Your new camera isn’t just meant for capturing scenes. The reason why you get it instead of a phone is to get a lot more from the capabilities. So we’re rounding up a bunch of things you should try with your brand new camera. Have you considered multiple exposure modes? What about a less crunchy HDR mode? And can your phone do long exposures with as much efficiency? Give some of these a try!

Multiple Exposure Mode

The multiple exposure mode on your camera can do so many cool things. It lets you be so much more creative with your camera than simply just capturing things. You’ll add layers. Plus, it’s going to be a fun creative challenge. At the moment, mostly all cameras have a multiple exposure mode in them except for Sony and Leica cameras. There are various ways of doing them too. There’s Additive, darks priority, lights priority, and average. Plus you figure out how many images you want to work with by experimenting. Some systems even give you an overlay to that you’ll get an idea of what you’re creating.

Go give it a try!

Using Long Exposures to Capture Movement.

Timelapse mode is very fun, and so is video. But there’s huge potential with long exposures. Lots of photographers try to go for the fastest exposure possible to freeze the motion in front of them. But why not exaggerate the movement? If you’re photographing a dancer, maybe try a slow shutter speed and second curtain flash. Shooting street photography? Why not stay in one spot and shoot a long exposure of people going by?

Do something different!

A Custom JPEG Profile

There’s nothing wrong with shooting RAW and JPEG. Sometimes you don’t need to shoot RAW quite honestly. It’s nice to have them just in case. But if all you’re doing are minor edits in Lightroom or Capture one, you might as well set it up in-camera to begin with. Why spend all the extra time in front of a computer? Instead, spend it shooting more. When you’re done, just beam the images to your phone.

With systems like Fujifilm cameras, you can use customized presets. The folks over at Fuji X Weekly have a lot of great ones.

Take off Exposure Preview/Live View Setting Effect

Cameras by default come with the exposure preview and live view setting effect on. Take it off. Believe it or not, it will affect so much in the performance. The darker your scene is, the less light will hit the sensor. It’s like walking outside at night wearing sunglasses or walking into a dark bar with sunglasses. Does it make sense? No. If you take the setting off, your camera will be able to focus a lot faster in low light. We’ve personally seen this on review tests.

That doesn’t mean that exposure preview isn’t useful. It’s super useful. But what’s often better is just knowing how to look at a scene and know the exposure.

Use the In-Camera HDR Mode

This isn’t done enough, but it can be really useful. Your camera has the ability to shoot in HDR mode of some sort. Some folks say that it limits what’s possible in post-production or it isn’t as good as editing later on. But that can also depend on how you expose and meter the scene. What I’ve seen, for example, is Fujifilm sensors render more in the highlights than Sony sensors. Sony definitely brings more out of the shadows.