Beginner’s Guide to Camera Settings

Beginner’s Guide to Basic Camera Settings – DSLR or Mirrorless

Buying your first DSLR or Mirrorless Camera can be exciting, but also very intimidating. You’re ready to start shooting, but you may be confused or overwhelmed by all the camera settings and their functions.

Get out your camera’s manual, and let’s go over the basic camera settings. Your manual will help you understand your camera’s settings, and their functions. Knowing every aspect of your camera will get you out shooting quicker.

Once you’ve got down the basics, you can start experimenting with your camera’s settings.

Photographers Resource Center is supported by readers. Product links on Photographers Resource Center are referral links. Read more here.

Learn Your Camera’s Settings

The following camera settings are found on most DSLR or Mirrorless Camera’s.

• Shooting Modes
• ISO
• Aperture
• Shutter Speed
• Exposure Compensation
• Metering
• White Balance
• Focus
• File Sizes and Types

Shooting Modes

Shooting modes may vary depending on the camera brand. Some modes may not be available on your camera.

• Manual – You control all the camera settings.
• Aperture Priority – You’ll choose the aperture. The camera selects the shutter speed.
• Shutter Priority – You’ll adjust shutter speed. The camera selects the aperture.
• Auto – The camera selects shutter speed, aperture, ISO and flash settings.
• Program – The camera selects shutter speed and aperture setting. You can adjust all other settings.
• B (Bulb) – This mode allows your shutter speed to be any length you choose. It’s generally used for long exposures. Your camera’s shutter stays open for as long as you hold down the shutter release button. 
• Portrait – The camera selects a large aperture, which keeps the background out of focus so your subject is the only thing in focus.
• Landscape – The camera selects a small aperture, which gives you an image that is focused from the foreground into the distance.
• Macro – Macro mode is generally used for small items that you want a close-up view of. The distance you can shoot in macro mode varies between brands. Some cameras are able to focus less than an inch away from the subject, others a little further. This mode is used for photographing flowers, insects, or other small objects very close up.
• Sports – The camera selects a high shutter speed of at least 1/500 to freeze movement.
• Night – The camera selects a long shutter speed and will also fire the camera’s flash to illuminate your subject. It can be used at night or in low light situations.

When you are first starting out, shoot with your camera’s automatic settings. It will help you get a feel for your camera.

Once you feel comfortable with the automatics camera settings, try experimenting with aperture priority or shutter priority modes. Once you have a handle those, move onto Manual Mode.

Exposure Settings

In order to attain the proper exposure, you must combine the correct ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed. These three components control the amount of light that interacts with your camera’s sensor. It is commonly known as The Exposure Triangle.

• ISO – ISO is your camera’s sensitivity to light. You can brighten or darken your images by adjusting it. The lower the ISO, the darker the image, while a Higher ISO will lighten it. The advantage of a lower ISO is that it produces sharp, crispy images. A Higher ISO will start to show grain or “noise” in your image.
• Aperture –  Aperture is the size of the opening in your lens that light passes through when the shutter is opened. The size of the opening controls the amount of light entering the camera. The amount of light let through is described in f-stops, and can range from f/1.4-f/29. With an f-stop of 1.4, the aperture opening is wide open, and allows the most light to enter your camera sensor. An f-stop of f/22 has a much smaller aperture opening, and lets in less light. Aperture size also affects depth of field.
• Shutter Speed – Your shutter speed controls how long the shutter stays open. Slower shutter speeds allow more light to enter the sensor, and will capture more movement. Faster shutter speeds allow in less light, and will freeze action. When shooting with slower shutter speed of 1/60 or less, it’s a good idea to use a tripod. It will prevent camera shake, and keep your images from blurring.

Exposure Compensation

Most camera settings have an exposure compensation feature. Some have a button, while others may have a dial. The button usually has a +/- on it.

Exposure compensation allows you to alter the exposure setting selected by the camera’s meter. You can use it to increase or decrease the exposure in order to make your images brighter or darker.

Metering Settings

It’s important to understand the metering mode camera setting if you want your photographs to be properly exposed .

There are three main metering modes for you to choose between, Average, Center-weighted, or Spot metering on most cameras.

• Matrix/Evaluative – This metering mode ensures a balance between light and dark areas. If you’re not sure which metering mode to use, this is an overall good choice. It’s the best mode to leave your camera in and is the default metering mode on most DSLRs. Use this mode for evenly lit scenes or when using flash.
• Center-Weighted – Correct exposure is set by evaluating the light in the center of the frame and its surroundings. The corners of the frame are less important in this mode. Use this mode for Portraits, Macro, or when your subject will remain in the center of the frame.
• Spot Metering – Your camera evaluates the light from a small circle in the center of the frame. The only difference between this mode and center-weighted mode is the size of the circle measured. Use this mode when the subject is the most important part of the scene, high contrast scenes, portraits, the moon, and backlit subjects.

White Balance

Simply put, white balance determines how warm or cool the colors in your image look.

An object’s color is affected by the type of lighting conditions in which it is viewed. Different light sources will have different color temperatures. Some can add undesirable color casts to your images.

Your camera analyzes a scene and normally does a pretty good job at reproducing natural looking colors. However, in some cases you will need to adjust white balance in order to create natural looking images.

White Balance Settings

• Auto – If your not sure which white balance setting to use, Auto is a good option. Your camera determines the white balance depending on lighting conditions, and sets a custom white balance for each shot. In most cases it does a pretty good job.
• Daylight – Use on clear sunny days.
• Cloudy – Use on cloudy days or in the shade to warm up colors.
• Shade – Warmer than cloudy setting, and adds more orange to photos.
• Tungsten – Use it under tungsten light bulbs to cools down the color temperature in your photos.
• Fluorescent – Use under fluorescent lights if photos look too cold and green. It will warm up the image.
• Flash – Use with your on-camera flash. It will add some warmth.
• Kelvin – Lets you manually change the Kelvin value from 2,500 to 10,000. Use lower numbers for warmer colors, higher numbers for cooler colors.

Focus Settings

Choosing the correct focus settings is the key to determining how sharp your photographs will turn out. Nothing is worse than a shooting a blurry image.

Digital cameras give you the option to choose between manual focus or autofocus. With the manual focus setting, you choose where and when to focus.

The autofocus setting allows the camera to choose where and how to focus. You just need to choose between the single and continuous autofocus modes setting.

Autofocus Modes

• Canon One Shot AF/Nikon AF-S – Autofocus-single shot. Use this for still subjects. Press the shutter release halfway to focus on your subject. If you need to refocus, release the button and start over.
• Canon AI Servo/Nikon Continuous AF-C – Autofocus-continuous shot. Use this for moving subjects such as in sports. Press the shutter release halfway to focus and lock onto to your subject. If your subject moves, the camera detects the movement, and will constantly refocus as long as you are pressing the shutter halfway.
• Canon AI Focus AF/Nikon AF-A – The camera determines if your subject is moving and will change between between single focus and continuous focus.

Autofocus Points

Autofocus modes are pretty advanced and offer multiple options for focusing. The autofocus mode you choose determines what and where your camera will focus on.

• Auto/Full Automatic Focus – The camera determines which subject to focus on by analyzing the scene . While it is quite useful, it sometimes may focus on the wrong subject.
• Spot/Single Point Focus – The camera uses only one single focus point. This works well with portraits or other stationary subjects.
• Canon AF Point Expansion/Dynamic AF-Area Mode – Select a single focus point, and the focus points around it will also be used by the camera, if your subject moves.

File Sizes and Type Settings

You camera gives you the option to choose what size image and file type you would like it to record. Make sure to chose the largest file size possible to ensure the best quality image.

Your camera has the ability to record images in a JPEG or RAW format. You can also set it to record both. RAW files are very large, while JPEG files are much smaller files. Keep that in mind when choosing the storage size of your memory cards. You’ll be able to fit more JPEG files per memory card than RAW files.

• RAW – Shooting in RAW gives you the most control over your images. The files are unprocessed and uncompressed. RAW files contain all available image information. You will need to process RAW files with your camera’s software, or software such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Luminar 4, or Capture One.
• JPEG – If you don’t want to spend a lot of time editing your photos then shoot in JPEG. JPEG files are processed within your camera. Exposure, color temperature, saturation, and contrast are based on your camera’s settings. It is a compressed file, so you will not have complete creative control over your images like you do when shooting in RAW.

I hope you enjoyed our Beginner’s Guide to Camera Settings!

Need some photography tips? You can find them here.

Check out our Weekly Photography Challenges for more photography projects to work on.

Subscribe to join our photo community and receive updated articles, tips, and special offers from our sponsors.

Connect with us on social media.

• Follow Julie Miche on Instagram.
• Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.