Start From Zero

Having a series of basic settings on a camera to start off with is always good practice. Before I leave the house for a shoot, as well as ensuring that I have a fully charged battery in the camera, I’ll check a few other things. I always make sure that I have a fresh, in-camera formatted CF memory hard loaded up, plus a couple of spares in the pocket of my Black Rapid RS-5 strap. My basic camera settings are

• ISO 100

• Av mode

• Auto White Balance

• RAW

• Evaluative Metering

• Highlight warning on

These are my “zero” settings. From there, I’ll tweak and change them as need be. If I’m wandering around the city for example, I might up to ISO to 400 later in the afternoon as the buildings start to cast shadows. If I find myself shooting a lot of portraits, or working in tricky lighting conditions, I might switch to spot metering, and turn the dial to M. Different situations call for different settings but I’ll always begin the day at zero.

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