How to use your DSLR when travelling

So you’ve got your DSLR camera… but what do you do with it? What essentials do you need to know for taking those incredible shots? Look no further.

I believe the best way to learn is on the job – it’s no different for a camera. But you can’t miss the simple ways to get a head start. I’ll be explaining my tips based off my experience with the Canon EOS 700D. 

The best way to use a DSLR is manually. Understand the main camera features and play around with each of them. This is often known as the ‘exposure triangle’.

• Shutter speed: This is the amount of time the camera exposes the sensor to light in the scene. A fast shutter speed, e.g. 1/1000, exposes less light in the photo.
• Aperture: How much light enters the shot through your lens. A larger aperture e.g. F3.6 means that, means that more light enters the photo. However when the aperture is larger, the photo is more focused towards the centre and the background is blurred.
• ISO: This is the sensitivity of your camera to light. The higher ISO, e.g. 1600, means more light. However the trade-off is the quality of the image decreases and more noise/grain is in the image.

When playing around with these features, you can see the “metering” on your camera to check if it is exposed correctly.

Recommendations:

• If you want to capture a freeze of a moving object, use a fast shutter speed (1/500 and above). Adjust the other settings accordingly without sacrificing the focus and image quality.
• If you want to blur the background and focus on one particular object, e.g. a particular flower, then use the largest aperture (lowest number) to do this. F1.8-3.6 should suffice for this effect.
• If you want to put more light in the photo without having to use flash, then increase the ISO to about 1600. This is ideal for dark lighting situations, however be wary of the noise in the photo.

You can’t learn how to use a DSLR overnight, but go to different locations and take photos and test out different combinations of the features until you get the hang of it. For a virtual way to practice, check out this link from Canon: http://www.canonoutsideofauto.ca/play/

Enjoy! Stay tuned for more travel photography.

Author: Amit Balakrishnan