How you use your DSLR camera - The Basics

I've had my DSLR camera for a while now but I am guilty of never really looking into how to use it. I've messed around with a few settings and learned how to get the effects I wanted without really understanding what they are, knowing that I could default to auto if getting stuck while I'm out.

However that is all changing this month and I've been doing some research into what it all means so I thought I would share what I've learnt with you guys, hopefully helping a few of you out.

These instructions are based on the Panasonic Lumix GX1 but most DSLR's have similar settings so if your camera is slightly different then Google how to get the same setting on your camera make, as most instruction manuals are shown online.

But what does DSLR stand for?

DSLR stands for Digital Single-Lens Reflex. It takes the mechanisms of an SLR camera and merges it with a digital imaging sensor, instead of using film, giving you the flexibility of more advanced settings and the potential for a higher quality image.

I could attempt to go into the science of it all but I'm not going to pretend to understand it all and I'm pretty sure that's not what you are here to read.

The Settings

For a long time I never changed this dial on the top of my camera, not understanding what all the settings meant. Here's a quick run through of what they all stand for:

• P = Program Mode allows for all settings to be manually selected
• A = Aperture-Priority Mode sets the shutter speed automatically, determined by the aperture value you set
• S = Shutter-Priority Mode determines the aperture value is automatically by the shutter speed you set
• M = Manual Exposure Mode adjusts the exposure based on the aperture value and the shutter speed selected
• C1/C2 = Custom Mode take pictures with previously registered settings
• SCN = Scene Mode allows you to take pictures that match the scene being recorded
•  = Creative Control Mode automatically applies effects to the picture as your are taking it

So did you get all that...no? Don't worry I'm not surprised! The first time I read these descriptions I wasn't much clearer about what they all meant so lets pick out some of the key words and go into them in a bit more detail.

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed is how long you you expose your camera sensor to light while taking the picture, just like your eye blinking. 

To change the shutter speed, all you need to do is put your camera on mode "S" and rotate the dial on the back of your camera

If like me, you'll start rotating the dial and wonder what the hell these numbers mean. Fear not, I'll try and explain it...

The lower the shutter speed, the longer you are letting light into the camera and the more blurry the image can end up being. The higher the shutter speed the sharper the image will be but it can also give you a really dark image because you are letting far less light through.

Low Shutter Speeds: The lowest shutter speed is the most left number, these are the ones which have the " after them. The number is how manage seconds the shutter will stay open for.

High Shutter Speeds: The highest shutter speed is the most right number and is a fraction of a second. so where is says 4000 on your camera, this actually means 1/4000 of a second

As you can see by the 3 images below - the lowest shutter speed is most blurry and the highest is the sharpest image

I use a lower shutter speed if I want to capture the movement of something, eg. car headlamps or water, otherwise I tend to keep it close to the centre, edging towards to right hand side of the scale.

Aperture

Aperture not only defines how much light you are letting into your camera but also the depth of field in your image. Depth of field is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in your image that appears acceptably sharp.

Again, all you need to do is rotate the dial on the back of your camera, but this time make sure you have it on "A" mode.

You know when you see an image that is sharply focused on something in the foreground but blurry in the background, this is due to the aperture setting.

On your camera you will notice an "F" at the beginning on row that controls aperture, this is known as the f/number or F-Stop. The largest aperture on the Panasonic Lumix GX1 is f/4.4, which lets the most light through and at the left hand side of the scale. The largest is f/22 and is at the right hand side.

This also sets the depth of field, with the smallest depth of field being f/4.4. The image below on the left is using f/4.4 and as you can see the flower at the front of the image is sharp but the background is blurry. Then moving the aperture further along the scale starts to bring the background into focus.

You also need to select what part of the image you want to have the most focus. I did this by touching the part of the image I wanted in focus on the screen before taking the photo and a little box appeared on the screen to show where the focus is currently sitting. If you want the background to be sharp but the foreground to be blurry then just select something in the background instead.

Exposure

Exposure is the light collected by the sensor in your camera within a single picture. It is a mixture of shutter speed and aperture but it's also handy to know about ISOs

ISO

ISOs control the camera's sensitivity to light, so if you are in a really dark venue then you need a much higher ISO then if you are out in the sunshine. 

However you may notice if you have your ISO turned up full in a dark venue, the images become very noisy. This means that they are a bit more pixelated and when you zoom in on them, they look very grainy and not great quality.

The lowest ISO on this camera is 160 and the highest is 12800. I have been out at all day events such as weddings where you have to change the ISOs every time the light changes around you otherwise your images become too light or dark, especially when you are doing a lot of moving in and out of a venue. If I am staying put in one spot then I play around with my ISOs and try and get it perfect but if I am at an important event, I tend to cheat and set my ISO to the "Intelligent ISO" setting which is the one next to auto in the image above. This setting moves your ISO to the best option for your lighting and I haven't had it steer me wrong yet but if you want to do it all by yourself then you can set store some custom settings that you can easily switch between.

Custom Modes

To set your custom mode, choose all the settings you want and then select menu >> custom settings >> CUST.SET.MEM and then pick which customer setting name you want to save it under

Scene Modes

Moving over a scene mode will let you know which scene is is for, e.g. portrait, landscape, pets etc 

They are all pretty self explanatory so I'll not go into any detail for this section but it is worth having a look through them before you head out to take your pictures and decide which is best for your picture subject.

Creative Control

This mode allows you to add an overall effect over the top of the image. I don't really use these settings apart from Sepia for the occasional image

• Expressive - This setting emphasizes the colour
• Retro - This is a softer style that gives your photo that slightly vintage feel to it
• High Key - This effect brightens the image
• Low Key - This effect creates a darker image, whilst making bright areas stand out.
• Sepia - A sepia colour image effect, which gives your photos a wild west feel
• High Dynamic -  From dark areas to light areas, this effect creates a well-balanced light across the entire image.
• Toy Effect -  Making the image look like it was taken with a toy camera.
• Miniature Effect - This is an imaging effect which defocuses the surroundings making it look like it's a photograph of a model

Hopefully this will have inspired you to get out snapping soon and playing around with your camera rather than just using it as a point and shoot but if you are ever in doubt and need to capture your image quickly then just press the auto button on the top of your camera and let your camera figure it out for you! 

I'll be back,

Material Malarkey

The lovely women at Material Malarkey (Julie and Ali) got in touch with me last week to tell me all about the wonderful craft classes they do in Edinburgh and as luck has it they had an open evening coming up so I popped along to find out more about what they do...

The girls were celebrating the end of their 6 week Dress making course which had just finished the week before! Those who took part in the course turned up in their dresses and the rest of us admired their skills while drinking wine and eating lovely cakes!

You have to admit these dresses are gorgeous and look completely different but both are made from the same pattern. It just shows that from doing this one course you can learn the skills you need to make those few extra summer dresses you wanted this year but without the worry that you'll end up in the same one as your friend!

However if you are a newbie to using a sewing machine they have lots of beginners classes you can take as well and the girls I spoke to which did that one explained to me that as well as getting lots of support in the class, once you have learned the basics, you are all encouraged to do your own thing! I love this - there is nothing worse that coming out of a class with the exact same thing as everyone else as it's no longer one of a kind so it's great they give you that bit of extra freedom.

The venue itself is a nice location if you are toward the Leith end of town. It's at Johns Place so close to some bars if you want a wee drink with your friends after or if you are lucky enough to have the day off work, you can nip in to Mimi's bakery for some great sweet treats or dinner before hand.

The room inside of the building was a tight fit for the number of people we had in that night but most classes hold around 6 people so plenty of room to get that material spread out and get creative. They had pushed all the tables to the side so we had room to walk around but normally the are in the centre of the room with a sewing machine area as well. I have been to some free sewing classes in Edinburgh but you had to bring your own machine, so if you are just starting out and not sure if you want to buy a machine or not, then this is a good option to try before you buy!

So check out their website and see if one of their classes works for you! Also both Julie and Ali are lovely so if you have any question or would like some one on one classes then get in touch as I'm sure they would love to hear from you.

http://www.materialmalarkey.co.uk/ 

I'll be back,

Homemade Cat Tree

Our Cat Lemmy is always diving all over the place but always on places he should be going so we decided to make him a cat tree so that he could go up, without being told to get down!

Originally we were going to buy one from the shops but they are soooo expensive and never in colours that go with your decor so I got designing and before we knew it we had bought everything we need for it and got to work.

What you will need:

Plank of wood

black paint

twine - we used this bakers divine twine (2 rolls) to get a black and white effect but you can use any

shelves - we got ours from homebase and used 2 small, 1 medium and 1 large

doormat or rug - we got a long floor runner for cheap from The Range (pic used on the website is wrong)

Velcro

Glue gun

No more nails

Drill, Raw Plugs & Screws

Fabric storage box - Optional (again we got ours from The Range)

Step 1 - Scratching post

I got a large plank of wood that was long enough to reach from my roof to the floor and started by painting it black then leaving it over night to dry. I then took the no more nails and used a paint brush to cover a 20cm section of the wood, then wrapped the twine round the wood, on top of the no more nails. Repeat this step until you run out of twine.

I also had a section at the bottom of the wood where I had ran out of twine so I cut a small strip of my rug and used my glue gun to attach it to the remaining piece of wood. You could choose to do this all the way down if you don't want to use twine.

Step 2 - The Shelves

I took the mat I bought and cut it so it was the same shapes as the tops of my shelves.

I then glued Velcro in each corner of the shelves and left to dry (which doesn't take long if you use a glue gun). I stuck the other side of the Velcro on top and put a bit of glue on top of each, then quickly placing the mat on top of the shelf and press down. Once dry you can remove the mat from the shelf and re-attach any time you need to clean it.

Tip: don't use too much glue otherwise it will go over the sides of your Velcro and you won't be able to un-stick it later

Step 3 - Assemble the Cat Tree

We took the scratching post and placed it at an angle on the corner of the room then using a couple of drawing pins, we pinned it in place so it didn't fall down for the time being

We then measured where each of the shelves needed to go so that our cat could step in between them and we also made sure the were right up against the scratching post so that when drilled in place then post can't move and you can remove the pins.

The only shelf we didn't do next to the post as the small one second from the top - we did this one out a bit more so it was easier for him to position himself onto the top shelf.

Step 4 - Hiding Space

Lemmy loves hiding in cardboard boxes so we always feel bad about throwing them out. I wanted to incorporate this into his Cat Tree but thought just sticking a cardboard box on it would look messy so we bought this small fabric box and glued Velcro on the bottom, then filled it with cardboard and packaging paper. you can then use the Velcro to attach it to any shelf you want and can easily take it off if you cat doesn't like it or you want to clean the mats. When we had finished he jumped straight in this box and didn't come out until I cooked Chicken later on that night!

Hope your cat loves it as much as ours does!

I'll be back,

Tetris Chest of Drawers

I bought a set of drawers months ago from Ikea and spent ages deciding how to paint them. Every time I looked at them the shape reminded me of a game of tetris but I didn't think all the bright colours would go in my living room. Then it hit me - why do I need to stick to the traditional colours and then this idea was born!

What you will need:

Ikea PS 2012 chest of drawers

acrylic paint (white, black and red) - I got mind from poundland

Pencil

Ruler

Step 1

Take all the handles off your chest of drawers

Step 2 

Measure out your squares and draw them on your drawers. I had to make mine slightly more rectangular than square so that there wasn't any gaps on the drawer. You can use the same pattern as me or make up your own. If you want to use mine then just split the length and height of the drawer by the number of squares I've used in that space.

Step 3 

Paint your base coat colours on the squares until the front of your drawers are covered. I added white to the black to get the lighter grey colour and black to the red so that I had enough shades.

Step 4

Now for the tricky bit - doing the shading. For each of your base shades you need 3 colours to do the shading:

• One very light one (used on the top side)
• One not as light as the first but still lighter than your base coat (used on the left side)
• One darker than the base coat (used on the bottom and right sides)

I painted all the tops of that certain base coat first and then added a tiny bit of black to made it darker for all the left hand sides, before adding even more to make the other two sides, making sure that you paint the corners at an angle so they all join up together evenly.

I started out trying to draw all the shading on before painting it but I got bored and realised that my paint brash width gave me the desired effect so I just used that.

Step 5

Paint a thin black line round the outside of your tetris shape blocks (not the individual squares) and use the rest of your black paint to cover the rest of the drawers and handles.

Step 6

Screw the handles back in, then step back and admire your handy work before putting all your junk back on it!

I use mine as a TV cabinet as my TV is mounted on the wall so it looks like it's floating just above it and it's great for hiding DVDs and the Xbox (which fits in the tall cupboard on the right)

I'll be back,

Paper Rose Template

I has lucky enough to stumble on an amazing blog last month which is full of wonderful craft ideas

Elli is a fabulous shop for invitations and stationary and they also run a blog which is jam packed of tutorials and inspiration

One of my favourite tutorials on her site is paper rose. I have tried plenty of paper flowers in the past but this is by far the simplest and with gorgeous results.

They have already supplied you with easy to use PDF templates to print these out but if lie me and your scissor skills are not up to par then I have creates a Cricut project which will let your machine do all the hard work so all you need to do is put it together

There are 2 layers to this template - one for the petals and one for the leaves, so that you can cut them out of different colour paper/card. The petals layer makes 1 rose but the leaves layer makes 6 so if you are making multiple flowers you only need to cut out one leave layer for every 6 petal layers. I you only want to make one then just delete the spare leaves that you don't need and they won't be cut out. As for how to put this template together - head over to Elli.com for a step by step tutorial that is as simple as peas!

I've made a first attempt with some white card and it turned out not too bad if I do say so myself, so I'm looking forward to trying out some different colours!

and if you are using Cricut Design space then here are the .svg files for you!

   

Again I would like to give a massive thanks to Elli for the inspiration

I'll be back,