Olympus® PEN E-PL1 For Dummies®

Chapter 6. Getting Creative with Exposure and Lighting

In This Chapter

• Exploring advanced exposure modes: P, A, S, or M?

• Getting a grip on aperture, shutter speed, and ISO

• Choosing an exposure metering mode

• Tweaking autoexposure with Exposure Compensation

• Correcting lens vignetting

• Using flash in the advanced exposure modes

• Bracketing exposure, flash output, and ISO

By using the iAuto and SCN modes, both covered in Chapter 3, you can enjoy point-and-shoot photography with the E-PL1. But to fully exploit your camera's capabilities — and, more importantly, to exploit your creative capabilities — you need to explore your camera's advanced exposure modes, represented on the Mode dial by the letters P, A, S, and M.

This chapter explains everything you need to know to start taking advantage of these four modes. First, you get an introduction to three critical exposure controls: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Adjusting these settings enables you to not only fine-tune image exposure but also affect other aspects of your image, such as depth of field (the zone of sharp focus) and motion blur. In addition, this chapter explains other advanced exposure features, such as Exposure Compensation and metering modes, and discusses the flash options available to you in the advanced exposure modes.

Kicking Your Camera into High Gear

Each of the advanced shooting modes highlighted in Figure 6-1 offers a different ...