Transcription
What's good, family? Listen, if you've been wondering what the best and easiest settings are for corporate photography, look no further. I got you covered. Let's get into it.
All right, so out the gate, if you're watching this video, it's because you are doing, you know, event work, conferences, and things like that. You're doing photography and you're curious, okay, well, what are other settings that people are using? Or, hey, I'm kind of new to this. What are the best settings? What are the easiest settings I can use so I can show up and get to this corporate bag easier than ever? And I'm going to tell you that these are the best settings. I don't care what anybody says. This is legit, hands down. Quote me on it.
Okay, so for context, your boy started shooting photography back, you know, circa 2011 on a Nikon D3100. So when I tell you that the struggle was real, because in the DSLR days when you took a picture and then you looked at it and it was horrible, it was, you know, overexposed, underexposed, you didn't know like why is my picture looking horrible? Nowadays with mirrorless cameras, you can just spin the dials and turn the wheels until the picture looks good on the digital display and you can think you're better than you are. But back in the DSLR days, you could be looking through the viewfinder, it looks great, but when you press the shutter button, a lot of times you were hoping and praying that your picture came out good. So when I tell you that I have learned like when I tell you I have mastered photography like I really have and so with that being the case, these are the settings that I have been using for the last 6 years or so and it has made my life easier and I think that you'll benefit from it.
Okay, so we're going to talk about three things. Obviously, we're going to talk about white balance, ISO, and shutter speed. All right, so first things first, let's talk about white balance.
When it comes to white balance, you should be shooting auto. Oh, yes. I know some people, they don't want to hear that, but I'm going to tell you right now, especially if you bought a camera in the last five or so years, auto white balance on your camera works. The last thing I want to do and the last thing I really want you to do is to have to remember to set your white balance every time you go inside or outside, or if the sun comes out, or if it starts to rain and gets overcast, or if the lights on stage change, or whatever the case may be, your camera will do an incredible job at dictating the white balance for whatever you're shooting. I am a Sony shooter and let me tell you guys, the Sony auto white balance is incredible. For the last five or six years, I literally have not had to think about what my white balance is going to be, except for if I'm shooting head shots and I want to make sure they're consistent. But that's literally 5% of my workload. Really, the other 95% or really the other 97% of what I'm shooting actually, auto white balance. Okay, trust me on this one.
The second thing, guys, let's talk about ISO. Auto ISO. Yes, I said that. Auto ISO. However, you have to set some parameters. You see, when you choose auto ISO, it's almost like choosing an auto ND, if we're going to really talk about it, when it comes to video. When you're pointing your camera, your camera is deciding what to change the ISO to to maintain a consistent exposure. However, if you don't set parameters, your, you know, your camera might give you ISO 100, it might give you ISO 100,000. So, what I do is I set the lower limit of the ISO to, you know, whatever the lowest value is. It could be 50, it could be 100. And I set the upper limit to, depending on what camera I'm using, 4,000, maybe 5,000. So that way whenever my camera is deciding which to choose, it can only pick an option that's in those values. So I know that every time I shoot and I get those pictures back into Lightroom or whatever I'm using to edit, that they will look a certain way. It will only have so much grain in it. And for those that know, you can knock that little bit of grain out by denoising in Lightroom anyway. So, no matter what I shoot, I know my images will come out crispy. No more having to remember to change your ISO. No more forgetting to change your ISO. Put that thing on auto with parameters and I promise you it's going to make your photography experience as a shooter that much more simple.
So, the last thing is, of course, shutter speed. Now, listen, that is one of the only settings I will change throughout the entire day. Most of the day I'm deciding, okay, should I increase my shutter speed or decrease my shutter speed? That's it. My camera decides everything else for me. And if you go to my website, if you look at um all of the work I've done, all of it has been shot with auto white balance, auto ISO, and me deciding what the shutter speed is. So, think about it. When it comes to the exposure triangle, I'm really only thinking about one thing. I'm not thinking about all three. I'm literally thinking about one thing all day long. I have practiced enough and I have the skill to balance all three. But the point is, do I feel like doing it? No. And for those that don't know, one of my life's mantras is how can I get the same result with the least amount of steps? And in my humble estimation, this is the least amount of steps that you can use to still get incredible results.
And so, I'm going to show you guys some pictures on screen of images I've captured with auto ISO, auto white balance, and using my shutter speed. I've captured uh breakout sessions. I've captured people at wineries. Uh I've captured people at symposiums. I've captured uh Fortune 500 CEOs on stage. I've captured wine tastings. You name it, I have captured it around the country. One camera, one lens, one flash, and just a few settings that I have to remember. If you are out here and you're still kind of struggling with what settings to choose, regardless of your skill level, I am telling you, allowing your camera to take the reigns in those areas within parameters is going to set you up for success and kind of erase that learning curve. No more having to hope that your picture comes out good. Listen, you paid $3,000 for that camera. Why don't you let it work for you?
If you want to see more content like this that's going to help you grow and scale your corporate photo and video business, I hope you know you are in the right place. Make sure you lock in by liking, sharing, and subscribing. If you want to grow your business to six figures and beyond doing corporate photo and video right beside me and other people just like you, tap in with the corporate community. It's our private online group at the link below. And as always guys, let's get to this corporate bag. I'm out.