Week 18: Recommended camera settings

This the final post in this 15 week free photography course.
Start at Week 1 and work your way through.
To find Week 1, use the navigation panel over there on the right, or search through "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page.

So, for those readers who have done all the work and got this far:
This might seem an odd place to finally get around to spelling out all the camera settings that I recommend...And it is! But in my defence, if I did this right at the beginning, before students had a grasp on the fundamentals of photography and why things work they way they do, it might seem a bit arbitrary and meaningless. Anyway, we've had plenty of other stuff to get our heads around. So, here goes...

Week 17: Assignment 4 A flash of inspiration

Modern film and digital camera’s use three basic ways of measuring and controlling flash exposure so let’s have a look at them.

Week 16: Assignment 3 Differential focusing

One essential skill that we need to master is called differential focusing.

It's not really about using a specific camera control or setting, but rather it's about how we use a combination of depth of field, composition and thinking about how the subject we are photographing will look to the viewer.

Week 11: Post production. A quick guide

A guide to help you handle image post production, develop your images, file handling and output…


This is never going to be an exhaustive tutorial. In fact it will barely scratch the surface. Image post production is a vast and complicated subject but that doesn’t matter because all we need to do here is to get your photos out of your camera and onto your website/blog page/Facebook or whatever with the minimal fuss and bother.

Week 8: The filter factor

Which filters to use, why use them, when to use them, how to use them.

UV filter - Ultra Violet.

Week 7: Lenses are us! All about glass

We all know about lenses right? Wide angles, telephoto, zoom; what about variable maximum apertures, image stabilization, fish-eyes and mirror lenses? Here’s all the info.

How does auto-focus work and what really is the sharpest aperture on a lens? let’s have a look…

We’ll start with wide lenses and work up