The BEST Settings for Photography ZV-E10 mark 2
so you've got your Sony zve E10 Mark I and yes okay it is really aimed at video creators but it is also an excellent photography camera if you know the right settings so if you want to start taking good photos in this video we'll go through the best settings for the different types of Photography and where you need to go on the camera to change them all example photos in this video have been taken with the zv E10 Mark I and show what is possible with this camera first thing you'll need to do is make sure you are in photography mode this is changed by sliding the mode button on the top of the camera to photography mode this is important as some settings and button functions change depending on the selected mode first up is file format let's change the file format settings so that they are at the best quality press the menu button on the back of the camera go to main and then file format here I will use raw and jpeg this will save two copies of every photo that you take one in raw and one in jpeg format raw images generally are a larger file but store more color data be aware that they don't open on all editing software jpegs however are smaller but store less image information but will open on anything and our smaller files let's change the jpeg quality to extra find selecting the highest quality jpeg will take the highest quality photos but the image files will be larger similar for raw file types you can bump this up to lossless comp and it is the same Theory when you change this file type to lossless comp however the file sizes will be massive and will use up a lot of your memory card and also might slow down the operation of the camera if you're using stuff like first shooting so only use this if you need the best quality image possible but do you even need to use JPEG and RAW well if you're going to be using your images for prints and want the best quality image depth and you have the option to edit your images in Lightroom or something similar then yes I would go for JPEG and RAW however just for quick edits and you're only going to be editing photos on your phone or very quickly or no edits at all then maybe you could just use jpeg here and you might not need those larger file sizes for more info on the differences between these file types check out my in-depth video about them here so next up we're going to make sure we're using the right image sizes on the same menu select the jpeg image size of L 26m and the aspect ratio of 3 to2 you can set these to lower if you're desperate to save space on your memory card but memory cards aren't that expensive and best quality is the way to go with these settings we've just changed your using as much of the camera's sensor as possible the next important setting to go through is the shoot mode option and this will depend on the type of Photography that you are using this also can be accessed on the main menu or if you have touchscreen controls active just hit the top right button here this menu gives you a handy description of what each shoot mode means we'll go through some of them now it's also a good reference to go back to for portrait photography or other subject photography of people or pets Etc then I would recommend using aperture priority mode which is the option with the A on it this allows you to control the camera's aperture this is the F number that you see at the bottom of the screen a low F number will give you a brighter shot with outer Focus backgrounds which can help portraits look very professional by keeping your subject in the center of the image in Focus once you're on this mode you can change the aperture either by turning the function wheel or the larger wheel on the top of the camera body if you want all of your shot to be in Focus then adjust the aperture to a higher F number usually around f8 and above which will slowly bring more of the shot into Focus as you increase this number this can be great for landscape or any type of shot where you want more of your shot in Focus the nice feature of this camera is the background defocus button which will quickly swap between outer focus and InFocus backgrounds if you don't have the time to change the aperture settings manually next we're going to talk about the shutter priority shoot mode which is the S option which controls how quickly your camera will take a photo this isn't important for two main reasons first if you want to shoot a moving subject such as a person running and don't want the photo to be blurry and second to brighten or darken your Shots by increasing the shutter speed the camera takes the photo quicker with less motion blur but doing this there is less time for light to hit the sensor so your image will be darker fast shutter speeds work well outdoors in good lighting and so work well for capturing sports or Wildlife without blurring your subject whereas slow shutter speeds are useful when the light is low and your subject isn't going to be moving just be aware that any movements that will shake the camera while taking the shot will be very noticeable when using slow shutter speeds and will make your shots very blurry so that's some of the more important fundamentals but now we'll talk through some of the smaller settings which can be accessed either via the touchscreen controls on the screen or in the menus mostly they're going to be accessed by either pressing the FN button on the back of the camera or by those touchcreen controls but they are all also available in the deeper menus as well so first of these is drive mode which is the second option of the touch screen this is where you select a single photo of photo on a timer or burst shooting burst shooting will take multiple shots as you hold down the shutter button which is very useful for shooting a moving subject Focus mode by default is just in the FN menu this setting it defines the autofocus Behavior a quick rule of thumb here is that AFC which stands for continuous is used for photographing moving subjects AFS means single and is for single shot and is used for subjects where it is stationary AFA Auto is where the camera decides whether the subject is moving or not and tries to alternate between the servo and single shooting modes accordingly this can be useful in most situations but sometimes it struggles to identify these correctly so if you know for sure then use either C or S options here again for a more in-depth video about this check out this video here where I go through these settings in much more detail next up is focus area which is the third option down on the touch screen whil this setting makes a difference I'd recommend using these settings you can change it to wide to automatically focus on all the subject in the range of the image when you press the shutter button down halfway in still image shooting mode a green frame is displayed around the area that is in Focus or you can opt for C Center to focus automatically on the subject in the center of the image when used together with the autofocus lock function you can compose the image that you want but be aware if you're moving around and shooting in lots of different situations you may end up focusing on the wrong part of your image these are the main two options you're likely to need to use here however there are more to explore so if you'd like me to make a video about these in more depth let me know in the comments the next setting is exposure compensation by default this is accessible through the main menu or by pressing down on the wheel on the rear of the camera exposure compensation helps you override the automatic exposure adjustments your camera makes in situations with uneven light distribution generally I'd like to keep a small adjustment here and I quite often leave this setting on minus 0.3 which helps fight overexposure without making your shots too dark moving on to ISO by default this is accessible through the main menu or by pressing right on the wheel on the rear of the camera ISO controls the amount of artificial Light added to your shots low ISO will give you clearer but darker shots increasing the iso will make your shots brighter but will increase the noise and Grain in your shots on the zve Mark I generally the Auto setting works pretty well in most situations but if you find yourself in situations where you just need more light than the camera is willing to give you bump up that ISO yes it will be more grainy but sometimes that's better than getting no shot at all similar if you're shooting somewhere that is really bright and you've got plenty of light setting the iso as low as possible means that you will get as little noise and Grain on your shots as possible so the next setting I'm going to talk about is called soft skin effect this softens the skin portraits and removes blemishes and things like that almost like an Instagram filter I'd highly recommend turning this off your shots will lose way too much detail and it's just a gimmick in my opinion now we're going to move on to white balance this is found in the FN menu and is to be honest a complicated subject so we're going to keep it simple for the sake of this video white balance is used to adjust the colors to match the color of the light source so that white objects appear white in your photos rather than them looking a bit blue or a bit yellow depending on your light source generally the auto white balance especially on the zve Mark I is very good but if you do notice that the whites are looking way off on your shots then the presets that you can change here such as sunlight if your whites are too bright are worth remembering that you can dip into these to fix your shots if they're not coming out quite right but 90 95% of the time Auto white balance is probably probably going to be okay for you a nice new setting is the recognition Target option which is the third down on the touch screen this setting is useful when shooting living subjects swap between human animal and bird depending on what type of subject you are capturing this will help your camera identify what you are shooting and keep it in Focus the creative style function allows you to control the finish of your image depending on the scene you are intending to shoot these can give your shots a good Bas finish on your jpeg photos and your raws won't be affected so for example portrait mode for portraits and landscape for Landscapes I don't think it's worth spending too much time here and usually I just keep this on standard myself and do any image processing afterwards but it is a nice kind of starter point to get the kind of look that you might need for certain types of shots so yes that was a lot to take in but by understanding these settings it will help enhance your photography a lot there are of course many more settings that I could have gone into but these settings should give you a strong Foundation to help you get confident taking photos with your zv E10 Mark 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