Camera Settings! What to Turn OFF and Why?

The camera settings pros NEVER use!

In this tutorial, Mark Denny shares why you should turn off these 7 camera settings to shoot landscape photography like the pros!

7 Camera settings to turn OFF for landscape photography

Cameras have so many settings these days, but not all of them are actually the most helpful!

And some of them actually make some things harder for you, drive you insane or even ruin some of your shots.

Let’s dive into some of these less than helpful settings you should keep an eye out for!

Camera Settings to turn off #1: Continuous Autofocus

Generally you dont want you camera constantly changing it’s focus to what it deems is your target.

You want to be able to set what to focus on, so that if you move the camera around or if something moves in your scene it doesn’t change your focus to something else

This setting can be helpful if you specifically are shooting wildlife photogrphy where you are tracking something moving, but generally safer to leave this one off. 

Setting to turn off #2: Auto ISO

Firstly, what is ISO? ISO is your camera’s sensitivity to light. So, the Auto ISO feature tells the camera to change the exposure (or the amount of light that reaches your camera’s sensor)  based on the changing light. 

Cameras with this feature on generally auto select an ISO that is higher than you would actually want. You have more control over your photograph’s exposure when this setting is set to manual ISO for you to set. 

By doing this you remove the risk of the Auto ISO setting the exposure too high for a shot and potentially ruining and epic shot  you can’t get back.

Camera Setting #3: Remove Focus from Shutter Button

When you ga new camera, the auto focus and the shutter release are set to the same button on your camera.

Ideally you actually want that button to only trigger your shutter not the focus as well. Half presing the button triggers auto focus, full pressing the shutter

In fact, it  is desirable ot move the auto focus trigger form the shutter relseas button and moving it to different button on the back of your camera. Doing this is called ‘back button focusing’.

Having both of these features on the same button can cause an issue called ‘focus drift’.

This is a blurriness or loss of clarity in a photo that occurs  when you are focusing while taking exposure that causes incoming light do not converge at the same point after passing through the lens.

Having these two steps on two different buttons helps you prevent this from occuring by giving you more manual control over this process

Camera Settings to turn off #4 Special Picture Profiles

You want to get as much dynamic range in a raw and pre edit format for your photograph as you can, so turning this setting to off or Flat will help you achieve this.

Having any of these profiles turned on will alter or limit this dynamic range and add effects to your photograph before you edit, which can limit your photographs and make it more difficult in the post edit process 

Setting to turn off #5 IBIS (In-Body Image Stabilization) 

This is particularly impactful if you generally use a tripod for your camera on your shoots.

It can cause unwanted ‘jitters’ from trying to auto stabilise while you are shooting on a tripod. You can avoid this by turing the setting off.

The scary thing about this is you can’t tell from your camera if that is happening or not, but you will notice in your photos after shoot. Which would be a huge bummer to have to then go retake all the photos again!

Camera Setting #6 All the Beeps!

This one doesn’t effect your photographs at all, but does have an impact on your mental state while shooting!

Cameras nowadays make so many different loud beeping noises in normal operation you will want to pull your hair out! 

You can turn this off to bring peace and quiet back to your shoots.

Camera Settings to turn off #7 Long Exposure Noise Reduction 

Noise in photography refers to a type of visual distortion.

Long Exposure is a photography style that uses a slow shutter speed to flood a camera’s sensor with light. This can cause the sensor to heat up and create noise. 

If this is a photo style you enjoy, you can use editing software like Lightroom to do a better job of reducing noise than what your camera will be able to do

Having this setting of will be one less thing for your camera to worry about and gives you again more control over your photograph results 

These settings turned off may help your landscape photography skills!

Maybe one or more of these setting tips will help you out with your photography!

Which one of these camera settings will you TURN OFF in your next landscape photoshoot?

Comment below!