Camera Settings: The Most Important Tips for Beginners

Basic Camera Settings

When you first start up your camera, it’ll walk you through basic camera settings like the menu language and date and time. But there are a few other small tweaks that make a surprisingly big difference. Here’s what you should adjust before you take your first shot.

Sounds

Want to shoot street photography discreetly, or do you need to photograph a wedding in a church? Then you’d better turn off your camera’s alert sounds. In the menu, you’ll usually find an option called Sounds.

Here you can typically disable the shutter sound and the focus and button beeps. Honestly, even outside of street photography or shooting in churches, we find these sounds distracting — we just turn them off.

AF Assist Light

The AF assist light turns on during focusing to help your camera lock on. The problem? It’s far too weak to make much of a real difference.

Instead, it tends to be a distraction — especially in portrait photos, where it can put your subjects off. We recommend turning it off.

Display and Viewfinder Settings

Modern cameras can show an almost endless amount of information in live view. We prefer to show only the essentials so we’re not overwhelmed by data.

That means ISO, aperture, shutter speed, the exposure meter, and a grid overlay. The grid makes it so much easier to frame your shot and follow the rule of thirds while you’re shooting.

If your camera has a viewfinder, you can configure what’s shown there too. We set it up the same way as the main display.

File Formats

Did you accidentally shoot with the wrong white balance, or did your photos come out too dark because you forgot to reset the exposure compensation? We’ve all been there!

With the right file format, though, that’s no problem — you have every option available to edit your photos afterward. Almost every camera supports two file formats.

The JPG format is a solid choice when you know you won’t be doing much editing and want to save storage space.

The RAW format gives you virtually unlimited editing possibilities in post-processing. If you’re sure you’ll never edit your photos, JPGs are perfectly fine.

To avoid any regrets after your first shoot, we strongly recommend setting your file format in the camera menu beforehand. We like to keep all our options open and always shoot simultaneously as JPGs and RAWs.

Copyright

Tucked away in the menu, you can enter your copyright information. Especially when you’re sharing your photos online, it’s worth including your name in the image file — it makes it a little harder for bad actors to steal your work.

Your name won’t appear on the image itself, by the way. Instead, it’s stored in the file properties.

The Most Important Camera Settings and Functions

The settings available on a camera are very different from what a smartphone offers. Here’s a rundown of the beginner camera settings you absolutely need to know when you’re just starting out in photography.

Aperture

Aperture is one of the most interesting settings on your camera — or more precisely, on your lens. It controls how much light reaches the sensor, and it also determines depth of field in your image.

The tricky thing about aperture is that the numbers feel counterintuitive at first. A large number means a small aperture and less light. A small number means a large aperture and more light.

Aperture series: 1 – 1.4 – 2 – 2.8 – 4 – 5.6 – 8 – 11 – 16 – 22

The more light, the brighter your image — and vice versa. When it’s dark, lean toward a small f-number like f/2.8. When it’s bright, you may need to stop down to f/8 or further.

Beyond controlling light, aperture also governs depth of field. You’ve probably seen portraits where only the subject is sharp and the background melts into a soft blur.

That pleasing background blur is called bokeh. You create it primarily with aperture. A wide aperture — meaning a small f-number — is exactly what produces that sharp-subject, blurry-background look.

A narrow aperture — a large f-number — is what you’d use for landscapes, where you want as much of the scene as possible in focus.

Our tip: For portraits, we love apertures from f/1.2 to f/2.8 for a beautiful shallow-depth-of-field effect. For landscape shots, we usually set the aperture to f/8.

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed also determines the brightness of your image — it controls how long the sensor is exposed to light.

The longer the shutter speed, the brighter your image. The shorter the exposure time, the darker it gets. Simple enough, right? But this camera setting also lets you create some really beautiful effects.

With a long exposure time, you can render motion as a blur. We especially love doing this when we photograph waterfalls or flowing water — the silky effect is seriously stunning.

To freeze motion and avoid blur, you need a fast shutter speed.

A useful rule of thumb: the reciprocal of your focal length gives you a shake-free shot. With a 50 mm prime lens, you should use at least 1/50 of a second.

If you want to try wildlife photography, you’ll need something faster — around 1/100 of a second or quicker — to make sure nothing comes out blurry.

Our tip: When we want to blur motion, we set the shutter speed to one second or longer. To freeze subjects, we use 1/500 of a second or faster whenever possible.

ISO

ISO controls the light sensitivity of the sensor. The higher the number, the more sensitive it becomes — which means a brighter image.

If your location is flooded with light, a low ISO is perfectly fine. In poor lighting conditions, a higher ISO is necessary.

At higher values, though, there’s a greater risk of image noise. Especially in darker areas, the image can look grainy and overall quality suffers.

That’s why ISO should generally be kept low — up to around ISO 6400. Like aperture, the ISO series isn’t immediately intuitive:

ISO series: 100 – 200 – 400 – 800 – 1600 – 3200 – 6400 – 12800

Each step corresponds to one full stop of exposure. One stop — like the jump from ISO 100 to ISO 200 — makes your image twice as bright.

We also recommend setting up your camera’s Auto ISO so it automatically selects the right value. You should, however, define the limits — specifically the highest and lowest ISO your camera is allowed to choose.

On the low end, ISO 100 as a minimum is totally fine. On the high end, set a cap of ISO 6400, since image quality suffers too much beyond that.

Our tip: We use Auto ISO, but we make sure the value stays on the lower side rather than creeping too high.

Camera Mode

Camera modes control the interplay between aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. They determine which combination of those three settings gets used. You can usually switch modes directly via a dial on the camera body — no need to dig into the menu.

These are also called exposure modes. Every camera includes the following options.

Our tip: Our go-to is aperture-priority mode — A mode.

Manual Mode – M

In manual mode, you set the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO yourself to properly expose your photo.

You have full control over the image and can execute exactly what you have in mind. In fast-moving situations — like photographing a wedding — manual mode is, however, prone to errors.

For that reason, we only recommend this mode once you feel really confident with your camera.

Shutter Priority – S/Tv

In shutter priority mode, you set the shutter speed and the camera automatically adjusts aperture and ISO to match.

This is ideal when you need a specific shutter speed — for example, to freeze motion or deliberately blur it.

That said, this mode can hit its limits quickly depending on the maximum aperture of your lens. If the lens isn’t very fast, there may not be enough headroom for a correct exposure.

Aperture Priority – A/Av

We use aperture-priority mode for 90 percent of our photography. In this mode, you set the aperture and the camera selects the right shutter speed and ISO.

Aperture is such a powerful tool for shaping the look of an image — which is exactly why we like to control it ourselves.

Auto and Program Mode – Auto/P

You’ll also find Auto and P on the mode dial. Auto mode takes over every single setting on your camera.

P mode stands for Program mode. Here the camera also handles most settings, but you can intervene slightly.

Honestly, we can’t recommend either of these modes. They take too many decisions out of your hands — and those decisions are exactly what makes photography interesting.

Metering Mode

When using an exposure mode, your camera has to figure out how bright your image should be and what ISO, shutter speed, and aperture to use. To do this, it measures the overall brightness in your frame.

With the metering mode setting, you can tell the camera which part of the frame to prioritize when measuring exposure.

Spot metering uses only a small point to determine the exposure. This is really useful in portrait photography when you want to make sure your subject is properly exposed no matter what the background is doing.

Center-weighted metering is a good choice when you frequently place your main subject in the center of the frame. It uses the area near the center of your photo for its measurement.

Evaluative metering or matrix metering is the most advanced option. It analyzes the entire frame by dividing it into zones — and it works surprisingly well, especially with newer cameras.

Our tip: We rely on matrix metering or center-weighted metering while keeping a close eye on exposure compensation.

Exposure Compensation

When you’re using an exposure mode — like shutter priority or aperture priority — your camera can sometimes choose the wrong exposure. With very bright subjects like snowy landscapes or dark subjects like a forest, automatic exposure often struggles.

Exposure compensation lets you nudge your camera toward a correct exposure. To prevent a winter landscape from looking too dark, dial the exposure compensation into the positive range.

Dark subjects, on the other hand, tend to be rendered too bright. For those, push the exposure compensation into the negative range.

Many cameras have a dedicated dial for this, so you can make adjustments lightning-fast without going into any menu.

Our tip: We always keep an eye on exposure compensation and adjust it for nearly every shot.

White Balance

White balance ensures that the color of light at your shooting location is rendered accurately in your photo.

You’ve probably noticed that a fluorescent tube emits cool light while an incandescent bulb produces warm light. In the same way, the color of light shifts in the morning, at midday, in the evening, on an overcast day, or just after sunset.

Your eyes — or rather, your brain — compensate for these differences automatically. That’s why a white sheet of paper always looks more or less white to you regardless of the lighting.

To balance out these different colors of light, your camera has a white balance setting. In most cases, auto white balance works perfectly well.

Only in tricky lighting situations — like shooting in a green leafy forest — does your camera get confused. In those cases, setting the white balance manually is the way to go.

Our tip: We pretty much always use auto white balance. If it’s ever off, we can easily correct it afterward in Lightroom.

Focus Settings

Almost every camera has three main focus settings: M, S, and C autofocus.

With manual focus — M mode — you focus on the subject yourself. This is mainly useful for macro photography or studio work.

S-AF stands for Single Autofocus. Use this for subjects that aren’t moving. When activated, the camera focuses once as soon as you half-press the shutter button.

With Continuous Autofocus — or C-AF — your camera continuously adjusts focus as long as you keep the shutter button half-pressed. This is ideal for moving subjects, like in dog photography when your pup is running toward you or past you.

Many cameras now also have a built-in eye autofocus. This automatically locks onto the eyes in portrait shots — which is incredibly handy, since the eyes are usually the element that needs to be sharpest.

Sony and Canon cameras in particular both have very good eye autofocus systems.

Our tip: Ever since we got a Sony, we can’t imagine shooting without eye autofocus. For everything other than portraits, we use Single Autofocus.