RTFM!

Read The Furbished Manual is not a criticism but a gift.

If you’re on any of the popular FaceBook photography pages especially those dedicated to specific cameras you will see the same basic questions coming up at least weekly if not even more frequent.

What is happening is these simple questions are coming from new camera owners who haven’t bothered to read their camera’s operating manual. For example the new Olympus PRO lenses have a manual clutch ring on the lens and it easily slides back and forth from manual to auto focus as the camera is removed from the camera bag. Weekly we read someone who is about to send their lens back to Olympus to repair its broken focus system.

Back in the days of film photography and before there was any automation (like modes) everybody shot in manual mode and the only controls were aperture, shutter speed and manual focusing. That was it. Set your light meter to the ASA rating of the film you were shooting and you were good to go.

Today’s top-of-the-line mirrorless cameras are technological wonders with dozen of control features and seemingly endless internal menus.

So how do you learn how to use your camera? Well first you don’t go to FB to ask your basic question as there’s no telling whether the answer you are going to get is right. Besides on some sites you really don’t want 100,000 members reading the same post from different beginners on a daily basis.

Here’s what I taught thousands of students over the years. First you get off FB for a few days LOL. Then with camera in hand you open your printed or online manual and with a glass of wine handy you go through every control and menu item. Using Google and YouTube to figure out stuff you don’t know this should take a couple of days!

When you finish you’ll be ahead of 99% of new camera owners and not only will you understand your camera but you will also become a much better photographer.