Portrait (this is the picture of the face) ~ Your camera will choose an aperture with a shallow depth of field. Having a shallow depth of field will blur your background a bit and allow your subject to stand out.

Landscape (this is the picture of the mountain) ~ Your camera is going to choose an aperture with a greater depth of field. This means that more of your image will be in focus than if you were using Portrait Mode.

Macro (this is the picture of the flower) ~ This setting allows you to get super close to your subject.

Sports (this is the picture of the running man) ~ Your camera is going to increase the shutter speed in order to catch any action that may be going on in the scene.

Night (this is the picture of a person outside under the star) ~ This setting is great for low light situations. Your camera will slow down the shutter speed in order to grab all the light in the room. You might want to use a tripod on this setting to avoid any camera shake. Super low shutter speeds are difficult to handhold.

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Play around with all the different setting and see what kind of results you get. Having a DSLR is wonderful because you have the ability to control how your pictures come out. It just takes a lot of practice and this is a great starting point. I’ll be posting more this week about how you can get more comfortable using the different settings on your camera. Feel free to email me with any questions as well!

Good Luck!

GET IN CLOSE

The next time you take a picture of your children, move in close. Let their cute little mugs fill the frame of your camera. If you’ve got a zoom lens you can do this without getting up in their face. If you’ve got a prime lens, don’t be afraid to take a few steps closer.

Getting in close gives your image a lot of impact and it will also help to get rid of a cluttered background. Moving in close will cause whatever is in the background to fall out of focus.

The first thing that I notice when I look at any portrait is a person’s eyes. When you move in close it places extra emphasis on the eyes. They are the window to a person’s soul after all. Here are a few examples.

This picture was taken in a doorway. If I had zoomed out you would have noticed the door frame and the inside of the house, but I kept it nice and close and your focus is drawn to his beautiful eyes. I do a lot of close-ups in a doorway. Great light and even better catchlights.

A tight crop on this image got rid of a distracting background. This is actually my cousin and we were on my parents front porch for these maternity pictures.

So there you have it. The next time you are practicing with your camera, don’t be afraid to get in close.