Things I Have Learned from Photography #5

5.     Read your camera manual, or as much of it as you can tolerate.

Camera manuals are technical manuals. When was a technical manual ever a compelling read? And yet, to be a good street photographer, in particular, you absolutely must get to the point where your camera is so familiar to you that it does not require your attention to use it.

When I got my first mirror-less Olympus camera, I started reading the Olympus manual and quickly decided that it was worthwhile to invest in a camera guide. Like a manual, a guide describes all of the functions of the camera. But it also tells you the how, when and where to use those functions. I currently have a digital copy of the David Busch’s Olympus OM-D-EM1 on my iPad Kindle. From time to time I get tangled up with some obscure-to-me feature of my camera. The only way I can untangle is to get out the guide.

It is the New Year. It may be time for me to do a little reading in the camera guide. However, instead of starting in the beginning, which I have done multiple times, I think I will start in the middle. I’ll bet there is a thing or two I still need to learn.