DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHER'S CHECKLIST: BEFORE YOU TAKE THE CAMERA OUT

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

It would have happened to many of us. You are out somewhere to take some photographs and you realize a little too late that you did not charge the batteries previous night. Or you come back home after a good photography session only to realize that your camera ISO was set to 800 yesterday evening and it stayed that way even in ample daylight. Such problems are a plenty, and it usually happens to everyone of us. After goofing up with such things many times, I now always check the camera and reset everything before I take off. Here is a set of things that one needs to look at.

1. Charge the batteries early enough. This is the most difficult thing to remember because you have to do it a little ahead of packing the camera. Most other things can be checked at the time of packing. Set a reminder or alarm whenever you remember about it so that you can charge them at the right time.
2. Make sure you are carrying all your CF cards. I usually leave a CF card stuck to the card reader and it is a quite likely that I might miss taking that with me. Sometimes my camera will not have any card loaded, which actually turns out good for me because I get to notice that easily and immediately remember to pack all the cards.
3. Check that the exposure compensation is set to zero.
4. Set the shooting mode to continuous(or your favorite mode). Not everyone might want to do this. But this is crucial for me because it is necessary while photographing birds. If the mode is set to single or timer, I might end up missing a shot.
5. Set the ISO to 100. It is always good to keep it at the lowest. You can consciously change to higher ISO if there is less light, but the reverse is less likely to happen.
6. Check the AF mode and ensure that it is set to your favorite mode.
7. Set the metering mode to your most favorite mode. You might have changed it from evaluative to center weighed yesterday and forgot about it. This is less likely to happen with people who always stick to one metering mode.
8. If you have the habit of changing white balance, reset it. This one should not matter much for people who shoot raw.
9. Try to recollect any temporary changes you have made in camera settings that you might want to revert back. This could be about the picture size and quality, parameter settings color profile, any of the custom functions you have modified. Reset them if needed.