Image quality

SETTING UP AND MENUS

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.

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

Sensitivity

Here you can set the camera’s ISO, and the	using ISO 100 or its lowest setting as a rule of
higher the ISO, the more sensitive it is to light.	thumb and for best results. Set your camera’s
However, a downside of higher sensitivities is the	noise reduction (in menus) to ‘On’ but bear in
introduction of image noise (analogous to grain in	mind, unless shooting RAW, the extra noise
ﬁ lm) that can adversely affect a shot. Try to use	processing will slow the image handling speed
the lowest possible setting for the shot at hand,	and may affect detail in the shots.

Focus mode

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

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 pre- mium. JPEG ﬁ les can be heav- ily 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%

Image size or resolution

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

but without degrading the

image. TIFF ﬁ les provide very

high-quality images but at a

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.

Sharpness

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.

or patterns, or the camera can be left to decide which are best for the job automatically.

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 pro-

cessing 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.

Set date and time and ﬁ le numbering

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.

Always set the camera’s date and time correctly	accurate record of when you took the photo.
since this information will help you to ﬁ le and	Another option is the ﬁ le-numbering system.
organise your images on the PC. The data is	You can set the camera to reset the count
stored with the image and, when using image-	every time a new card is used, or for each new
organising software, can ensure you have an	day, or it can count continuously.

Metering, white balance and sensitivity

These three items are key to getting top-notch	metering mode should depend on the subject,
exposure and colour. Each is covered overleaf,	but Matrix (or Evaluative) is best for all-round
but as a rule of thumb, set the ISO (sensitivity)	snapping. Set the white balance (WB) to the
to the lowest ISO for the job at hand (ISO	correct setting for the ambient light: daylight
100 or 200 depending on your camera). The	mode for daylight, for example.