NEW PHOTOGRAPHY SKILLS
Learn to get the best possible photos with your Canon kit so you don’t have to rely on Photoshop to rescue average shots!
Contemporary Canon photography involves two separate stages. One is the RAW image you save to your memory card, and the other is the post-processing, where you fine-tune your capture to reflect the vision or mood you want to express. It’s all too easy to think that you can do everything in the second stage, especially with the flexibility that editing RAW images gives you. But this isn’t the case, as there are certain fundamentals that you must get right in-camera. These are the elements that cannot be rescued or fixed, no matter how good your post-processing skills in Photoshop may be.
It’s true that the RAW format presents you with a plethora of floating values – all of which can be shaped to align with your creative ideas for the finished photo.
However, certain photographic settings have to be nailed down at the capture stage because they simply can’t be changed.
And these are the aspects we’ll be looking at in detail over the following pages. If you get these right in-camera, then the standard of your images can only improve.
PRO ADVICE
With today’s Canon EOS DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, there are basically two choices of file format: JPEG or RAW – or both at once! If you want the best quality shots, then RAW (Canon’s .CR2 and .CR3 files) is the default option, as it gives the ultimate flexibility for producing the highest image quality. This is because aRAW file has a broad range of ‘floating values’, which can be adjusted in software after the shot has been taken. These include the contrast, colour, sharpening and even the exposure itself.
With a JPEG, all these values are fixed in the file, and although it is possible to make changes, the image quality will be degraded and the amount of leeway for adjustment is much more restricted.
The simple advice is to choose RAW (as below), but make sure you pick the highest resolution option, as many cameras offer the option of smaller RAW file sizes. While these will save space on your card, they won’t offer the same scope for big prints.
2 SET THE CORRECT FOCUSING MODE
Getting your shot precisely in focus on the desired area is one of the fundamentals of good photography. The autofocus systems on modern DSLRs a
