menu, too.

Mode Dial

A dial that turns to switch between the main shooting modes on your camera. These can include a full-auto mode, scene modes such as portrait or landscape, and manual control options such as shutter and aperture priority. Some DSLRs have two such dials (see control wheel, above).

THE TOP

WORDS: DOUG HARMAN DESIGN: MICHAEL O’CONNELL

GX10 DSLR System

See the back page

SETTING UP

AND MENUS

It is always a good idea to shoot using the optimal settings in your DSLR and, with the following information, we will have a close look at the key settings within menus on a DSLR to help optimise it for top-quality shots

Menus and settings

The settings information may be housed within a menu or on an external control or sometimes on both – depending on your camera – and allows you to control and tailor settings to get the most from all those lovely pixels. While speciﬁ cs vary from camera maker to camera maker, the advice on these pages for setting up your camera for day-to-day use generally holds true.

Pressing your camera’s menu button will activate the system that allows you to tinker with the camera’s core settings. Menus are displayed like pages or ﬁ les in a ﬁ ling drawer. Scrolling around moves you through pages of information, the current ‘pick’ highlighted. Some cameras have animated menus that look funky and many have neat help screens, which tell you when to use a speciﬁ c setting; very helpful they are, too.

You will need to check the manual for your camera but the following assumes you are in the menu for each topic or know where the button is to get at it, if it is not in a menu.

Image size or resolution

Always set your camera to use the largest number of pixels possible. Why? You will be able to make very big, ﬁ nely detailed prints or crop into a shot and enlarge sections if needed. It is easier to downsize a big picture than enlarge a small one. Removing pixels is easy (in editing software on a PC, for example) but adding them can ruin a good shot. Remember that basically, pixels equal detail. When

you enlarge a small image, the PC adds pixels and ‘guesses’ what information they would contain. The more non-original pixels you add to the image to make it physically bigger, the more ‘garbage’ pixels are added. The only time it’s a good idea to shoot at a smaller size is if the images are speciﬁ cally for the web or email and there’s no possibility that you’ll ever want to use them bigger.

Image quality

The ‘image quality’ setting refers to the compression used. You’ll have various options. There’ll be a series of JPEG settings, perhaps a TIFF mode and probably a RAW setting. Some use both RAW and JPEG simultaneously. As a rule of thumb,use the highest quality setting possible (or RAW) for best results.

JPEG: This ﬁ le format uses compression to help ﬁ t more images onto a memory card. Usually it will have settings such as Standard, Better, Best; or Good, Fine and Super Fine. Pick the highest setting for top-quality or if you want to make big prints. Only use the lower settings if you know you won’t want big prints or if room on your card is at a premium. JPEG ﬁ les can be heavily compressed; the higher the compression used, the lower the quality of the ﬁ nal image.

• TIFF: A ﬁ le format that can be compressed by up to 50% but without degrading the image. TIFF ﬁ les provide very high-quality images but at a much larger ﬁ le size, so will use memory up quickly.

• RAW: Unprocessed image data that provides scope to be edited on PC; no camera processing is carried out on RAW ﬁ les. Think of these as digital negatives, as you can process them later and control almost all aspects of the image after the fact. Generally creates smaller ﬁ les than TIFFs and can be used simultaneously with JPEG in some DSLRs. The JPEG becomes a ‘proof’ image, the RAW a negative providing the best quality.

Sensitivity

Focus mode

Colour

Typically, you’ll have a variety of colour modes to play with including a standard (default) setting, a higher saturation setting called something like ‘Vivid’ and perhaps a sepia or black and white mode. You may also have presets for particular subjects. For instance, if shooting portraits, a more natural colour is best for skin tones. For landscapes or plants, a vivid setting might work well. If shooting in RAW format the settings do not apply, as no image processing takes place within the camera.

Sharpness

Set date and time and ﬁ le numbering

Metering, white balance and sensitivity

Here you can set the camera’s ISO, and the higher the ISO, the more sensitive it is to light. However, a downside of higher sensitivities is the introduction of image noise (analogous to grain in ﬁ lm) that can adversely affect a shot. Try to use the lowest possible setting for the shot at hand,

using ISO 100 or its lowest setting as a rule of thumb and for best results. Set your camera’s noise reduction (in menus) to ‘On’ but bear in mind, unless shooting RAW, the extra noise processing will slow the image handling speed and may affect detail in the shots.

Your DSLR will have a variety of focus modes to choose from. Single AF, for instance, sets the focus so that once it has locked onto a subject it stays there until the shot is made. Continuous AF on the other hand constantly tracks your subject in the frame even if it moves. Use Single AF for most subjects and switch to Continuous AF for action, sports or snapping the kids when they will not sit still! DSLRs use multiple AF points, some have a modest three, some around 8-12, while some high-end cameras can have more than 30! AF zones can be pre-assigned, say, to a single central AF point; many can be used in groups or patterns, or the camera can be left to decide which are best for the job automatically.

Sharpness settings let you increase or decrease the way the camera adjusts the image after it is shot to help deﬁ ne detail. Sharpening adjusts the contrast around the edges of pixels, making them stand out (or not) as you need them to and depending on the mode you use. Usually, the default setting works well enough, but can be conservative. The best way to check is to take some images at each setting and see what looks best. Again, if in doubt let the camera’s default mode be your guide. However, less sharpening is best for portraits while landscapes might want more punch to bring out ﬁ ne, distant detail. Alternatively you may want to save your sharpening to the editing stage on your PC.

Always set the camera’s date and time correctly since this information will help you to ﬁ le and organise your images on the PC. The data is stored with the image and, when using image organising software, can ensure you have an

accurate record of when you took the photo. Another option is the ﬁ le-numbering system. You can set the camera to reset the count every time a new card is used, or for each new day, or it can count continuously.

These three items are key to getting top-notch exposure and colour. Each is covered overleaf, but as a rule of thumb, set the ISO (sensitivity) to the lowest ISO for the job at hand (ISO 100 or 200 depending on your camera). The

metering mode should depend on the subject, but Matrix (or Evaluative) is best for all-round snapping. Set the white balance (WB) to the correct setting for the ambient light: daylight mode for daylight, for example.

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