Learning to Use Your Digital Camera

If you got a new camera as a holiday gift, or if you’re simply not quite comfortable with the one that you have, this will be a tip to help you master your photographic gear.

Photography instructors are always encouraging camera owners to “Read your manual!” While it’s not bad advice, camera manuals are not a great way to learn your camera. They tend to be physically very small with tiny print, poorly illustrated, and they focus on how to use the camera’s controls without addressing why such control can lead to better images.

Enter the third-party authors. There are some great books, written by photographers, that address the use of specific cameras. Unlike the manuals, they are full-sized, richly illustrated texts that appear on the market within months of a new camera’s release.

My favorite author is David Busch, a photographer with the enviable job of getting his hands on each new camera body that comes to market, learning the camera’s features, and then authoring a beginner’s guide to shooting with that specific camera. The result is a personalized course in shooting with your own gear. Busch illustrates not only the camera’s external controls and internal menus, but also how shooting conditions affect images and how/why overriding the AUTO mode can benefit your photography. 

Another series of books is titled The Magic Lantern Guides. These books, authored by several different photographers, are physically smaller (they easily fit into a camera bag for portability) and lack the detail of Busch’s texts- they’re more like a reader-friendly version of your manual. These are great field guides and also invite greater exploration of your camera’s abilities by walking you through the hows and whys of shooting in different environments.

 inally, remember that your camera’s manual, while not the best read in the world, is an excellent source of information. Most camera manufacturers post a PDF version on their web site, allowing you to download a copy to your tablet or smart phone for easy access in the field.

Both the David Busch and Magic Lantern Guides are available from Amazon.com