May 20, 2025 • 26 mins
#564 In this episode of the podcast, I dive deep into the idea that while capturing the right moment in photography matters most, it’s not everything. I share my own experiences as a photographer, especially those early days when I felt overwhelmed by all the camera settings—aperture, shutter speed, ISO—and how easy it is to get distracted by what influencers say you need in terms of new gear. I open up about how sharing my photos online sometimes left me second-guessing myself when the feedback was harsh or not constructive, and how important it is for our mental health to not tie our self-worth to internet commentary.
KEY TOPICS COVERED
- The Role of Moment in Great Photography - I talk about why the “moment” is king, but also share a story of photographing race cars with my son to show that technical choices—like shutter speed—are what give your images the power to convey emotion and story.
- Overcoming Overwhelm and Gear Envy - I reflect on my struggles with self-doubt, gear lust, and how feeling unskilled led me to blame my camera for missed shots. I encourage you to focus on learning and being patient with yourself instead of obsessing over equipment or social media critique.
- Shooting in Manual and Preparing for the Moment - I break down my personal workflow, from choosing settings to working with couples, so you can enter your sessions confident in exposure and ready to pay attention to the fleeting moments that matter.
IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS & CONCEPTS
- Manual Mode: The camera setting where the photographer controls ISO, aperture, and shutter speed, rather than letting the camera choose. This gives more creative control and removes uncertainty about exposure.
- Exposure: The overall brightness or darkness of a photograph, determined by settings such as shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. Proper exposure is essential for capturing high-quality moments.
DISCUSSION & REFLECTION QUESTIONS
- How has mastering camera settings changed the way you feel during a shoot?
- Have social media comments ever affected your confidence? How can you protect your creative process?
- What can you do before a session to minimize stress and maximize your ability to catch authentic moments?
Learn What Camera Settings to Use in our free guide!
https://perfectcamerasettings.com/
Connect with Raymond!
- Join the free Beginner Photography Podcast Community at https://beginnerphotopod.com/group
- Get your Photo Questions Answered on the show - https://beginnerphotopod.com/qa
- Grab your free camera setting cheatsheet - https://perfectcamerasettings.com/
Thanks for listening & keep shooting!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
raymond-hatfield_1_05-19 (00:00):
Moment matters most, but when your
settings are on point as well,it feels like you hit the
lottery.
There's nothing better when itall comes together.
Hey welcome to the BeginnerPhotography Podcast brought to
you by Cloud Spot.
I am your host, RaymondHatfield, and today I'm talking
(00:20):
about how the moment mattersmost, but it's not everything.
And how to prepare yourself whenshooting so that you can focus
all of your attention oncapturing the right moment and
not worrying about yoursettings.
Now, I've said this a thousandtimes before here on the podcast
that moment matters most and itdoes.
Maybe you've heard me say this,but here's the thing is that
(00:42):
it's not the only element thatmakes up a great photo, there is
a lot that goes into taking agreat photo.
And you know this becausechances are that you have felt
frustration or overwhelm fromall of the things that you need
to pay attention to whileshooting from camera settings,
zoom focus, composition, oops,the light changed and now you
(01:03):
gotta change your settingsagain.
And, oh, hey, don't forget tocapture a great moment.
Now photo influencers are gonnapounce on that frustration
because, it is their job to sellyou new gear.
You'll hear things that like,this lens is gonna change
everything for you, or thislight will change everything for
you.
This new camera body, this newfilter, this new program, this
(01:24):
new bag, whatever it is.
We'll change everything for you.
And there's something about thatsentence that creates self-doubt
within you, that what you haveis simply not enough.
So when you do actually go outand you shoot.
And you don't come back with a100% success rate.
(01:44):
What you do is you blame it onyour gear, and then you start
surfing Amazon or aama for allthe newest photo goodies.
But that self-doubt, thatoverthinking, that steals your
attention while you're shootingaway from the real emotion of
what's happening in front ofyou, that's when it becomes a
problem.
(02:06):
And unfortunately that'shappening more often than I'd
like to see it.
So today my goal is to help youto know what to pay attention to
so that you can remove thatoverwhelm so that you can feel
confident with your camerasettings.
And then you can focus on whatmatters most moment, not
(02:26):
whatever lens or camera, body,or program or whatever is being
pitched to you.
Well, let me get started byreading this email that I got,
this last week.
It says, Hey, Raymond.
Sometimes I take a photo, whichI feel is good, but when I share
it on Facebook or Reddit, itgets critiques that I'm not sure
how to respond to.
Sometimes I even delete thepost.
(02:47):
Other times I just attempt toimprove the image and then share
that.
And then other times I just, Ijust type nothing.
Sometimes, however, I postpictures expecting a bad
critique.
Do you ever have times wherethat applies to you and how do
you handle your mental healthand self-doubt when it comes to
photography?
First of all, I absolutely havefelt that way before.
(03:10):
I've definitely been nervous toshare an image, and then when I
do share it, it gets just tornto pieces.
But here's the problem that Ithink you're facing, and it was
the problem that I faced at thatsame time as well, and that's
that.
In photography, there's no.
Hard rules, like something likeconstruction, right?
(03:32):
A construction worker would haveto follow a very clear set of
instructions and rules whenbuilding a house.
Otherwise it's not gonna stand.
The same goes for a doctor ifthey were doing a surgery.
In photography, there's justsimply a lot of room for
interpretation.
If a doctor is doing surgery andyou end up bleeding to death,
(03:55):
the surgery was not successful.
Full stop.
If you take a photo that's maybedarker than another photo, it's
not that big of a deal, and infact, it may work out better
than you thought.
You don't know.
So when you're learning how touse the tool that is a camera we
shoot and then we share thephotos in hopes that we get
(04:18):
helpful feedback to help us getbetter, right?
That's the goal.
But what happens is that becausewe are unskilled with our camera
because we don't know what we'retrying to say with our images
because we don't have thephotographic lexicon to even ask
the right question to get agenuinely helpful answer.
(04:42):
We ask questions like, what doyou think about this photo?
Or, or worse, how did I do?
And to that answer, right, weget no helpful answers.
In fact, everyone who does endup commenting is gonna have some
strong opinion about the image,and even further every possible
element about that image fromyour subject, their appearance,
(05:07):
to the light.
To the moment, to thecomposition, to the edit, to the
pose, to your settings, ofcourse, to what lens you use.
They're gonna have an opinionabout everything.
And that overwhelming amount ofcriticism is, is it's just gonna
make you feel like you didterrible.
But the truth is you just.
(05:27):
I don't know how to communicatewith the tool yet.
It's like giving a five-year-oldthe keys to a car.
Like of course they're not gonnaget it right away.
They're gonna give a car toomuch gas.
They're never gonna use theirturn signal.
They're gonna take turns way toofast.
And honestly lives are probablygonna be lost, just because
they're unskilled with how touse the tool that is a car.
(05:51):
So even though they may, by thegrace of God be able to go from
point A to point B, I think thatwe would all agree that it
wasn't very good and thatthere's still plenty of room for
improvement.
And I'm telling you, it's thesame thing with photography.
While you may be able to capturea great moment every once in a
while, if the camera makes adecision that you're unhappy
(06:15):
with, if the camera makes adecision that makes the photo
too dark, or where it missesfocus, or it's kind of blurry.
Even if you got a good moment,you're still not gonna be like,
this is a great photograph.
Because while moment mattersmost, it takes more than just
moment to produce a greatphotograph.
(06:37):
So I wholeheartedly believe thatif you're a new photographer,
the longer that you can wait.
to share your images online.
The longer that you can focus onunderstanding how your camera
works, how light works and howto use that to your advantage,
the better you're gonna be.
(06:58):
Like, don't even worry aboutsharing your work yet, because
it's simply not ready.
But Raymond, why are we talkingabout camera settings when
you've said a million timesmoment matters most?
And that is a totally validquestion because moment does
matter most.
But again, you have to know howto use the camera to capture
that moment.
(07:18):
This past weekend, I took myson, to the qualifications of
the 8,500 cars are whizzing byus at, 231 miles an hour.
The moment here, the story thatI'm trying to tell is speed.
That is what I need my images toshow.
So I'm sitting there and I'mjust like.
(07:39):
I have, the background that Iwant.
We got the pagoda and I'm justsitting right there and I'm
waiting for the car to get tothe right spot to press the
shutter button, right?
Like that's the moment that Iwant, and I've already
preselected my shutter speed sothat it's slow enough to see
motion blur because thatemphasizes speed, as you can
imagine, with a car whizzing byat 231 miles an hour.
(08:02):
I didn't get it the first try.
In fact, I didn't get it thefirst, like 10 laps around.
I really had to like, spend alot of time to try to get the
car in the exact spot that Iwanted it to be in.
Otherwise, it was gonna becovered up by a fence or split
in half by the, the guardrails.
Like it just didn't look good.
I needed an exact moment.
(08:24):
So this obviously took sometime.
My son, however, pulled out hisphone, took a photo of it, right
of it going past us, and thenjust used the live photo
function to scroll back and findthe exact moment that he wanted,
where the car was in between thefence, not being blocked by the
post or the guardrails oranything like that.
Perfect spot on the track,right?
(08:46):
First try.
Mind you first try.
The problem is when you look athis photo and after I eventually
got it, you look at my photo,when you look at his photo, it
looks like a picture of a car isparked on the track.
So he may have got the rightcomposition, but he missed the
moment because the moment isspeed.
(09:09):
I used, like I said, a slowenough shutter speed so that the
car had that motion blur.
That is speed, that is moment,that's what the moment looks
like, and that's a photo thatwouldn't be possible if I had no
idea what my camera settingsdid, which ones did what, and
how to use them.
(09:29):
So, while my technicals may notbe perfect because I had to slow
down my shutter speed, I had tohave an aperture of, I believe
it was F 16.
That's less than ideal.
While the composition was notperfect, the moment which
matters most.
Was perfect and therefore youcan overlook the other settings
(09:52):
to a degree.
But it took me knowing how touse my camera to capture the
moment that I wanted to be ableto capture the, the right moment
so that you can get to thatpoint.
And today, that's what I want totalk to you about.
I wanna walk you through myprocess for being able to go
out, shoot, and have a greattime while doing it and not feel
(10:15):
overwhelmed by all the thingsthat you have to change, all the
settings, the buttons, focus,like all those things so that
you can just focus on themoment.
But before we do this, I thinkthat we first have to address
what are the top struggles whenshooting.
When I look through, all thephotos that I don't select, or
(10:36):
all the photos that I look atand immediately think, Nope,
it's because I missed one of afew things.
Either I missed the moment,right?
It's not gonna be that great ofa photo of there's no good
moment, or the photo is eithertoo bright or too dark.
We can also talk about thesubject not being in focus, but
there's so much there thatthat's something that we can
(10:59):
talk about in another episode.
So the two biggest issues areeither there's no good moment,
or the photo is too bright ortoo dark, right?
The exposure's wrong.
Now, the good news is, is thatif you can fix the problem of
the photo not being properlyexposed.
Meaning, if you can make it sothat it's not too bright, it's
not too dark, you'll take careof the problem of missing the
(11:22):
moment.
But it all starts with surprise,surprise, shooting in manual.
This is something that many newphotographers don't understand.
Is that when you shoot inmanual, you're in full control
of your exposure, right?
I still let my camera auto-focusbecause it will always do a way
better job, much faster than Iever could simply, or shooting a
(11:46):
manual simply refers to manuallycontrolling your exposure
settings.
All right?
So that doesn't mean that youcan't shoot with auto focus,
okay?
Anyway.
I have heard so many times.
From listeners and maybe one ofthem is you, that, you don't
wanna shoot in manual becauseyou're so slow when changing
(12:07):
your settings or that, you hatehaving to change your settings
for every single shot that youtake.
You just wanna point and shoot,right?
So again, maybe that's you.
Maybe you feel that way rightnow.
Maybe you've felt that wayrecently.
Well, here's the good news,okay.
That, that many newphotographers don't fully
(12:27):
understand is that when shootinga manual, you don't have to
change your exposure for everyshot.
You don't have to change yoursettings.
Every single time you take aphoto.
There's no need to reinvent thewheel here.
Your settings are chosen, okay,hold on.
Let me back up.
the whole point of a camera isto control.
(12:48):
The amount of light that entersit.
That's it.
Your aperture's job is tocontrol how much light enters
the lens.
Your shutter speed's job is tocontrol how long that light that
entered the lens falls upon yourcamera sensor.
And your ISO's job is todetermine how sensitive your
camera sensor is to the lightthat hits it for the
(13:09):
predetermined amount of timedetermined by your shutter
speed.
That's it.
So your camera settings arechosen depending on the light
and how you want to capture it.
So if the light doesn't change,your settings don't need to
change either.
If I was shooting in a, let'sjust say an engagement session
(13:30):
in the park, I might shoot.
A whole session with the exactsame settings.
Honestly, not that that happenedevery single time because it
didn't, but I would say that ithappened more than you probably
think that it did.
Think about it.
If you're in a park, right?
Let's say it's three or four inthe afternoon, you know,
(13:51):
whatever.
The sun is your main lightsource, meaning you don't have.
A big flash that you're usingto, illuminate your subject.
It's the sun that is your mainlight source.
The sun is not gonna changeintensity between, let's say,
three and 4:00 PM unless ofcourse a cloud goes in front of
it.
But you understand you'reessentially photographing the
(14:11):
same light source, hitting thesame subject.
And if that's the case, whywould you need to change how
much light enters the camera?
Because it remains the same.
So therefore your settings don'treally need to change much at
all in fact, let me share withyou how my sessions would
typically go so that you canfully understand the process of
(14:32):
how I shoot manual, better, andso that you can understand why
it's much easier than you thinkthat it is right now, If I were
to show up to an engagementsession, right?
I meet with the couple, I talkto them.
Let's say that we're out at anature preserve, a park,
something of that sort.
And we're walking down thistrail.
What I am doing is I'm lookingfor something interesting, some
(14:55):
interesting light, aninteresting background.
If we're walking through thislocal park a, a trail, this
could be the way that the lightcomes through the trees and
creates this beautiful,spotlight effect.
It could be a nice little creekthat I want to have the couple
walking down.
That's step one.
Once I identify, say, thislittle creek area, I then step
(15:17):
two, place my couple or mysubject there in front of it.
Okay.
Then step three is that I justdial in my manual settings.
So when shooting a manual, thethree steps are one, guesstimate
your ISO.
If there's a lot of tree cover,I'm probably gonna shoot at
(15:38):
about ISO 400, just to guess,right?
Let's figure it out.
Step two is I'm gonna choose theright aperture for how much
depth of field I want in theimage.
Let's say they're, they'repretty far back.
I'm shooting pretty wide.
F four will be fine.
And then lastly, I'm gonna justsimply adjust my shutter speed
to properly expose the image forhow I want it.
(15:58):
And then step four, wait for it.
You just shoot away like that's.
That's it.
I'll give my couple, an actionor maybe a prompt or, um, I'll
ask them a question and thenI'll just kind of hover around.
Since my camera settings are,are locked in, I can focus on
finding an interestingcomposition for the frame.
And once I find one, I just campout there until a good moment
(16:22):
happens and then I just capturethat.
No lie.
I'll even take my camera.
I don't have it right here on mydesk.
I'll take my camera and then,move my eye away from the
viewfinder just so that I canlook directly at the couple with
my bare eyeball.
And then I'll press the shutterbutton when a good moment or a
laugh or smile or something thatsays connection.
(16:44):
Happens, and I will know that mycamera settings are good because
I locked them in earlier.
And since the sun didn't justdrop out of the sky in the past
two minutes, setting this allup, I know that my exposure
didn't change so that mysettings are correct.
Try to think of shooting inmanual, like setting the cruise
control on your car.
(17:05):
you're driving along.
And you know, okay, this isapproximately the flow of
traffic.
I'm just going to hit cruisecontrol.
And now you don't have to worryabout the throttle.
You can just pay attention andfocus on the road and then just
cruise.
Shooting manual is, it'sslightly more work in the
moment, but then it'simmeasurably less work and worry
(17:31):
that your camera's gonna make abad decision in the long term.
It makes life easier.
And trust me, I know howcounterintuitive that sounds
like.
I do.
But being aware of what yourcamera settings are, knowing
what they do, choosing the rightones for the shot that you want
to capture gives you thisfeeling of, of freedom, knowing
(17:52):
that you can capture anything.
If you shoot an auto or somesort of auto mode, like aperture
priority, you know howfrustrating it is when you see
something happening in front ofyou.
You picture the photo in yourhead, you go to take the photo,
and it's nothing like how yousee the scene.
It's too overexposed.
It's too underexposed, you know,whatever.
(18:13):
If you don't know what settingsare needed to achieve the shot
that you want.
You're just gonna be left in thewater out of luck.
And you know, when is a not agood time to be feeling
frustrated and that you're deadin the water and that you're out
of luck when you're shooting awedding?
(18:34):
and the bride and groom cansmell frustration from a mile
away.
Like, do you really wanna bringthat into their day?
Or what about if you're justsimply trying to spend time with
your kids and just capture some,nice photos of them doing
something that is meaningful tothem?
Suddenly this nice moment of youspending an some uninterrupted
(18:55):
time with your child, being ableto just observe them and the
things that they findinteresting.
No longer is a fulfilling momentfor you and your child, but it's
one of stress and frustrationsimply because you're unsure of
why your camera is doing whatit's doing.
Knowing how to use your camera,knowing what your settings do,
(19:17):
knowing how to use them tocapture an image that you see in
your head is paramount tolearning photography, and that
is exactly why I think thatlearning to shoot in manual
should be required.
I'm not saying that you have toshoot manual all the time.
In fact.
maybe you decide to shoot inaperture priority or another
auto assisted mode after youlearn manual and, whatever.
(19:40):
That's up to you.
Like, if a construction workerdecides to use a, pneumatic nail
gun, it doesn't make you anyless of an able, construction
worker.
You still need to know where thenails need to go.
You need to know how to use ahammer just in case of, of a jam
(20:00):
or maybe a bent nail orsomething like that.
But learning manual gives youthe tools needed to know how to
capture the image that you wantto, and how to know how to fix
an image when it's not turningout the way that you had hoped.
Rather than just saying no,well, it is what it is.
and that knowledge gives you thefreedom to set it your settings
(20:26):
and then not worry about it.
You can just kind of forget it.
Forget about adjusting yoursettings until of course the
light changes or you move to anew location.
Now there is still the questionof like, okay, well what
settings should I use?
I can't directly answer thatbecause that.
(20:48):
Answer depends 100% on the lightthat you're shooting in.
And because I'm not there withyou looking at this light, I
can't give you an exact answer,but I can give you a cheat sheet
with the camera settings for 10popular types of photography,
along with my own images and thereal settings that I use to
capture those images.
(21:09):
Just to give you a startingplace.
To know where to set yoursettings and then how to adjust
them to make them work for you.
It's totally free, and I'll sendit to you right away.
All you gotta do is just head toperfect camera settings.com to
grab your copy again, perfectcamera settings.com to grab your
free copy.
(21:29):
Okay, so now you have yourcamera settings locked in.
Now what, how do you know whatis the right moment to capture?
When photographing people,here's what I do.
After I find some good light orgood background, right?
Like I mentioned earlier, afterI place the couple there, in
that good light or in front of agood background, after I dial in
my manual settings, what I do isI just sit and wait.
(21:54):
Wait for what The moment.
That's right.
Congratulations.
If you're photographing people,you're trying to communicate in
emotion.
That's it.
That's what the job is.
For families, that emotion isconnection.
That emotion is fun.
For couples, it's love.
So what moments say those thingsFor my couples, if I'm trying to
(22:16):
show off that they're in love, Igive them prompts that encourage
them to show me that promptslike.
Look at each other and tell meabout your first date.
Were you nervous?
Where did you go?
I'll ask the other one.
What did you think after thedate?
Did they do anything that madeyou question whether saying yes
to that date was the rightdecision?
Again, all while looking at eachother so I can capture them
(22:39):
talking about their love andrealizing how far they've come
together.
Maybe I'll ask them to come upwith a secret four or five part
handshake.
Something that'll be their ownand something that they can use,
whenever they want in thefuture.
Because now I'm capturing them,interacting with each other.
I'm capturing them laughing.
I'm capturing them, making aphysical connection with each
(22:59):
other.
Or maybe I'll ask them to again,look at each other.
And talk about maybe what theirlives are gonna look like 10
years in the future.
And paint that picture.
what does morning time look likefor you?
Two, 10 years in the future fromnow?
What do you want it to looklike?
And now I can capture them,future casting and being
romantic with each other,building that life together with
(23:22):
each other all while my camerasettings are locked in.
So all that I need to do is justsit there and wait.
Wait for the right laugh, waitfor the right smirk, wait for
the right embrace, wait for theright sexy eyes, and then I
press the shutter button.
(23:43):
Because my settings are lockedin, I can now be present with
this couple.
I can now enjoy watching thismoment.
I can now watch this couplebecome closer together.
Moment matters most, but whenyour settings are on point as
well, it feels like you hit thelottery.
there's nothing better when itall comes together.
(24:05):
So don't think that just becausemoment matters most, that you
can forget the rest.
While you can be forgiven, youcan't forget it, you understand
your camera settings so that youcan lock them into place so that
you can then focus all of yourattention on capturing the right
moment.
(24:25):
Set yourself up for success.
Then focus on the moment.
That's it for today.
Remember, if you want to grabthat free cheat sheet, just head
over to perfect camerasettings.com and grab your free
copy right now.
And again.
Until next time, remember, themore that you shoot today, the
better of a photographer youwill be tomorrow.
Talk soon.
Moment matters most, but when your
settings are on point as well,it feels like you hit the
lottery.
There's nothing better when itall comes together.
Hey welcome to the BeginnerPhotography Podcast brought to
you by Cloud Spot.
I am your host, RaymondHatfield, and today I'm talking
(00:20):
about how the moment mattersmost, but it's not everything.
And how to prepare yourself whenshooting so that you can focus
all of your attention oncapturing the right moment and
not worrying about yoursettings.
Now, I've said this a thousandtimes before here on the podcast
that moment matters most and itdoes.
Maybe you've heard me say this,but here's the thing is that
(00:42):
it's not the only element thatmakes up a great photo, there is
a lot that goes into taking agreat photo.
And you know this becausechances are that you have felt
frustration or overwhelm fromall of the things that you need
to pay attention to whileshooting from camera settings,
zoom focus, composition, oops,the light changed and now you
(01:03):
gotta change your settingsagain.
And, oh, hey, don't forget tocapture a great moment.
Now photo influencers are gonnapounce on that frustration
because, it is their job to sellyou new gear.
You'll hear things that like,this lens is gonna change
everything for you, or thislight will change everything for
you.
This new camera body, this newfilter, this new program, this
(01:24):
new bag, whatever it is.
We'll change everything for you.
And there's something about thatsentence that creates self-doubt
within you, that what you haveis simply not enough.
So when you do actually go outand you shoot.
And you don't come back with a100% success rate.
(01:44):
What you do is you blame it onyour gear, and then you start
surfing Amazon or aama for allthe newest photo goodies.
But that self-doubt, thatoverthinking, that steals your
attention while you're shootingaway from the real emotion of
what's happening in front ofyou, that's when it becomes a
problem.
(02:06):
And unfortunately that'shappening more often than I'd
like to see it.
So today my goal is to help youto know what to pay attention to
so that you can remove thatoverwhelm so that you can feel
confident with your camerasettings.
And then you can focus on whatmatters most moment, not
(02:26):
whatever lens or camera, body,or program or whatever is being
pitched to you.
Well, let me get started byreading this email that I got,
this last week.
It says, Hey, Raymond.
Sometimes I take a photo, whichI feel is good, but when I share
it on Facebook or Reddit, itgets critiques that I'm not sure
how to respond to.
Sometimes I even delete thepost.
(02:47):
Other times I just attempt toimprove the image and then share
that.
And then other times I just, Ijust type nothing.
Sometimes, however, I postpictures expecting a bad
critique.
Do you ever have times wherethat applies to you and how do
you handle your mental healthand self-doubt when it comes to
photography?
First of all, I absolutely havefelt that way before.
(03:10):
I've definitely been nervous toshare an image, and then when I
do share it, it gets just tornto pieces.
But here's the problem that Ithink you're facing, and it was
the problem that I faced at thatsame time as well, and that's
that.
In photography, there's no.
Hard rules, like something likeconstruction, right?
(03:32):
A construction worker would haveto follow a very clear set of
instructions and rules whenbuilding a house.
Otherwise it's not gonna stand.
The same goes for a doctor ifthey were doing a surgery.
In photography, there's justsimply a lot of room for
interpretation.
If a doctor is doing surgery andyou end up bleeding to death,
(03:55):
the surgery was not successful.
Full stop.
If you take a photo that's maybedarker than another photo, it's
not that big of a deal, and infact, it may work out better
than you thought.
You don't know.
So when you're learning how touse the tool that is a camera we
shoot and then we share thephotos in hopes that we get
(04:18):
helpful feedback to help us getbetter, right?
That's the goal.
But what happens is that becausewe are unskilled with our camera
because we don't know what we'retrying to say with our images
because we don't have thephotographic lexicon to even ask
the right question to get agenuinely helpful answer.
(04:42):
We ask questions like, what doyou think about this photo?
Or, or worse, how did I do?
And to that answer, right, weget no helpful answers.
In fact, everyone who does endup commenting is gonna have some
strong opinion about the image,and even further every possible
element about that image fromyour subject, their appearance,
(05:07):
to the light.
To the moment, to thecomposition, to the edit, to the
pose, to your settings, ofcourse, to what lens you use.
They're gonna have an opinionabout everything.
And that overwhelming amount ofcriticism is, is it's just gonna
make you feel like you didterrible.
But the truth is you just.
(05:27):
I don't know how to communicatewith the tool yet.
It's like giving a five-year-oldthe keys to a car.
Like of course they're not gonnaget it right away.
They're gonna give a car toomuch gas.
They're never gonna use theirturn signal.
They're gonna take turns way toofast.
And honestly lives are probablygonna be lost, just because
they're unskilled with how touse the tool that is a car.
(05:51):
So even though they may, by thegrace of God be able to go from
point A to point B, I think thatwe would all agree that it
wasn't very good and thatthere's still plenty of room for
improvement.
And I'm telling you, it's thesame thing with photography.
While you may be able to capturea great moment every once in a
while, if the camera makes adecision that you're unhappy
(06:15):
with, if the camera makes adecision that makes the photo
too dark, or where it missesfocus, or it's kind of blurry.
Even if you got a good moment,you're still not gonna be like,
this is a great photograph.
Because while moment mattersmost, it takes more than just
moment to produce a greatphotograph.
(06:37):
So I wholeheartedly believe thatif you're a new photographer,
the longer that you can wait.
to share your images online.
The longer that you can focus onunderstanding how your camera
works, how light works and howto use that to your advantage,
the better you're gonna be.
(06:58):
Like, don't even worry aboutsharing your work yet, because
it's simply not ready.
But Raymond, why are we talkingabout camera settings when
you've said a million timesmoment matters most?
And that is a totally validquestion because moment does
matter most.
But again, you have to know howto use the camera to capture
that moment.
(07:18):
This past weekend, I took myson, to the qualifications of
the 8,500 cars are whizzing byus at, 231 miles an hour.
The moment here, the story thatI'm trying to tell is speed.
That is what I need my images toshow.
So I'm sitting there and I'mjust like.
(07:39):
I have, the background that Iwant.
We got the pagoda and I'm justsitting right there and I'm
waiting for the car to get tothe right spot to press the
shutter button, right?
Like that's the moment that Iwant, and I've already
preselected my shutter speed sothat it's slow enough to see
motion blur because thatemphasizes speed, as you can
imagine, with a car whizzing byat 231 miles an hour.
(08:02):
I didn't get it the first try.
In fact, I didn't get it thefirst, like 10 laps around.
I really had to like, spend alot of time to try to get the
car in the exact spot that Iwanted it to be in.
Otherwise, it was gonna becovered up by a fence or split
in half by the, the guardrails.
Like it just didn't look good.
I needed an exact moment.
(08:24):
So this obviously took sometime.
My son, however, pulled out hisphone, took a photo of it, right
of it going past us, and thenjust used the live photo
function to scroll back and findthe exact moment that he wanted,
where the car was in between thefence, not being blocked by the
post or the guardrails oranything like that.
Perfect spot on the track,right?
(08:46):
First try.
Mind you first try.
The problem is when you look athis photo and after I eventually
got it, you look at my photo,when you look at his photo, it
looks like a picture of a car isparked on the track.
So he may have got the rightcomposition, but he missed the
moment because the moment isspeed.
(09:09):
I used, like I said, a slowenough shutter speed so that the
car had that motion blur.
That is speed, that is moment,that's what the moment looks
like, and that's a photo thatwouldn't be possible if I had no
idea what my camera settingsdid, which ones did what, and
how to use them.
(09:29):
So, while my technicals may notbe perfect because I had to slow
down my shutter speed, I had tohave an aperture of, I believe
it was F 16.
That's less than ideal.
While the composition was notperfect, the moment which
matters most.
Was perfect and therefore youcan overlook the other settings
(09:52):
to a degree.
But it took me knowing how touse my camera to capture the
moment that I wanted to be ableto capture the, the right moment
so that you can get to thatpoint.
And today, that's what I want totalk to you about.
I wanna walk you through myprocess for being able to go
out, shoot, and have a greattime while doing it and not feel
(10:15):
overwhelmed by all the thingsthat you have to change, all the
settings, the buttons, focus,like all those things so that
you can just focus on themoment.
But before we do this, I thinkthat we first have to address
what are the top struggles whenshooting.
When I look through, all thephotos that I don't select, or
(10:36):
all the photos that I look atand immediately think, Nope,
it's because I missed one of afew things.
Either I missed the moment,right?
It's not gonna be that great ofa photo of there's no good
moment, or the photo is eithertoo bright or too dark.
We can also talk about thesubject not being in focus, but
there's so much there thatthat's something that we can
(10:59):
talk about in another episode.
So the two biggest issues areeither there's no good moment,
or the photo is too bright ortoo dark, right?
The exposure's wrong.
Now, the good news is, is thatif you can fix the problem of
the photo not being properlyexposed.
Meaning, if you can make it sothat it's not too bright, it's
not too dark, you'll take careof the problem of missing the
(11:22):
moment.
But it all starts with surprise,surprise, shooting in manual.
This is something that many newphotographers don't understand.
Is that when you shoot inmanual, you're in full control
of your exposure, right?
I still let my camera auto-focusbecause it will always do a way
better job, much faster than Iever could simply, or shooting a
(11:46):
manual simply refers to manuallycontrolling your exposure
settings.
All right?
So that doesn't mean that youcan't shoot with auto focus,
okay?
Anyway.
I have heard so many times.
From listeners and maybe one ofthem is you, that, you don't
wanna shoot in manual becauseyou're so slow when changing
(12:07):
your settings or that, you hatehaving to change your settings
for every single shot that youtake.
You just wanna point and shoot,right?
So again, maybe that's you.
Maybe you feel that way rightnow.
Maybe you've felt that wayrecently.
Well, here's the good news,okay.
That, that many newphotographers don't fully
(12:27):
understand is that when shootinga manual, you don't have to
change your exposure for everyshot.
You don't have to change yoursettings.
Every single time you take aphoto.
There's no need to reinvent thewheel here.
Your settings are chosen, okay,hold on.
Let me back up.
the whole point of a camera isto control.
(12:48):
The amount of light that entersit.
That's it.
Your aperture's job is tocontrol how much light enters
the lens.
Your shutter speed's job is tocontrol how long that light that
entered the lens falls upon yourcamera sensor.
And your ISO's job is todetermine how sensitive your
camera sensor is to the lightthat hits it for the
(13:09):
predetermined amount of timedetermined by your shutter
speed.
That's it.
So your camera settings arechosen depending on the light
and how you want to capture it.
So if the light doesn't change,your settings don't need to
change either.
If I was shooting in a, let'sjust say an engagement session
(13:30):
in the park, I might shoot.
A whole session with the exactsame settings.
Honestly, not that that happenedevery single time because it
didn't, but I would say that ithappened more than you probably
think that it did.
Think about it.
If you're in a park, right?
Let's say it's three or four inthe afternoon, you know,
(13:51):
whatever.
The sun is your main lightsource, meaning you don't have.
A big flash that you're usingto, illuminate your subject.
It's the sun that is your mainlight source.
The sun is not gonna changeintensity between, let's say,
three and 4:00 PM unless ofcourse a cloud goes in front of
it.
But you understand you'reessentially photographing the
(14:11):
same light source, hitting thesame subject.
And if that's the case, whywould you need to change how
much light enters the camera?
Because it remains the same.
So therefore your settings don'treally need to change much at
all in fact, let me share withyou how my sessions would
typically go so that you canfully understand the process of
(14:32):
how I shoot manual, better, andso that you can understand why
it's much easier than you thinkthat it is right now, If I were
to show up to an engagementsession, right?
I meet with the couple, I talkto them.
Let's say that we're out at anature preserve, a park,
something of that sort.
And we're walking down thistrail.
What I am doing is I'm lookingfor something interesting, some
(14:55):
interesting light, aninteresting background.
If we're walking through thislocal park a, a trail, this
could be the way that the lightcomes through the trees and
creates this beautiful,spotlight effect.
It could be a nice little creekthat I want to have the couple
walking down.
That's step one.
Once I identify, say, thislittle creek area, I then step
(15:17):
two, place my couple or mysubject there in front of it.
Okay.
Then step three is that I justdial in my manual settings.
So when shooting a manual, thethree steps are one, guesstimate
your ISO.
If there's a lot of tree cover,I'm probably gonna shoot at
(15:38):
about ISO 400, just to guess,right?
Let's figure it out.
Step two is I'm gonna choose theright aperture for how much
depth of field I want in theimage.
Let's say they're, they'repretty far back.
I'm shooting pretty wide.
F four will be fine.
And then lastly, I'm gonna justsimply adjust my shutter speed
to properly expose the image forhow I want it.
(15:58):
And then step four, wait for it.
You just shoot away like that's.
That's it.
I'll give my couple, an actionor maybe a prompt or, um, I'll
ask them a question and thenI'll just kind of hover around.
Since my camera settings are,are locked in, I can focus on
finding an interestingcomposition for the frame.
And once I find one, I just campout there until a good moment
(16:22):
happens and then I just capturethat.
No lie.
I'll even take my camera.
I don't have it right here on mydesk.
I'll take my camera and then,move my eye away from the
viewfinder just so that I canlook directly at the couple with
my bare eyeball.
And then I'll press the shutterbutton when a good moment or a
laugh or smile or something thatsays connection.
(16:44):
Happens, and I will know that mycamera settings are good because
I locked them in earlier.
And since the sun didn't justdrop out of the sky in the past
two minutes, setting this allup, I know that my exposure
didn't change so that mysettings are correct.
Try to think of shooting inmanual, like setting the cruise
control on your car.
(17:05):
you're driving along.
And you know, okay, this isapproximately the flow of
traffic.
I'm just going to hit cruisecontrol.
And now you don't have to worryabout the throttle.
You can just pay attention andfocus on the road and then just
cruise.
Shooting manual is, it'sslightly more work in the
moment, but then it'simmeasurably less work and worry
(17:31):
that your camera's gonna make abad decision in the long term.
It makes life easier.
And trust me, I know howcounterintuitive that sounds
like.
I do.
But being aware of what yourcamera settings are, knowing
what they do, choosing the rightones for the shot that you want
to capture gives you thisfeeling of, of freedom, knowing
(17:52):
that you can capture anything.
If you shoot an auto or somesort of auto mode, like aperture
priority, you know howfrustrating it is when you see
something happening in front ofyou.
You picture the photo in yourhead, you go to take the photo,
and it's nothing like how yousee the scene.
It's too overexposed.
It's too underexposed, you know,whatever.
(18:13):
If you don't know what settingsare needed to achieve the shot
that you want.
You're just gonna be left in thewater out of luck.
And you know, when is a not agood time to be feeling
frustrated and that you're deadin the water and that you're out
of luck when you're shooting awedding?
(18:34):
and the bride and groom cansmell frustration from a mile
away.
Like, do you really wanna bringthat into their day?
Or what about if you're justsimply trying to spend time with
your kids and just capture some,nice photos of them doing
something that is meaningful tothem?
Suddenly this nice moment of youspending an some uninterrupted
(18:55):
time with your child, being ableto just observe them and the
things that they findinteresting.
No longer is a fulfilling momentfor you and your child, but it's
one of stress and frustrationsimply because you're unsure of
why your camera is doing whatit's doing.
Knowing how to use your camera,knowing what your settings do,
(19:17):
knowing how to use them tocapture an image that you see in
your head is paramount tolearning photography, and that
is exactly why I think thatlearning to shoot in manual
should be required.
I'm not saying that you have toshoot manual all the time.
In fact.
maybe you decide to shoot inaperture priority or another
auto assisted mode after youlearn manual and, whatever.
(19:40):
That's up to you.
Like, if a construction workerdecides to use a, pneumatic nail
gun, it doesn't make you anyless of an able, construction
worker.
You still need to know where thenails need to go.
You need to know how to use ahammer just in case of, of a jam
(20:00):
or maybe a bent nail orsomething like that.
But learning manual gives youthe tools needed to know how to
capture the image that you wantto, and how to know how to fix
an image when it's not turningout the way that you had hoped.
Rather than just saying no,well, it is what it is.
and that knowledge gives you thefreedom to set it your settings
(20:26):
and then not worry about it.
You can just kind of forget it.
Forget about adjusting yoursettings until of course the
light changes or you move to anew location.
Now there is still the questionof like, okay, well what
settings should I use?
I can't directly answer thatbecause that.
(20:48):
Answer depends 100% on the lightthat you're shooting in.
And because I'm not there withyou looking at this light, I
can't give you an exact answer,but I can give you a cheat sheet
with the camera settings for 10popular types of photography,
along with my own images and thereal settings that I use to
capture those images.
(21:09):
Just to give you a startingplace.
To know where to set yoursettings and then how to adjust
them to make them work for you.
It's totally free, and I'll sendit to you right away.
All you gotta do is just head toperfect camera settings.com to
grab your copy again, perfectcamera settings.com to grab your
free copy.
(21:29):
Okay, so now you have yourcamera settings locked in.
Now what, how do you know whatis the right moment to capture?
When photographing people,here's what I do.
After I find some good light orgood background, right?
Like I mentioned earlier, afterI place the couple there, in
that good light or in front of agood background, after I dial in
my manual settings, what I do isI just sit and wait.
(21:54):
Wait for what The moment.
That's right.
Congratulations.
If you're photographing people,you're trying to communicate in
emotion.
That's it.
That's what the job is.
For families, that emotion isconnection.
That emotion is fun.
For couples, it's love.
So what moments say those thingsFor my couples, if I'm trying to
(22:16):
show off that they're in love, Igive them prompts that encourage
them to show me that promptslike.
Look at each other and tell meabout your first date.
Were you nervous?
Where did you go?
I'll ask the other one.
What did you think after thedate?
Did they do anything that madeyou question whether saying yes
to that date was the rightdecision?
Again, all while looking at eachother so I can capture them
(22:39):
talking about their love andrealizing how far they've come
together.
Maybe I'll ask them to come upwith a secret four or five part
handshake.
Something that'll be their ownand something that they can use,
whenever they want in thefuture.
Because now I'm capturing them,interacting with each other.
I'm capturing them laughing.
I'm capturing them, making aphysical connection with each
(22:59):
other.
Or maybe I'll ask them to again,look at each other.
And talk about maybe what theirlives are gonna look like 10
years in the future.
And paint that picture.
what does morning time look likefor you?
Two, 10 years in the future fromnow?
What do you want it to looklike?
And now I can capture them,future casting and being
romantic with each other,building that life together with
(23:22):
each other all while my camerasettings are locked in.
So all that I need to do is justsit there and wait.
Wait for the right laugh, waitfor the right smirk, wait for
the right embrace, wait for theright sexy eyes, and then I
press the shutter button.
(23:43):
Because my settings are lockedin, I can now be present with
this couple.
I can now enjoy watching thismoment.
I can now watch this couplebecome closer together.
Moment matters most, but whenyour settings are on point as
well, it feels like you hit thelottery.
there's nothing better when itall comes together.
(24:05):
So don't think that just becausemoment matters most, that you
can forget the rest.
While you can be forgiven, youcan't forget it, you understand
your camera settings so that youcan lock them into place so that
you can then focus all of yourattention on capturing the right
moment.
(24:25):
Set yourself up for success.
Then focus on the moment.
That's it for today.
Remember, if you want to grabthat free cheat sheet, just head
over to perfect camerasettings.com and grab your free
copy right now.
And again.
Until next time, remember, themore that you shoot today, the
better of a photographer youwill be tomorrow.
Talk soon.
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