DSLR Fundamentals

Understanding DSLR Terminology
Welcome to this course, where I'm going to cover the fundamentals and basic operations of DSLR cameras. Throughout this course I will try not to be brand specific, but we will be using Canon and Nikon camera bodies for these lessons. You will learn everything from DSLR photography terminology, camera functions, and shooting modes, lens fundamentals, and basic flash operation. No matter what camera body you own, these lessons will get you more familiar and more comfortable with using your DSLR camera.

Using the Camera's Modes
Now that we've completed our general overview, I'd like to take you through the shooting modes in a little more detail, and actually put them to use. For these demonstrations, I'm going to use a Canon EOS Rebel with a 16-35 mm zoom lens. And the first mode I'm going to talk about is that Full Auto mode, the mode that takes your DSLR camera and basically makes it a complete point and shoot, nothing really to think about, just simply compose your shot and snap the shutter. So on the top of the camera, I'm going to rotate the dial to the green square, and you'll notice by the LCD panel on the back that we are in Full Auto mode. You'll notice that every time I press the shutter button, just hold it down slightly, you'll notice that it displays the shutter speed, the aperture, the ISO I'm currently at, as well as my white balance, my drive mode, my metering mode, and the file format that I'm recording to. And when I'm working in Fully Automatic mode, every time I compose a shot you'll notice some basic elements will change automatically, such as the f-stop, the shutter speed, and even the ISO. If we're working in a low light situation, the pop-up flash will engage automatically, making the Auto mode great for general picture taking or snapshot photography.

Lens Fundamentals
Generally, there are two different sensor sizes that are found in DSLR camera bodies today. There are cameras with full frame sensors, and some cameras with crop sensors. Now, a full frame sensor is the same size as a 35 mm film plane, it's 24 x 36 mm. A crop sensor is a smaller imaging sensor, and its dimensions are generally 15 x 23 mm. So cameras with a crop sensor, in fact, have a smaller imaging area. If you're shooting with a camera with a full frame sensor, your focal length on your lenses are accurate, they're not going to change. If you're using a camera with a crop sensor, you're going to get a focal magnifier, or a focal length multiplier. For example, if you're shooting with a 50 mm lens on a full frame DSLR camera, you're shooting with a 50 mm lens. If you're using that lens with a crop factor of 1. 6 on a different camera body, that's actually going to change to an 80 mm focal length, inherently giving you a longer lens. Now some camera manufactures actually now make lenses that are specifically designed for cameras with crop sensors, and their focal length represents the equivalent of what it would be on a full frame camera sensor. So before making a lens purchase, just double-check to make sure that there aren't or are any lenses specifically made for your type of camera body and sensor.