Mounted on an APS-C camera, it’s equivalent to a 225-900mm lens, which is just incredible. It’s amazing that for less than $1400, we can get so close to our subjects without carrying around a ton of weight.

I use it hand-held most of the time, and have no trouble shooting for an entire day, although you’ll definitely feel it in your arms. Same goes for its closest competitors, the Sony 200-600mm and Tamron 150-500mm; I’ll explain how these 3 lenses compare as well.

The Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS was released in 2021, and is still an excellent option in 2024. It’s ideal for both professionals and amateurs that are just entering the wildlife space. I’ve used it on the Sony A7 IV, A7R V and the A6700 (APS-C).

Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS: Image Quality

This is a fantastic lens, with very little optical issues. At 150mm and 600mm, it’s capable of producing high quality photographs.

Sharpness

Absolutely no complaints here, the Sigma 150-600mm is sharp throughout the entire range. Most of the time I’m shooting at 600mm, and I find shots to be perfectly usable even when wide open at f/6.3.

However, stopping down to f/7.1 or f/11 noticeably improves the sharpness, especially if photographing a smaller animal that can get lost in the haze. At 600mm, the weather conditions and atmospheric fog play an important role for getting maximum clarity.

The Sony 200-600mm has slightly better center and corner sharpness at 600mm, but this is mostly visible when zooming to 100%. If you’re going to use the Sigma 150-600mm on a full frame camera for smaller animals, you will probably have to crop in later every now and then, so keep that in mind. Both are great, it’s just that the more expensive Sony is a tad better at certain lengths.

Bokeh

It’s easy to get beautiful bokeh with super telephoto zoom lenses, and this one is no exception. It’s got 9 aperture blades, whereas the Sony 200-600mm has 11 and the Tamron 150-600mm has 7.

They all show the same bokeh, so this shouldn’t be of any concern to you. If your background is far away, it looks creamy and beautiful, but with close branches and leaves, all 3 have average bokeh (some out of focus branches may look distracting).

Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS: Build Quality

The lens looks and feels very solid. It weighs 2100g (4.63 lb), just a tad lighter than the Sony 200-600mm, but 300g heavier than Tamron 150-500mm. However, the Sony doesn’t have a non-removable tripod mount, which would make it even heavier.

It has a 95mm filter thread, so get ready to spend a little bit more $$ for ND or other types of filters.

Weather Sealing

What about shooting in difficult weather? The Sigma 150-600mm has the highest grade of weather sealing, hence the term ‘Sports’ in its name. The other 2 categories of lenses made by Sigma are ‘Contemporary’ and ‘Art’, none of which are as protected as the Sports line.

If it’s raining, snowing or really foggy, this lens can handle it all. I have never experienced any issues, nor am I super careful when shooting with it.

Zoom & Buttons

At 150mm, it’s relatively short and fits in most bigger backpacks. Once you zoom to 600mm, it’s really long, but still balances very well on both APS-C and Full Frame cameras.

There’s a lens lock button to make sure it doesn’t accidentally extend, which I find very useful when walking or packing it in a bag. This is only available at 150mm, at its shortest length.

The zoom ring is big and has a nice grip. Going from 150mm to 600mm is not possible with a single twist, so you’ll usually have to rotate the ring twice to get to its max length. It’s not a problem by any means, but for making extreme adjustments, you’ll have to keep in mind that this takes 1-2 seconds more than you’d like. It happens rarely though.

The lens features 7 buttons:

• AF/MF Focus
• Focus Limiter (3 options)
• Optical Stabilization (3 options)
• Custom Setting (3 options)
• Lens Lock (L/T/S)
• 3 Custom Buttons

I almost never focus manually, but the ring has a nice feel to it. It’s difficult at such long lengths, but for recording videos it comes in handy.

The focus limiter button allows you to choose between the “Full” range, 10 meters to Infinity, or Up to 10 meters. Personally, I stick to “Full”, unless my subject is absolutely closer than 10 meters, in which case I don’t want to risk the lens hunting for something far behind.

Optical Stabilization is a must, and the Sigma 150-600mm offers 4 stops of it. No complaints here.

Then there’s 3 custom buttons around the barrel, so you can assign your own feature to whichever position feels the most comfortable to you.

The lens features a tripod collar, which can actually be removed, but not as easily as with Tamron or Sony. It’s Arca Swiss compatible so you can mount it directly on a tripod without any additional plates. All 3 lenses also offer strap attachments on the body itself.

Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS: Auto Focus

This is a lens capable of capturing birds in flight, or all sorts of animals in tougher than usual light conditions. Tracking works well, it locks onto the subject, and I have gotten great results both with the Sony A6700, an APS-C mid-range camera, as well as the more expensive Sony A7R V.

Same applies to recording videos, where it had no trouble staying locked onto the subject in 4K at 120p.

However, I do have to note that shooting with the Sony 200-600mm feels like you’re getting a higher percentage of completely in focus shots. Not a huge difference, but enough to notice that out of 100 burst shots, I could definitely count on a couple more from the Sony, especially with fast paced action.

Both Sigma and Tamron seemed identical in this department, but of course this also depends on your camera, AF settings and skills. The AF accuracy alone wouldn’t convince me to get the more expensive Sony, but for some people it might be enough.

Minimum Focus Distance

The minimum focusing distance at 150mm is 58cm, whereas at 600mm it’s 280cm.

This is so much better than what Sony offers; 240cm at all lengths, which makes it really hard to shoot with if your subject is close to you. I’ve had countless of situations where even the Sigma felt a bit too short, but that’s just being spoiled.

Even the magnification is the best of all 3 lenses, with 1:2.9 (but only at 180mm). It’s obviously not a macro lens, but will magnify your subject more than the Sony/Tamron, which comes in handy when shooting insects or flowers.

Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS: Image Stabilization

The lens features Optical Stabilization, which is a must for 600mm photography and video.

It works just as you’d expect it to, and I haven’t had any complains. For slower/static animals, I didn’t always have to have a super fast shutter speed, especially in low light.

With 4 stops of stabilization, you can use a shutter speed of 1/60 instead of 1/1000 and get a similarly crisp result, but only if your subject isn’t moving.

You’ll be tired after shooting with this lens, and it really helps to have OSS included. Even better if your camera has built-in stabilization, so you get the best of both worlds.

Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS: Verdict

The fact that we have 3 telephoto zooms that reach ~600mm is incredible, especially at these prices. Almost a decade ago, similar lenses were way more expensive and almost twice as heavy, let alone not as precise when it came to auto focusing.

I recommend the Sigma 150-600mm Sport to anyone who wants to photograph wildlife/birds/action, but doesn’t want to spend a couple of grand on a telephoto prime lens. They’re heavier and bulkier as well, but that’s due to their bigger apertures and improved optics.

The Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS Sports is an excellent, affordable lens that will get you to 600mm without breaking your bank, or your back.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I used this lens on 3 different Sony cameras and it’s superb on all 3. Auto focusing is fast, image quality and colors are ideal, there’s very little optical issues, and the short closest focusing distance is a great feature. All this for around $1200, while reaching 600mm, is a good deal.

The Tamron ends at 500mm, which isn’t as bad as it sounds; that’s 20% shorter. For me, this already makes it less appealing, especially if I’ll be shooting with a full frame camera. Even with the Sigma I often crop a little bit.

The Sony 200-600mm has an improved AF system compared to both third-party options and doesn’t extend when zooming in or out. It can also be used with the 1.4x or 2x teleconverter. Oh, it only comes in white, which may be a good or a bad thing depending on your shooting style.

The post Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS Sport Review for Sony (in 2024) appeared first on Futuredly.

The Sony A6700 is capable of delivering high quality 4K videos that matches the look of more expensive cameras. However, there are a couple of settings you’ll need to enable to get the most out of it.

1. Change Auto Power OFF to ‘High’

This should be the first setting you change on your Sony A6700.

Head over to Settings>Power Setting Option>Auto Power OFF Temp.

• Choose “High”

The A6700 gets warm quickly, especially when recording 4K videos for over 30min. By enabling ‘High’, you raise the automatic limit that triggers the camera to turn off, which by default is set way too low for most people.

Personally, I haven’t had any issues at all because I rarely shoot single clips longer than 30 minutes, but rather separate files. However, if you do interviews or long time-lapse, you’ll need this setting.

2. XAVCS HS 4K for Best 4K Quality

For selecting the highest possible quality, head over to “File Format” in Shooting>Image Quality/Rec menu option.

If you’re not familiar with any of these terms, here’s a breakdown:

• XAVC HS 4K: 4K video with best type of compression (smaller files)
• XAVC S 4K: 4K video with less compression (bigger files)
• XAVCS S-I 4K: 4K video with no compression at all (huge files)

For 90% of A6700 users, XAVCS HS 4K is the best option. It produces manageable file sizes that won’t take too much space on your SD memory card or computer, but may be harder to edit if you’re using a very old computer.

Oh, 4K resolution is way bigger than HD, so I ignored those 2 options the camera provides.

3. Best Bitrate for Colors & Quality

The higher your bit rate, the better the video quality. Unlike previous A6000 series cameras, the A6700 finally allows 10-bit recording to get the most amount of detail and colors out of your footage.

To change the bit rate, find “Movie Settings” which is right under the File format option from above.

The available bit rate will change depending on your frame rate.

For 24p frame rate:

• Choose 100M 4:2:2 10-bit

For 60p frame rate:

• Choose 200M 4:2:2 10-bit

10-bit is better than 8-bit, and 4:2:2 is better than 4;2:0 when it comes to how much information the video files contain. However, these differences will be much more noticeable if you plan on heavily color grading your videos.

For regular recording of your trips or scenarios you do not plan on editing at all, you can still go with 10-bit and 4;2:0 and get 99.9% identical results. 8-bit would also be fine, but since our memory cards and storage is so cheap, you might regret it years later.

4. Unlock PAL/NTSC Region

If you don’t see the 24/60/120p frame rates available, you’ll have to change the NTSC/PAL region.

Head over to Setup>Area/Date (yellow tab, page 41/51) which is all the way down in the main menu system.

• Choose NTSC

Make sure to have your files backed up, as you might lose them during the switch.

5. Enable ‘Recording Display’ Red Frame

It’s not always obvious if you are recording or not, especially if you are not right next to the camera.

There’s an option that gives a red overlay to your LCD when recording.

Go to Shooting>Shooting Display (page 13/54):

• Turn ‘Emphasized REC Display’ ON

6. S-Cinetone for Best Overall Quality, S-Log3 for Best Grading

Picture profiles affect your overall video quality, as well as how much room for grading you have in post-processing.

While there are a couple of different ones on the A6700, the 2 main ones are:

• S-Log3 (use PP1 option in the menu)
• S-Cinetone (use PP11 option in the menu)

S-Cinetone is excellent for getting beautiful colors and dynamic range straight out of the camera. You can still color grade it if you want to, but it’s already usable. I use S-Cinetone 90% of the time when I know I will not have the time or energy to do any Davinci Resolve/Premiere editing.

S-Log3 gives you a bigger dynamic range, but is trickier to work with. For starters, the ISO levels will affect your quality much more, and you will often have to overexpose by 1-2 stops. Unless you have lots of time before and after recording, stick to S-Cinetone. It’s nearly impossible to get daytime videos without an ND filter.

Read more: Sony A6700: 10 Best Settings for Perfect Photos

7. Have Different Settings for Photo & Video

A lot of us are hybrid shooters, which means we constantly switch between Photo & Video mode.

However, for videos, you’ll often have a fixed shutter speed; 1/50 or 1/120, especially if you want a cinematic feel. You don’t want the camera to remember the ‘Photo’ mode values, which are usually way different.

Go to Setup>Operation Customize>Different Set for Still/Mv (page 43/54):

• Uncheck every option you see on the image above (aperture, shutter speed, etc.)

This is how you can have different settings for Photo and Video modes separately.

8. Use Manual White Balance

When taking pictures, it’s okay to have Auto White Balance enabled.

Unfortunately, you can’t have the same for professional videos. If you go from indoors to outdoors in a single video clip, your camera will adjust the White Balance on the spot, and there’s no way to change it later.

Make sure to Disable Auto White Balance, and set the Kelvin’s manually or choose one of the existing values.

9. Choose the Stabilization Mode

If you’re not shooting with a gimbal, this is how you can make sure your videos are stabilized. Nothing ruins a video more than shaky, jittery movement.

Go to Shooting>Image Stabilization>SteadyShot:

• Active (1.1x crop)
• Standard 
• Off

Active Stabilization works very well, and will give you the smoothest results in-camera. It applies a small 1.1x crop though, so your lenses will appear slightly longer. For example, a 50mm lens will have the same field of view as a 55mm lens.

Standard Stabilization uses the regular body/lens combination, so no crop is applied.

10. Enable Subject Recognition AF

The Sony A6700 has incredible AF capabilities, and can recognize these subjects:

• Human
• Animal
• Bird
• Insect
• Car/Train
• Airplane

It works very well, so make sure to enable the Subject Recognition in AF option.

11. Use UHS-II Cards for 4K 120p

Recording slow motion videos in 4K at 120p is fantastic with this camera, but not every memory card is good enough.

• V90 Cards are perfect for 4K at 120p
• V60 Cards are good enough for 4K at 60p

I wrote an entire guide for Sony A6700 memory cards, what matters and how to get the best for your money.

12. Choose the Correct Metering Mode

Sony A6700 has 5 different metering modes:

1. Multi-Pattern
2. Center-Weighted
3. Spot
4. Highlight-Weighted
5. Entire Screen Avg.

You can see my full tutorial on metering modes for Sony cameras, but here’s a quick summary.

Multi-Pattern metering is the most versatile mode. It looks at your entire scene and tries to find the middle ground.

Your camera basically divides the entire scene into different zones and gives a little bit more priority to wherever your focus happens to be when taking a picture.

When it fails, your image may look too dark/bright.

That’s when you need to switch to any of the other modes.

Center-Weighted: Ideal when your subject is in center and you’re shooting against a much brighter background. All of that extra light may confuse your camera which can result in an underexposed subject.

Spot Metering: Your camera will read the light that matches your current AF point. Great if you have a small subject anywhere in the frame (birds, products).

The other 2 modes are something I’ve never used, and don’t recommend you do either.

Metering modes are very important if you shoot in Shutter Priority or Aperture Priority modes because it helps your camera to select the best settings.

If you shoot in Manual, it’s not as important because you can directly control all settings.

13. AF Transition Speed & Subject Shift Sensitivity

Sony cameras are number one when it comes to auto focusing, but you might still have to tweak the settings from time to time.

Go to Focus>AF/MF and mess with these 2 options:

• AF Transition Speed: Controls how smooth the transition from one subject to another is
• AF Subj. Shift Sensitivity: Controls how sensitive the camera is if a new subject appears/leaves the frame.

For example, AF Subj. Shift Sensitivity should be set to 1 if you want your camera to almost ignore anything other than your main subject. If a car, or an animal runs pass them, it shouldn’t try to focus on that. On the other hand, 5 will make the camera super sensitive to anything new in your scene.

14. Understand the Fundamentals

The quickest way to getting higher quality 4K videos is by understanding shutter speed, aperture and ISO.

These 3 settings control the exposure/light.

By having a good understanding of how they all work together, it will allow you to get more creative control over your videos and images

• Shutter Speed: Controls how much light hits the sensor. If you want a cinematic look, make sure it’s double the frame rate (1/50 for 24p, 1/120 for 60p and so on).

• Aperture: Controls how much light goes through the lens. It can make your background blurry, or everything razor sharp. Values are between f/1.2 and f/32.

• ISO: Controls how sensitive to light your sensor is. It can make your videos brighter, but may introduce lots of unwanted noise. Values are between ISO 50 and 102,400,

15. Press “Trash/C3” Button for an Explanation

If you don’t know what a certain setting or function does, press the Trash/C3 button and the camera will tell you.

This works for all menus and settings you will find in the A6700. It’s a hidden feature, but extremely useful for really getting to know your camera.

The post Sony A6700: 15 Best Settings for Video appeared first on Futuredly.

Whether it’s indoors or outdoors, the lack of light is a big issue for your camera gear.

In this guide, I’m going to show you my 10 favorite tips for photographing in low-light. These tips can be applied to weddings, events, concerts and night time photography.

It’s all about finding the right settings that don’t result in blurry images, or too much noise.

1. Shoot with ISO 800+

One of the first things you should do is raise the ISO to at least 800.

Increasing the ISO speed makes your images appear brighter, but will also introduce more noise (I’ll explain how to get rid of it later). The higher your ISO, the brighter your image.

When photographing in low-light, it’s common to shoot with ISO levels between 800 and 12,800. The bigger your camera’s sensor, the less noise it will show. Most modern cameras can still deliver mostly acceptable images up to ISO 3,200.

2. Choose the slowest shutter speed

The shutter speed is another setting you can use to increase/decrease the brightness of your images.

However, if you choose a too slow shutter speed you can end up with blurry images. I assume you want your subject to stay sharp and in focus, so find the slowest possible shutter speed that still gets you good results. There’s no correct setting; just change the values and look at your shots.

What’s the best shutter speed for low-light?

Between 1/15 and 1/125. The darker it is, the closer to 1/15 you should be. Your lens, aperture and overall brightness play an important role, but most low-light situations are all done in this range.

What if your subject is moving really quickly?

This one is tough! Slow shutter speeds are great for static subjects (a landscape at night), but not ideal for moving subjects (rock concert, or a wedding dance). In that case, you’ll have to find the shutter speed that doesn’t blur your subject, and only then apply the other tips in this guide.

3. Select the biggest aperture

Every lens has a maximum aperture size.

Find it, and shoot with it. It could be f/5.6, f/2.8 or even f/1.4.  The lower the number, the better.

Aperture is a hole inside your lens that controls how much light reaches your sensor. Big aperture = lots of light, so you want to make your camera’s lift easier by choosing the biggest value. Here’s my full tutorial.

Are there any downsides to big apertures?

Not really, but remember that the bigger the aperture, the more blurred your background will be. In most cases this is what we actually prefer (weddings, concerts, portraits, events, etc.). It can be an issue if you want everything in your frame to appear in focus though (usually landscape).

I know this is not the most helpful tip, but buying a lens with a large aperture is the best way to improve your low-light shots. Most kit zoom lenses can go up to f/3.5, whereas a cheap 50mm f/1.8 can let in almost 4x more light!

4. Lean against something for stability

Slow shutter speeds and low-light can lead to shaky, blurry images.

One way to combat this is to lean against a wall, or make sure your camera is closer to your body. This improves your overall stability. It may not seem much to you, but your camera is “allergic” the smallest movement.

If you don’t have to lean against, check out the tip below.

5. Be smart, buy a tripod

You don’t need the most expensive tripod out there.

A $20 – $100 tripod is more than enough for standard low-light shots. This includes real estate, landscape, astrophotography and much more.

A tripod is an extra accessory you have to carry with you, and it’s not really the most convenient. However, you’d be surprised at how compact and lightweight they can be when not fully extended. Since the beginning of film days, a tripod is the number one accessory for getting higher quality shots.

We can reduce noise with software, but as of today, there is no perfect way to “unblur” your subject. By using a tripod, you reduce the “blur” problem from your side.

6. Shoot in RAW (and raise shadows later)

I know many people are against shooting in RAW, but what if you make an exception in this case?

When photographing in JPEG, your camera does all the post-processing, which is often horrible for low-light photography. I’m sure you’ve heard it everywhere by now.

RAW files have much more shadows and details you can recover.

It can make or break your shot!

I have had countless of situations where RAW files literally saved my images. Import them into Lightroom, slightly adjust the exposure (or use Auto mode) and then simply raise the shadows as high as you want. Voila!

JPEG makes your images convenient, and just enough balanced. RAW helps you in those extreme situations. Learn when to switch between the two modes.

7. Use Lightroom Denoise

If there was no noise, low-light photography would not be such an issue.

Just raise the ISO to 25,600 and you are done. Unfortunately, this results in a ton of noise.

Well, what if there was a way to remove it?

As of 2024, we have Lightroom and Topaz, two amazing programs that can transform your ultra noisy ISO 12,800 images into a clean, ISO 100 like photograph.

I use Lightroom’s Denoise feature all the time, even for outdoor sunny scenes (wildlife, sports). If I want the absolute best quality, regardless of the subject, I run the image through denoise.

This way, your APS-C cameras and smartphones become a much better tool for low-light photography. We no longer have to worry about noise or invest in full-frame cameras just because of it!

8. Shoot in burst mode (or even 4K video)

This applies to moving and static subjects.

If you shoot in burst mode (continuous shooting), you increase your chances of getting a sharp shot.

For example, if you take 10 shots in a single second, 1 of them will be sharper than the rest. Perhaps you were more stable for that split second, or your moving subject wasn’t as fast.

Whatever the case, burst mode is not only for sports scenes with 1/1000+ shutter speeds. If your shutter speed is 1/30, don’t expect a trillion shots in 1 burst, but it has still helped me plenty of times.

If you’re not sure whether you want a video or a photo of your subject, try shooting 4K video. Afterwards, pause the video at the sharpest frame and cut it out. 4K resolution is around 8 megapixels, which is more than enough for a high quality shot.

9. Switch to manual focus in complete low-light

Most cameras have these 3 autofocusing modes (different names on Canon, Sony, Fuji, Nikon):

1. AF-S/One-Shot: Once your camera has 100% locked onto your subject it will let you take a picture
2. AF-C/AI-Servo: Your camera will try keeping up with the moving subject, but will let you take a picture regardless of how well it’s doing its job.
3. Manual Focus: You control the focus by rotating the front lens ring

Guess what?

In low-light, many cameras simply can not auto focus. There isn’t enough light and contrast for them to assume what the main subject is.

Even if they figure it out, it might take them a couple of seconds, but that’s usually too late.

Switch to MF/Manual Focus and simply twist the front lens ring. It’s easier to use the LCD display instead of the viewfinder to see if your subject is sharp.

It takes a little bit of practice, but might save you in harsh situations. If your subject doesn’t move too much (at least towards/away from you), your manual focus will only have to be adjusted slightly. This could be a fraction of a second compared to hoping your camera’s AF mode.

10. Use your smartphone flash

Since you probably always have a smartphone with you, here’s how you can use it:

1. Rear Flash – Good as a direct light source for small subjects
2. LCD Screen – Good as a soft, fill light (choose a white background)

When to use the rear flash? When you need to be 100% that your manual focus is spot on. Assuming your subject isn’t moving, position your phone next to the subject (or have someone else do it) while taking the picture.

The LCD screen is great for smaller objects, such as products or creative ideas. Change your LCD screen to any color (either by Googling or using an app) and it’s basically like a pocket LED light.

It’s not super strong, but will definitely provide enough light illuminate any subject you are close to.

The post 10 Best Tips for Low-Light Photography (No Flash) appeared first on Futuredly.

It doesn’t matter if they are sleeping, eating or running around, photographing them is always exciting. In this gallery you will find 23 beautiful dog photos to get you inspired!

Each photograph features the camera and settings used, as well as the name of the photographer. Our gallery’s primary objective is to showcase a variety of styles achievable with different camera equipment.

Christopher Horbach | Nikon Z9 – (1/800 – f/1.2 – ISO 320 – 85mm)

Christine Johnson | Nikon Z6 – (1/5000 – f/2.0 – ISO 360 – 85mm)

A & R Photography | Canon R3 – (1/5000 – f/4 – ISO 1600 – 200mm

Rico Pfirstinger | Fujifilm X-H2s – (1/250 – f/5.6 – ISO 1000 – 140mm)

Iker Cortabarria

MK817 | Nikon D850 – (1/3200 – f/5.6 – ISO 1250 – 500mm)

Marnee | Sony A7 IV – (1/1250 – f/2.8 – ISO 1250 – 200mm)

Tom Morris | Nikon R3 – (1/800 – f/4 – ISO 200 – 70mm)

Birgit Franke | Nikon D5 – (1/800 – f/4.5 – ISO 400 – 200mm)

Kevin Chang | Olympus 35 RC

Chris Johnson | Sony A1 – (1/4000 – f/1.8 – ISO 100 – 135mm)

Christian Cameron-Wilton | Sony A7 IV – (1/320 – f/8 – ISO 320 – 18mm)

Ed Miller | Nikon Z8 – (1/128000 – f/2.8 – ISO 400 – 24mm)

Gerhard Wengler | Nikon Z7 II – (1/250 – f/3.5 – ISO 400 – 90mm)

Harald Flecthtner | Canon R6 II – (1/200 – f/7.1 – ISO 200 – 32mm)

Andy Schwohl | Canon R6 – (1/1600 – f/1.8 – ISO 1000 – 135mm)

Tim Kemp | Canon R6 – (1/3200 – f/2.8 – ISO 160 – 200mm)

Paul White | Canon EOS 30D – (1/160 – f/3.5 – ISO 100 – 650mm)

Richard Thwaites | Rich GR III

Welsh Photographs | Nikon D500 – (1/500 – f/8 – ISO 800 – 240mm)

A & R Photography | Canon R3 – (1/1250 – f/4 – ISO 2500 – 28mm)

Welsh Photographs | Sony A6300 – (1/160 – f/4 – ISO 640 – 50mm)

Fen Pilchaert | Sony A7 II

The photographs featured in this gallery are the rightful property of their original authors, credited under each image. Any usage or reproduction of these photographs requires explicit permission from the author.

If you’re interested in taking better pictures of your pets, here’s our 16 best tips for pet photography.

The post 23 Beautiful Examples of Dog Photography appeared first on Futuredly.

If you learn how to read a histogram, you can take better pictures.

Is it hard?

Nope, not at all. As a matter of fact, a histogram is a simple reference that instantly tells you if your image is too dark, too bright, or just about perfect.

In this guide, I’m going to explain what a histogram is, where to find it, as well as the best situations to use it. I guarantee you that in 5 minutes you will have a much better understanding of it.

What is a Histogram?

You can’t always trust the LCD screen of your camera.

That’s why we have histograms. It’s a graph that shows the darkest and brightest parts of your photograph.

A histogram is the easiest way to see if your exposure is set correctly. The goal of every photograph is to maximize the amount of details in dark and bright parts, but your eyes can’t always be trusted.

As scary or boring as histograms may seem, they are just another tool we can use to not screw up our images.

Most mirrorless and DSLR cameras allow you to see the histogram before taking the picture. Others can only display it in playback mode after you’ve taken the picture. Both modes are absolutely fine and useful.

If you shoot in RAW format or do a lot of Lightroom/Photoshop editing, it’s almost a requirement for you to understand them.

How to Read a Histogram for Better Photos

Your photograph is made of pixels. Millions of them.

A histogram gives us a visual representation of how many dark and bright pixels there are, as well as everything in between.

In photography, these tones are usually labeled like this (darkest to brightest):

1. Black
2. Shadows
3. Midtones
4. Highlights
5. White

A histogram will help you at making sure you aren’t losing more details than necessary.

See those peaks and valleys?

If the peaks go above the graph, it means your pixels in that specific area are “ruined”.

If they go over, it means that information is clipped (lost). It applies to black and white corners as well; if it looks like the graph could extend way beyond, your exposure was incorrect.

A little bit is often okay, but try not to have extreme mountains that look like they could continue forever.

Here’s the secret to understanding histograms:

• You rarely want any peaks to go way over the edges (left, right, up)

If the graph goes way over white, it means you have clipped the highlights. Usually this looks like an overblown sky, lack of contrast and an overall bad image. We call this an overexposed image.

Overexposure means your settings allowed too much light into your camera for this particular scene. What’s bright in real life actually appears as totally white. It could be because of your shutter speed, aperture or ISO. Perhaps a combination of all 3.

If the graph goes way over black, it means you have clipped the shadows. What should appear dark on your image looks completely black, unnatural and weird. We call this an underexposed image.

Similarly, it means your settings weren’t letting enough light into the camera. You could simply increase the length of your shutter speed, open up the aperture or increase your ISO level.

Let’s look at a couple of histograms that aren’t too good.

Underexposed Histogram

These examples are intentionally bright/dark, so you can spot the differences quicker.

See how abruptly the black edge stops in the histogram above? It doesn’t gradually decline, which tells us we are definitely losing some information in darker areas of the image.

There’s also a lack of any midtones and highlights, but this could be intentional.

Overexposed Histogram

Here’s the opposite problem; overexposure.

First, you can see that shadows and midtones all look perfectly fine. Nothing goes over the left or top part of the histogram.

The problem is in the highlights/white area. If you look at the sky you can see that there’s no detail at all, but when photographing outdoors you might not always be able to spot this without the use of a histogram.

This is an extreme example, but it’s very easy to clip the highlights when photographing landscape or outside on a sunny day.

Some cameras (Sony) actually have a metering mode that’s specifically made so you don’t lose the highlight information.

Properly Exposed Histogram

This is an example of a more balanced exposure. We are not losing anything in the shadows, nor highlights.

As a matter of fact, I could actually slightly increase the exposure in post-process. There’s a little bit of empty space in the white area, which means I could try and recover some more information. Shooting in RAW format makes this much easier, whereas in JPEG I would be out of luck.

So why would I even use a histogram for this landscape image above?

Well, there’s a bright sky, plenty of midtones, and a dark area with water and rocks.

If I relied purely on my eyes, it would be easy to clip a certain tone.

By using the histogram, it’s easier to find just the right exposure that will get in as many details as possible. I don’t want to clip my shadows or highlights; that’s lost information we can never bring back in post-process.

When & How To Use a Histogram?

First of all, there is no perfect histogram.

Your camera doesn’t know what you want. The histogram only displays the luminance of the pixels it detected.

It may go well over the edges, but if it visually looks like you want it to, it’s not a problem.

If you are photographing at night, it’s impossible to have lots of details in brighter areas. Judging by the histogram, you’d think you needed to raise your exposure. That’s simply not true.

When to use a histogram?

1. When you have a bright background (usually sky, wall, studio)
2. When it’s so bright you can’t trust your LCD monitor
3. When there’s lots of dark and bright parts, but you need as much detail as possible

Use a histogram when the shot is important and you have enough time.

• Landscape
• Portraits
• Products
• Studio
• Weddings

When shooting landscape, you’re not really in a rush. Those few extra seconds of looking at a histogram won’t ruin the moment.

Use histograms when you get to a new location and plan on spending a lot of time there. For example, weddings are fast-paced, but if you’re going to be inside the same space for a few hours, it helps to at least once see what your histogram is telling you.

It’s completely different when traveling, or doing casual photography. I almost never look at my histograms in those situations. I trust my eyes and my camera enough, and it’s not like we can’t live without the histogram.

Is There a Perfect Histogram?

No.

Don’t worry about capturing peaks and valleys in the entire histogram, it’s not always possible.

If you’re taking pictures of a black subject in front of a white wall, you simply can’t get too many midtones.

When photographing a white dog in snow, it’s impossible to get a ton of black/shadow information. At least not with a proper exposure that looks natural.

Same goes for this night time photograph of a car. You’re not going to see a balanced histogram that has peaks and valleys in the entire tonal range.

In some situations, your histogram has to look bad.

This is most common in landscape photography.

How to capture the white sky + dark environment? It’s impossible to do it in a single photo.

Therefore, I usually expose for the darker area and “ignore” the sky. A little bit of lost details in a bright sky is okay. Especially if it doesn’t bring much value and excitement to the photograph anyways.

Histograms in Lightroom/Photoshop

Most editing programs can show a histogram of your photo.

Just like with your camera’s LCD screen, this is a great way to have a reference for your exposure. Did you raise the shadows too much, or is your overall exposure too dark?

RBG Histogram

There’s also an RGB histogram that displays the levels of red, blue and green in an image.

If one of your colors is clipping, you can simply use the curves feature to reduce its amount. Curves allow you to target the shadows, midtones or highlights, so you can be super precise when editing colors.

Where to Find the Histogram on Your Camera?

• Canon: Press “Info” button repeatedly when reviewing your images
• Sony: Press “Display” button repeatedly when shooting/reviewing images
• Nikon: Press “Info” button repeatedly when shooting/reviewing images
• Fujifilm: Press “Disp Back” button repeatedly

If you can’t see the histogram in your camera, you might have to dig through the menus. Not every camera model has it enabled by default, but they all definitely have the option.

Most cameras have histogram for luminance, as well as RGB levels.

The post What’s a Histogram? (And Why it Matters in Photography) appeared first on Futuredly.

A collection of inspiring photographs taken with Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS, a telephoto full-frame lens released in 2017.

Each photograph features the camera and settings used, alongside the name of the original photographer. Our gallery’s primary objective is to showcase a variety of styles achievable with different camera equipment.

Jason Moore | Sony A1 – (1/2000 – f/5.6 – ISO 640 – 400mm)

Johan Olsson | Sony A7R II – (1/350 – f/8 – ISO 100 – 400mm)

Ronny Olsson | Sony A7R III – (1/400 – f/8 – ISO 640 – 400mm)

Allyndon | Sony A7 III – (1/500 – f/5.6 – ISO 640 – 400mm)

Mike Hedge | Sony A7 IV – (1/320 – f/5.6 – ISO 320 – 285mm)

Chris Ring | Sony A7 III + 1.4x Teleconverter (1/500 – f/8.0 – ISO 125 – 560mm)

Tuomo Kokkonen | Sony A7R III – (1/250 – f/8 – ISO 1000 – 391mm)

Charles Bonham | Sony A7R II + 1.4x Teleconverter – (1/320 – f/8 – ISO 6400 – 560mm)

Daniel Kukura | Sony A6700 – (1/250 – f/13.0 – ISO 64 – 400mm)

Zug55 | Sony A7R III – (1/250 – f/7.1 – ISO 640 – 173mm)

Greg Knight | Sony A9 – (1/500 – f/7.1 – ISO 200 – 400mm)

Mark Serle | Sony A9 – (1/640 – f/5.6 – ISO 1000 – 400mm)

Jim | Sony A1 – (1/8000 – f/5.6 – ISO 2000 – 400mm)

Josh Taylor | Sony A7 III – (1/640 – f/5.6 – ISO 800 – 400mm)

Rob Zonder | Sony A7 III

Procyon44 | Sony A9 II – (1/320 – f/4.5 – ISO 100 – 100mm)

John Brighenti | Sony A7R IV – (1/13 – f/11 – ISO 100 – 100mm)

Ketih T. | Sony A7R IV – (1/400 – f/5.6 – ISO 400 – 400mm)

Ondrej V. | Sony A7R IV – (1/80 – f/11 – ISO 100 – 400mm)

Jillyspoon | Sony A7R V – (1/1000 – f/5.6 – ISO 3200 – 400mm)

Luciën Reyns | Sony A7R V – (1/400 – f/5.6 – ISO 5000 – 400mm)

Peter Stenzel | Sony A1 – (2.5″ – f/8.0 – ISO 100 – 279mm)

The photographs featured in this gallery are the rightful property of their original authors, duly credited under each image. Any usage or reproduction of these photographs requires explicit permission from the author.

Feel free to send us a message on Flickr or contact us if you think you have a photograph we should add to an existing gallery.

The post Sony 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS – Photo Gallery (22 Examples) appeared first on Futuredly.

In this guide, I’m going to show you all the major settings you need to change if you want the best image quality out of your camera.

1. JPEG Settings for Highest Quality

For best image quality, I recommend shooting in RAW format.

However, not everyone has the time or knowledge to edit all of their images. JPEG files are edited by your camera and this includes sharpening, colors and contrast.

Head over to Shooting>Image Quality/Rec (red tab, page 7/58) and click on JPEG Quality.

• Choose JPEG (Extra Fine) for highest image quality.

By default, it’s set to Fine. You’re not getting the best quality.

There is also an HEIF option, which has the same image quality as JPEG but much smaller file sizes. Unfortunately many programs/apps are not fully compatible with it yet so I don’t recommend it for most people.

If you choose Light option, your JPEG files will get heavily compressed. This will result in smaller file sizes, but noticeably worse image quality.

2. RAW Settings for Highest Quality

If you want complete control over your images, shoot in RAW format.

• Choose Lossless Compressed for highest image quality.

What’s the difference between the 2 modes?

1. Compressed RAW – Some data is removed to make smaller file sizes. Your photos still contain a ton of information, but you’re not getting 100% out of it.
2. Lossless Compressed RAW – The original file is also compressed but without losing any information at all.

The Sony A6700 is one of the first Sony’s cameras to support Lossless Compressed RAW.

It creates much smaller file sizes than Uncompressed RAW (not available with this camera) but doesn’t throw any information away. Therefore, this is easily the best RAW setting on any Sony camera.

Files are a little bit bigger than Compressed RAW, but for maximizing your shots I recommend you stick with Lossless.

RAW format does not apply any sharpening, saturation, contrast, noise reduction etc.. Everything needs to be done manually, or by applying custom presets. Don’t be discouraged if your images look worse compared to JPEG, it’s because you have not edited them yet.

Another big benefit of Lossless RAW is that your files are 14-bit when shooting in continuous mode. With Compressed RAW, they go down to 12-bit which means you’re losing a little bit information again.

If you want to see how many RAW files you can store on your A6700, check out our memory card storage calculator.

3. Limit Your Auto ISO

Navigate to Exposure/Color (purple tab, page 13/54) and scroll down to ISO settings.

Click on ISO Range Limit and select the following ISO values:

• Minimum: ISO 50
• Maximum: ISO 6,400

Shooting in Auto ISO is highly recommended, especially if you don’t understand exposure.

However, the more you raise your ISO, the more noise appears on your images. This leads to lower image quality, less contrast, and visually less appealing photos.

You can simply limit your camera and make sure it never goes above ISO 6,400. The Sony A6700 has an APS-C sensor and it can’t keep up with full-frame cameras when it comes to noise. It’s great, but it’s not perfect. Even 6,400 is pushing the limit.

Read more: The 8 Best Lenses for Sony A6700 in 2024

Auto ISO is great regardless of which camera mode you’re shooting in.

4. Choose the Correct Metering Mode

Sony A6700 has 5 different metering modes:

1. Multi-Pattern
2. Center-Weighted
3. Spot
4. Highlight-Weighted
5. Entire Screen Avg.

You can see my full tutorial on metering modes for Sony cameras, but here’s a quick summary.

Multi-Pattern metering is the most versatile mode. It looks at your entire scene and tries to find the middle ground.

Your camera basically divides the entire scene into different zones and gives a little bit more priority to wherever your focus happens to be when taking a picture.

When it fails, your image may look too dark/bright.

That’s when you need to switch to any of the other modes.

Center-Weighted: Ideal when your subject is in center and you’re shooting against a much brighter background. All of that extra light may confuse your camera which can result in an underexposed subject.

Spot Metering: Your camera will read the light that matches your current AF point. Great if you have a small subject anywhere in the frame (birds, products).

The other 2 modes are something I’ve never used, and don’t recommend you do either.

Metering modes are very important if you shoot in Shutter Priority or Aperture Priority modes because it helps your camera to select the best settings.

If you shoot in Manual, it’s not as important because you can directly control all settings.

5. Link Your AF Point to Spot Metering

When shooting in Spot Metering mode, your A6700 uses a small portion of the center to measure light. This is not the optimal way.

Head over to Exposure/Color>Metering (purple tab, page 15/54).

• Choose Focus Point Link in Metering Menu

This way, your metering mode is directly linked to wherever your current AF point is.

It works for small, medium and large AF points. It’s ideal if you don’t always position your subject in center.

I always have this feature enabled and find it great for animals and product photography.

6. Limit Your Shutter Speed

This tip only applies if you shoot in Aperture Priority mode.

Head over to Exposure/Color>Exposure (purple tab, page 13/54).

• Select the minimum shutter speed = 1/30

When shooting in Aperture Priority, the A6700 can select a shutter speed that is slower than what you’d like.

This results in blur and lack of sharpness in your images.

The slower the shutter speed, the higher your chance of getting a shaky image. Having lenses with Image Stabilization helps, and the A6700 has it built-in as well.

By limiting your minimum shutter speed to 1/30, your chances of getting sharp images are way higher.

“Your shutter speed number should be higher than your focal length number.”

Remember this rule! If you’re shooting with a 50mm lens, make sure your shutter speed is at least 1/50.

Read more: Sony A6700: 15 Best Settings for Video

7. Turn off Noise Reduction

Your A6700 can apply noise reduction right after taking an image, but I recommend you turn it off.

Head over to Shooting>Image Quality/Rec (red tab, page 4/54).

• Long Exposure NR: Off
• High ISO NR: Off

Why should you turn it off?

If you shoot in RAW, it’s best you apply noise reduction in your preferred program. Lightroom is absolutely amazing when it comes to noise removal.

The A6700 is quite good with High ISO NR, but nothing beats doing it manually later. Your camera is as smart as the day it was released, whereas programs are constantly being updated with new algorithms.

Long Exposure NR is automatically applied when shooting with 1s+ shutter speeds. For astrophotography and sky images, turn it off and do all noise removal later. It will speed up the process of writing images onto your memory card. Here’s my full guide on Sony A6700 memory cards.

8. Choose the Correct Focus Mode

The Sony A6700 has many different focusing modes. These 4 are the most important.

• Wide
• Zone
• Spot (S, M, L)
• Manual

I highly recommend you to switch between them.

For example, when I’m traveling or doing quick shoots, I stick to Wide or Zone. I trust the Sony A6700 enough to make the right decision and it’s amazing and auto focusing.

Spot AF is my second favorite focusing mode.

You use the dial pad to move a single AF point around. You have 3 options; Small, Medium or Large. This depends on the size of your subject and how many distracting elements there are.

For portraits and slower subjects, this is the best way to get a tack sharp image.

When I do animal or bird photography, I’m in Spot AF for like 90% of the time. This is especially true if there are many branches or trees surrounding the animal, which makes the A6700’s job much harder.

By moving the AF point manually, you raise your chances of getting a sharp shot.

As soon as there’s less distracting elements, or my subject is moving quickly, I switch back to Wide AF and let the camera figure it out.

Sony A6700 has an excellent AI Recognition chip for people, animals, birds, insects and vehicles. Don’t forget change this setting before you start shooting.

9. Understand the Fundamentals

The quickest way to getting better images is by understanding shutter speed, aperture and ISO.

These 3 settings control the exposure/light.

By having a good enough understanding of how they all work together, it will allow you to get more creative control over your images.

• Shutter Speed: Controls how much light hits the sensor. It can freeze a moving subject, or make it appear blurry and give an illusion of movement. Values are between 1/4000 and 30 seconds.

• Aperture: Controls how much light goes through the lens. It can make your background blurry, or everything razor sharp. Values are between f/1.2 and f/32.

• ISO: Controls how sensitive to light your sensor is. It can make your images brighter, but may introduce lots of unwanted noise. Values are between ISO 50 and 102,400,

We have beginner friendly tutorials for all of these. I promise you that after reading them, you will instantly have a better understanding of how they affect your photos.

For example, every lens has an aperture sweet spot where images look the sharpest. Usually, that’s not at its largest opening, but somewhere in the middle.

If you want to control all 3, you will have to shoot in Manual. Since this can be quite scary, I recommend you to start with Aperture/Shutter Priority modes and see how it feels.

Many professional photographers stick to these 2 modes and never shoot in Manual. Both options are perfectly fine, but it helps to at least know how these 3 settings change your image.

10. Press “Trash/C3” Button for an Explanation

Don’t know what a certain setting or function does?

• Press the Trash/C3 button.

This works for all menus and settings you will find in the A6700. It’s a hidden feature, but extremely useful for really getting to know your camera.

The post Sony A6700: 10 Best Settings for Perfect Photos appeared first on Futuredly.

Short answer, it depends on your scenario. Most people choose between Shutter Speed Priority and Aperture Priority, so let’s see which one is better for you.

1. What is Shutter Speed Priority Mode?

When shooting in Shutter Priority mode, you’re only controlling the shutter speed (no way!).

Your camera handles the other 2 most important settings, aperture and ISO. You’re free to select your own picture profile, focus points, white balance and so on.

What is shutter speed and what does it do?

• A fast shutter speed brings in very little light, and will make your subject appear frozen. It’s great for action (sports, wildlife).
• A slow shutter speed is ideal for low-light, or whenever you want to blur the movement of your subject. This is most common in astrophotography (star trails) or waterfalls.

Because changing the shutter speed also changes your exposure, this camera mode is ideal if you don’t have enough time or knowledge to properly adjust aperture and ISO. Otherwise, your images can end up too bright or dark.

If you want to learn everything about shutter speed, here’s our tutorial for beginners.

2. When to Use Shutter Speed Priority Mode

These are just some of my top recommendations, but many people use Shutter Speed Priority for pretty much everything they photograph.

Choosing the right shutter speed is highly related to the sharpness of your images, so don’t forget to check out our 15 tips for getting sharp photos.

Sports & Wildlife

To freeze fast paced movement, your shutter speed needs to be at least 1/500. Anything slower and you risk having your subject blurred.

The faster your shutter speed, the more light you need. 1/500 is okay for sunny outdoor days, but will be problematic for indoor arenas or early morning wildlife sessions.

Shutter Speed Priority mode is great for this; you worry about making it’s fast enough to freeze motion, while the camera works on getting a proper exposure.

Astrophotography

Astrophotography is done with shutter speeds of at least ~15 seconds, sometimes even a couple of minutes/hours.

You need a tripod for this type of photography, and preferably a wireless remote/phone app to take pictures.

Panning

A lot of people forget about panning, but this style can give you the best of both worlds; slow and fast shutter speed worlds. It shows movement, but doesn’t make it “boring” or standard, the way we’re used to seeing all action images.

To get the panning effect, simply follow your subject with the camera while taking the picture. Everything else will appear blurred.

The biggest issue is finding out which shutter speed is needed; usually it’s between 1/15 and 1/60 for cars, bikes and dogs running. It’s a loooot of trial and error, but so worth it when you finally get it.

3. Is Aperture Priority Mode Better?

Yes, but only if your main goal is to blur the background, or make everything appear sharp.

For portrait photography, it’s much better to shoot in Aperture Priority mode. Since your subject isn’t moving, there’s not much difference between 1/250 and 1/1000.

Other examples would be landscape, weddings and macro. Anything where depth of field is super important to you.

In Shutter Speed mode, your camera only adjusts the aperture so your images don’t look too bright/dark. It doesn’t know if you want to blur the background or have everything sharp.

4. How to Shoot in Shutter Speed Priority

1. Rotate the camera mode dial to T or Tv
2. Find which dial/wheel controls the aperture (instructions/manual)
3. Rotate the dial to both extremes (widest and smallest) to see all possible speeds
4. Find out which button is set to Exposure Compensation

Most cameras have a front, top and rear dial. Their function can be changed, so you can actually customize the buttons as you like. I have my shutter speed set to the rear dial; the most convenient one for my thumb.

If you have a Fujifilm camera, most of them have a specific shutter speed dial with all values written on it.

5. Don’t Forget About Exposure Compensation & Metering

Even though you only control the shutter speed and let your camera do the rest, it can sometimes choose the wrong settings.

That’s where exposure compensation button/dial comes in.

It’s basically telling the camera “I like the settings you gave me, but make the image a bit darker or brighter”. You simply rotate the dial left/right in order to increase or decrease overall brightness.

Some cameras have a specific dial for exposure compensation, while others have a +/- button on the back.

When shooting in Shutter/Aperture Priority, the metering mode of your camera is also very important. It’s always calculating the best settings based on available light, but you can tell it to ignore certain parts of an image.

There are a couple of different modes; some look at your entire frame, while some only look at the light in the center. You can see more information in my metering guide here.

5. Choose Auto ISO

In both Aperture and Shutter Priority modes, your camera will automatically choose the best ISO.

I highly suggest you find the Auto ISO option and set the lowest and highest values. For most cameras, this is between ISO 100 and ISO 3,200. If you’ve got a full-frame camera released in the last ~5 years, feel free to set it up to ISO 6,400.

If you don’t do this, your camera will often choose a too high ISO value which will result in noisy images.

The post What is Shutter Speed Priority Mode & When to Use it appeared first on Futuredly.

In fully automatic modes, it only makes sure your photos look bright enough. It doesn’t care about the artistic side.

Aperture Priority mode is one of the 4 most important camera modes, so let’s see when and how you should use it.

1. What is Aperture Priority Mode?

In Aperture Priority mode, you’re only controlling the aperture. Every other important setting is handled by your camera; shutter speed, ISO, etc.

It’s a semi-manual mode, because you’re letting your camera do half of the work.

What is aperture and what does it do?

Aperture is an opening inside your camera lens. By making it bigger, you’re letting more light reach your sensor, which is great for low-light scenarios.

On the other hand, the smaller it is, the less light will pass through. It’s most commonly used when you have plenty of light.

However, aperture also does one more important thing!

It controls how much of your image is in focus.

1. It can blur your background (big aperture)
2. It can make everything appear sharp (small aperture)

That’s it! In aperture priority mode, you are the one deciding how your image should look like when it comes to depth of field (the actual term used to describe the area of a photo that appears in focus).

Because changing the aperture size also changes your exposure, this camera mode is ideal if you don’t have enough time or knowledge to properly adjust shutter speed and ISO. Otherwise, your images can easily end up too bright or dark.

2. When to Use Aperture Priority Mode?

Some photographers constantly shoot in aperture mode.

It gives you a bit less creative control over your images compared to manual mode. On the other hand, it’s more convenient and leaves less room for mistakes.

Landscape Photography

What do most landscape images have in common?

Everything appears sharp. Mountains in the back, water in front, trees in the middle, it doesn’t matter. They all look razor sharp and nothing is blurred.

To achieve this, you should use a small aperture (between f/5.6 and f/16). Don’t go too small otherwise you’ll run into a problem called diffraction.

Portrait & Wedding Photography

Most portrait photos have a blurred background which makes the subject stand out even more.

To achieve this, use a big aperture which is anything between f/1.2 and f/4. The problem is, most cheaper lenses can’t go bigger than f/4, so you will most likely have to invest in new glass.

There are a couple of affordable options for every brand, but mostly prime lenses (no zoom).

Shooting with a longer focal length will also help blur the background due to compression. For example, most portraits are shot between 70 and 150mm, which is an ideal length for making your subject’s face appear flat and natural. Try shooting someone with an ultra-wide lens and see how distorted their face will be.

Macro Photography

Just like with portraits, a beautiful macro shot often has a blurred background. Whether it’s flowers or bugs, shooting in aperture priority mode will allow you to control what’s in focus.

3. Is Shutter Speed Priority Better?

Yes and no.

Sometimes it’s better to have control over your shutter speed. If there’s not enough light, your camera might actually choose a shutter speed that’s too slow, which will result in shaky images.

“Your shutter speed number should be higher than your focal length number.”

This is a really helpful tip to remember for getting sharper images.

For example, if you’ve got a Sony 18-105mm lens and are currently at 50mm focal length, make sure to shoot with at least 1/50.

Whenever you take a picture, you move just a little bit. When your shutter speed is fast enough, that’s not a problem. However, when you shoot with a slow shutter speed, any movement will be much more visible. The slower you go, the worse.

In low-light situations (night time, indoors, events) it’s often wiser to shoot in Shutter Speed mode. Depth of field is not as important as capturing a sharp, blur-free moment.

4. How to Shoot in Aperture Priority Mode

1. Rotate the camera mode dial to A or Av
2. Find which dial/wheel controls the aperture (instructions/manual)
3. Rotate the dial to both extremes (widest and smallest) to see all possible aperture sizes
4. Find out which button is set to Exposure Compensation

Most cameras have a front, top and rear dial. Their function can be changed, so you can actually customize the buttons as you like. Personally, I always have my aperture dial right next to the shutter button.

5. Don’t Forget About Exposure Compensation & Metering

When shooting in Aperture Priority mode, your camera can choose the wrong settings. Your images may appear too bright/dark, even though all other settings were chosen automatically.

That’s where exposure compensation button/dial comes in.

It’s basically telling the camera “I like the settings you gave me, but make the image a bit darker”. You’ll have to use exposure compensation often, so set it to a button that you won’t forget. Read the manual on where you can find yours.

When shooting in Aperture/Shutter Priority, the metering mode of your camera is also very important. It’s always calculating the best settings based on available light, but you can tell it to ignore certain parts of an image.

There are a couple of different modes; some look at your entire frame, while some only look at the light in the center. You can see more information in my metering guide here.

You don’t have to fully understand it, but it will help a lot when shooting in difficult light conditions (usually portraits or sunsets).

5. Don’t Forget About ISO

When it comes to ISO, you don’t want your camera to go too wild.

Because it does everything automatically, it might sometimes select an ISO speed that will result in too much noise.

Find the Auto ISO option and set the lowest and highest values. For most cameras, this is between ISO 100 and ISO 3,200. If you’ve got a full-frame camera released in the last ~5 years, feel free to set it up to ISO 6,400.

This way you ensure that your camera does its best to get a proper exposure, but without sacrificing too much image quality. The higher your ISO, the more noise appears on your images.

Many cameras will also let you choose the minimum shutter speed in the same tab.

The post What is Aperture Priority Mode & When to Use it appeared first on Futuredly.

You’re probably doing something wrong. 

It’s either your technique or bad settings. It could also be your gear, but this is not a guide where I’m going to tell you to get a better camera or lens.

Instead, these are my 16 top tips that I use in all sorts of photography situations. Everyone struggles with getting razor sharp photos, even professional photographers.

There is not 1 secret setting that will make your images look stunningly sharp, but rather a combination of techniques you can keep in your head the next time you’re shooting.

1. Keep your shutter speed higher than focal length

Use the focal length rule if you shoot in Manual or Shutter Priority modes.

“Your shutter speed number should be higher than your focal length number.” If you’re shooting with a 50mm lens, make sure your shutter speed is at least 1/50. For APS-C cameras, this number should be even higher due to their crop factor.

The longer your focal length, the more important this rule is. Any type of movement will look much worse when shooting at 300mm compared to 15mm, especially if there isn’t enough light to match the shutter speed required. Here’s my complete shutter speed tutorial for beginners.

2. Shoot in continuous mode

Most advanced cameras can shoot at least 5 frames per second, with some well over 20.

You should shoot in burst mode to maximize your chances of getting a sharp shot. Trust me, this is one of the best ways to get sharp low light results, especially if you’ve got a slow shutter speed.

Whenever you take a picture, you’re never completely still. By taking at least 3-10 pictures in a short burst you know one at least 1 will be sharper than the rest.

3. Low ISO = Max Quality

Even though raising the ISO will help with a faster shutter speed (which helps reduce blur), the best image quality of any camera is achieved at its lowest ISO values.

Why?

Shooting with high ISO results in more noise on your images, which can quickly degrade the quality. More expensive cameras show less noise, but generally you shouldn’t go above ISO 1,600 if you’ve got an APS-C model or a smartphone.

You should definitely raise the ISO enough to get a proper shutter speed that won’t result in a shaky image, but be careful not to overdo it. I wrote an ISO Guide where you can find extra tips on how to find the best setting for your camera.

4. Shoot with f/8 or f/11

Just because your lens can go to f/1.4 doesn’t mean you should always use it.

A small aperture results in more parts of your image appearing in focus. However, doing so will also reduce the amount of light hitting your sensor, so you’ll need to make sure your exposure looks normal.

Make sure your aperture is smaller than f/5.6; most people shoot at f/8 or f/11 for razor sharp images. This is perfect for landscape, travel, architecture and street photography, but can be applied to any other situation.

Again, the downside of this is that your images will now appear darker. You will have to raise the ISO or increase your shutter speed to get a normal exposure. Shooting with f/8 or f/11 is also impossible to do in low-light so this tip is mainly for outdoor locations.

Here’s a link to my complete aperture tutorial for beginners and some tips to get blurred backgrounds.

5. Are you holding the camera properly?

When you press on the shutter button or tap the phone screen, you move just a little bit. It’s a guaranteed way to introduce blur when shooting with shutter speeds below 1/125.

Here are a couple of tips on how to hold the camera:

• Make sure you hold the lens from underneath (not top or side)
• Keep your camera as close as to your body as possible
• Use your neck strap as support with telephoto lenses

If you have an articulating LCD screen, you can flip it up and press the camera into your stomach. 

When shooting with telephoto lenses, I sometimes place the camera as far away as possible and use the neck strap for support. This is only if my hands/biceps are completely tired, and the neck strap will make sure I use other muscles for stability.

6. Switch to One-Shot/AF-S mode

Do you know all of your camera AF modes?

Most cameras have these 3 (different names on Canon, Sony and Nikon):

1. AF-S/One-Shot: Once your camera has 100% locked onto your subject it will let you take a picture
2. AF-C/AI-Servo: Your camera will try keeping up with the moving subject, but will let you take a picture regardless of how well it’s doing its job.
3. AF-A/AI Focus: Your camera will automatically switch between the 2 modes.

You should shoot in AF-S if you want the highest possibility of a razor sharp image. Your camera won’t even let you take a picture unless it’s 100% certain it got your subject in focus.

The AF-S mode is ideal for static, or slower subjects. For sports and wildlife, switch back to AF-C or AI mode where your camera automatically detects which mode is best. You can find complete tutorials on official pages of Canon and Sony.

7. Use the sharpest aperture of your lens

This is a huge tip!

Most lenses are optically worse when shooting with their largest aperture. This is even more obvious with zoom lenses due to having more elements that can optically affect the image.

For example, a 50mm f/1.4 lens will most likely be best when used between f/2 and f/5.6.

You can do this test on your own.

1. With the camera static, take one shot at its widest (let’s say f/2.8), and then stop down to a couple of different values (f4, f/5.6 and f/8).
2. Zoom to 100% for each image and look at the quality and other flaws (in center and edges)

You might notice weird colored lines, also known as chromatic aberration, or overall softer images. This is all completely normal, especially if your lens wasn’t super expensive.

I know you probably want to use your f/1.8 lens at f/1.8, but you will often have to decide between best quality OR best background blur. Oh, and don’t forget that nobody looks at your images with 100% zoom; it’s easy to get obsessed with having the best quality. The sooner you let it go, the better, especially for your wallet.

8. Focus manually in low-light

Even the best cameras and lenses struggle with auto focusing in low-light.

They need light and contrast to work perfectly, and with lack of both, only the most expensive cameras will be somewhat useful here.

You should focus manually if you see your camera takes more than 1-2 seconds to lock focus. Keep this in mind the next time you’re shooting indoor events, celebrations, concerts or even astrophotography.

It’s not easy to get razor sharp images by focusing manually, but it’s much better than letting your camera do a bad job at it. I can’t even begin to count the amount of times I got home and put the images on a bigger screen, only to see they were hardly in focus.

9. Get a simple, inexpensive tripod

A tripod is one of the most important photography accessories.

Some shots are simply impossible without a tripod; blurred water, fireworks, astrophotography and many more.

However, you should think consider getting a tripod even if you don’t do any of those. Landscape shooters are notorious for hiking with them. It allows for perfect composition and complete stability. Since landscape photography is done with small apertures, your shutter speed will often be below 1/125.

The heavier your camera, the sturdier your tripod should be. Cheap tripods can easily fall if the wind is too strong, so don’t get the cheapest thing out there ($60+ is an okay starting point).

10. Use a wireless remote or phone

• Wireless or wired remote
• Phone application
• Self-timer (2s, 5,s 10s)

Most mirrorless cameras can be paired with your phone by using their official app. This is perfect if you don’t want to invest in a wireless remote, since you probably carry one in your pocket all the time.

For landscape and static subjects, it’s best to use a 2 second timer. You’ll need a tripod for that of course.

11. Don’t forget about Image Stabilization

This is more of a reminder since you can’t really go out and buy Image Stabilization. Either your camera/lens has it, or it doesn’t.

Image Stabilization can help up to 5-6 stops in the latest lenses. In real life, this translates to being able to shoot with 1/15 instead of ~1/500 and get sharp results! Unfortunately, Image Stabilization (aka VR, OSS) only helps stabilize your movement, not the actual subject.

Don’t forget to turn Image Stabilization OFF when shooting with a tripod, as it may actually cause blur.

12. Get a lens cleaning kit

You should regularly clean your lenses. Okay, you don’t have to be obsessed about it, but whenever I shoot in bad weather (rain, fog, sand) I make sure to go over all the important parts of my camera and lenses.

You’d be surprised how much fingerprints and smudges can affect the quality!

This is especially true for smartphones. Our phones have 2-5 lenses nowadays, which means you’ve got like 5x more chances of one of them being dirty. Dirty fingers and dirty pockets are not the ideal place for clean glass.

13. Use RAW and add sharpness & clarity in Lightroom

RAW files aren’t processed so you will have to do all the work yourself. JPEG images will automatically look sharper and “better” straight out of camera, since they’re already edited.

Add a little bit of sharpness and clarity settings, but don’t go overboard with it. It’s very easy to ruin the entire image by adding too much of it.

Sometimes I only add extra detail to my main subject, and leave everything else alone. In Lightroom this is super easy thanks to its Mask features and automatic subject/background detection.

14. Don’t use lens filters

If you use a bad lens filter on your lenses, it will result in loss of quality and contrast. This is especially true if you bought a filter from an unknown company.

They are great for protecting your expensive lens, but try shooting a same scene with and without the filter. This will be the best way for you to personally test if your $5 filter is degrading the quality of your $500+ lens.

Try shooting with a lens hood if you’re worried about breaking your gear. On the plus side, they also protect against flare which is another useful tip.

15. Use the LCD Screen

You can use your camera’s playback feature to zoom 100% into the image.

It’s way easier to judge how sharp your image is compared to a viewfinder. Most advanced cameras also have an AF display function that highlights which part of the image it focused on. This is a quick way to notice if there are any potential issues with your gear or not.

Here’s a quick summary of the most important steps:

1. Small apertures improve your lens quality + make everything in focus
2. Keep your shutter speed above the focal length number
3. Shoot in burst mode for a higher chance of 1 sharp image
4. Use lower ISO values to maximize quality
5. Relax your breath and keep a good posture

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