The Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS/1000D Companion

More Full Auto Practice

In this chapter, we've covered a lot of technical and practical details that are essential to understand if you want to be able to use your camera quickly and effectively. Often, quick use of the camera is what makes the difference between capturing a "decisive moment" and getting a boring shot.

In the next chapter, we're going to start getting more technical about basic photographic theory, but before we go there, you might want to take some time to do a little more practice in Full Auto mode. Shooting in Full Auto does not mean you're a photo wimp. The Rebel XS in Full Auto mode is a very powerful instrument, and having the camera decide technical details for you can free you up to focus on composition and content. While we'll be discussing composition in more detail in Chapter 8, here are some exercises to try right now, before moving on to the next chapter.

Work with Fixed Focal Length

Zoom lenses can make you lazy. They tend to encourage you to stay in one place and compose from there. As we'll see later, there can be a great difference in images shot from different locations. But zoom lenses also keep you from having to visualize a scene for a particular framing. Here are three quick exercises that will get you seeing and thinking in a different way:

Full wide

Zoom your lens out to full wide and leave it there! Spend a few hours shooting with it at full wide. Don't zoom the lens. Instead, re-position yourself if you need to frame the shot differently. ...