The place where it all began

This acronym will save your photos

FIREBASE is the acronym I use every single time I set up my camera. I love this

simple system and it will help you avoid mistakes with your camera settings. I

created this system after taking a trip to Mount Assiniboine, where I witnessed a

perfect sunrise over the mountains. The whole trip was spectacular. The night

before the big shoot, I was out on the mountain top photographing the Milky Way.

Once I was finished, I put my camera back in my bag, and decided to go back and

get a couple hours of rest before sunrise.

 The alarm went off 3 hours later, and I was back at it. I picked up my bag and

made my way to the beautiful Mount Assiniboine, just a half hour away from the

cabin. I set up my camera once again in front of a perfect sunrise and started

excitedly snapping photos of this once-in-a-lifetime destination. I went along the

rest of my trip, excited to get back home and look over all of the gorgeous photos

I’d taken.

But when I got home and saw them on my computer, I was devastated. All of

the images from that sunrise shoot were out of focus, and unusable. I forgot to turn

my camera back onto autofocus mode after the Milky Way photos, which meant

everything was just a hair out of focus. They looked good on the back of my camera,

but as soon as I zoomed in on my computer, the photos were useless.

Right then and there, I vowed to never again make a mistake that would

result in me losing images from such an important trip. That’s why I came up with

this simple system. The acronym FIREBASE has saved me from making the same

mistakes on thousands of photographs. If you

use this system and get your composition right,

then you’ll never miss a shot again.

Happy shooting,

Tim Shields
Founder of Photography Academy
 F.I.R.E.B.A.S.E.

Focus - Is your focus point set on the correct location in the scene? Are you wanting
auto focus or manual focus? If you want auto focus, is manual focus turned off?

ISO - Is your ISO at the lowest setting to avoid noise?

Raw - Is your camera set to save RAW files instead of Jpg?

EV- Is your camera’s EV setting zeroed out?

Bracketing- Is bracketing turned off? Or, do you need bracketing to compensate

for a scene with high dynamic range?

Aperture - Is your camera’s aperture set in accordance with the amount of depth
of field you need for the shot. For example, if you need a very long depth of field, is
your aperture set to a high number value?

Shutter speed - Is your shutter speed slow enough to smooth out water? Or is it
fast enough to freeze motion?

Excruciating- Are you paying excruciating attention to detail? Check and triple
check every setting!

And finally, review. After each photo, review it by checking the histogram to
prevent blown out highlights, AND zooming in to 100% to check the foreground and
background for sharpness. If adjustments to the camera settings are required,
repeat this process.
Never forget to check if the camera is using the proper focusing mode.

F stands for focus.

There are only two goals with camera settings. The first goal is to not have any

motion blur, while the second goal is to not have any focus blur.

Focus blur is caused by setting an incorrect focus point, or by using manual

instead of autofocus. Imagine that you're taking a picture of your friend. Who's

standing in front of a mountain, smiling. If your camera moves the focus point away

from your friend and onto the mountain, then you're going to have a photo with

focus blur on your friend's face.

And your friend is not going to like that photo. So if you want to keep your friend

happy, you need your camera to move the focus point onto your friend's face, to

make them the focal point in the image. The first step when using the FIREBASE

acronym is to make sure the focus point is actually set on the subject, or the hero of

your image.

The next question is if you want autofocus or will manual focus be more

effective? And this is a big one because maybe the last time you used your camera,

you were using manual focus like I was up the night before photographing the Milky

Way. And when I went to use my camera the next morning, it was still in manual

focus mode. But since I was shooting during the day, when autofocus works well, it

needed to be in autofocus mode. This is why the first step is to check to ensure the

camera is in the right mode, and you’re focusing on the right place in the image.
Always check your ISO setting

I stands for ISO.

The next setting you need to check is the ISO. If the last thing you shot was night

time photos, there’s a chance your ISO was set to higher number than necessary for

daytime photos. If that happens, your daytime photos will be grainy, noisy, and

unusable. That’s why I always check to make sure my ISO at the proper setting.

During the daytime, you may still need a high ISO to get shutter speeds that are fast

enough to capture birds in flight.

The main thing here is just take control of the ISO and know what it's set at. I

have ruined so many photos because I forgot to check what the ISO was set at.
Raw photos give you the most control in post production

R is for raw.

If you're taking outdoor photos of any kind, you want to be shooting in raw mode.

When you buy your camera and take it out of the box for the first time, it will be set

at the factory to take jpeg files. And that's fine for quick snapshots. But if you want

to get serious about your photography and take stunning photos, then you need to

change that setting.

Raw photos capture so much more light information and can allow you to do

so much more with the photo when post-processing. The Raw format also gives the

photographer complete control over white balance after the fact. This is one of

those settings that I will never change on my camera. Even if there is a time when

jpeg files may be preferable, like when taking snapshots of friends that you have no
intention of editing. But I know that this is one of the settings that I will always

forget to change hence why it made it into the acronym.

If I’m on an important photoshoot, like at Mount Assiniboine, taking those

photos on jpeg would mean I wouldn’t be able to do anything serious with the

photographs. I would not be able to make many edits to the files, and I would not be

able to adjust the temperature. So that’s why I always shoot in raw format.
Exposure Compensation is necessary when taking photos in automatic modes

The E is for EV

The EV button is a little button that has a plus and a minus symbol on it, known as

exposure compensation. I'd like you to think of this EV button like the knob on your

toaster in your kitchen. You pull down on the slider and then your toast pops up,

but it's not cooked enough — if it's still bread. When that happens, you rotate the

little knob on your toaster and it lengthens the amount of time that the bread will

cook.

And this is exactly how your camera's EV button works. After you take a

photo, you look at the photo you just took, and then you determine is it too bright?

And if it's too bright, you need to rotate that dial on your toaster down a little bit
before you take a second photo. If your photo is coming out too dark after you

review it, just rotate to a plus one and then take it again. + Exposure will make the

images brighter, while - Exposure will make them darker.

This is how you take a properly-exposed image. You don’t want to have

highlights that are too bright, or shadows that are too dark. Just one

perfectly-cooked image every time.

Exposure compensation only works when shooting in automatic modes, like

aperture priority, shutter priority, or auto ISO. If you’re shooting in manual, then

the EV dial will have no effect on your final image. But this is one setting that I often

forget is turned on. And when that happens, I’ll most likely incorrectly expose the

images.
Step 5 is to make sure your bracketing mode is set properly.

The B stands for bracketing

I use bracketing to help me take HDR photos. But the most common mistake that I

make is forgetting to turn bracketing off. And so I get to the next photo shoot and

this setting is still on, so I always need to check this.

You may wish to use bracketing if you're taking a photo where you have a

really, really bright sky on a really, really dark foreground, like when photographing

a sunset over a canyon. Bracketing will allow you to take a proper exposure for each

part of the image and combine them in post production to create one perfect

exposure.
Aperture is the setting that controls depth of field.

A is for aperture.

This is the big one. And this is the first setting that I check when I'm about to take a

photo. I'll make a decision on what aperture I want to use based on how much of

the scene I want to be sharp.

So if you're taking that picture of your friend, who's smiling at you in front of

the mountain scene and you want your friend's face to be sharp, but you want the

mountain behind to be blurry. Then you're going to want to select a large aperture,

which is also referred to as an f-stop number.

For a portrait like this, you’ll usually use the largest aperture (the smallest

f/stop number) that your lens is capable of. For example, f/2.8 will give you a blurry
background. If you want your friend's face to be sharp and you also want the

mountain behind your friend to be sharp, then you want a high f-stop number like

f/9.

So you need to look at what your aperture is and ask yourself ‘how much do I

want to be sharp from the foreground to the background,’ and then make an

adjustment on your aperture. Take control, don't let your camera make that

decision for you.

How much motion blur do you want in your photo? In this image, I used a very slow

shutter speed to blur the clouds.

The S is for shutter speed

The first goal of camera settings is to get a sharp photo. Getting a sharp photo

relies on two main settings that control motion blur and focus blur. Shutter speed

affects motion blur.

The main reason photographers come back home with blurry photos is

because they used a shutter speed that was too slow for hand-holding their camera.

If you’re hand holding, there is a simple formula to use: use a shutter speed that is

double the focal length.

If you were using a 200mm lens, you would double that number and you'll come to

400. Your minimum shutter speed should be 1/400th of a second. So this shutter

speed will help you avoid motion blur caused by the small movements in your hands

while holding the camera.

If you're photographing things that are moving, like moving cars, moving

people, moving animals, you need to even maybe adjust your shutter speed up from

there. The big takeaway is to be aware of your shutter speed. You need to know

exactly how fast your shutter speed should be. Because your camera won’t know if

you’re hand holding the camera, if it’s on a tripod, or if you’re at a Formula One race.

All your camera is capable of doing on its own is making sure the exposure is right

for how bright or dark it is. That’s why I always take control of the shutter speed

when photographing fast-moving subjects.

Pay excruciating attention to detail. Then, you’ll come home with award-worthy

photographs.

E is for Excruciating

You absolutely need to pay excruciating attention to detail. You must do this

because if you're not paying attention to every little detail and every little letter of

this acronym, then you're going to make those same painful mistakes that made me

lose my photo.

They're frustrating, and they have made me want to give up on photography

so many times. And the worst thing is that you often don't discover that you've

made a mistake until you get home from your photo shoot. And by then it's too late.
If you are paying excruciating attention to detail check and triple check every

setting, then this entire process will become automatic for you. It will become like a

muscle memory and it will become easy.

The FIREBASE acronym is my one-pager. It’s a simple checklist, like an

astronaut or a pilot would use to make sure they don’t forget a single step that

would lead to catastrophe. Of course, photography isn’t life or death like flying a

rocket into space. But if a checklist works well enough for them, then it’ll work for

photographers.

After going over this checklist, I know that I can take photos and not have to

worry about coming home with a bad photograph. And more than anything, I want

to pass that on to you. So that you can go on the adventure of your life, and come

back home with photos that you are proud of. That you want to print large and

hang on the wall.

Once you have these settings down, this system will help to free your mind

from settings so that you can focus only on the composition and framing. Because

that’s what makes the biggest difference. When

you’re ready to take your photography to the next

level, click here to see my Photography

Transformation Masterclass. This course will teach

you my 4-step system for creating incredible,

award-worthy photographs. Come learn how to start

taking the best photos of your life.