Your Canon 60D offers several automatic point-and-shoot exposure modes. In any of those modes, though, the fundamental key to capturing good photos is to follow a specific picture-taking technique.
Give it a whirl. Start by setting the Mode dial on top of the camera to Full Auto. Then set the focusing switch on the lens to the AF (autofocus) position. (The figure features the lens that is bundled with the 60D. If you own a different lens, the switch may look and operate differently; check your lens manual for details.)
Also set the Stabilizer switch to the On setting. This setting turns on the Image Stabilizer feature, which is designed to produce sharper images by compensating for camera movement that can occur when you handhold the camera.
Your camera is now set up to work in the most automatic of automatic modes. Follow these steps to take the picture:
Looking through the viewfinder, frame the image so that your subject appears under an autofocus point.
The autofocus points are those nine tiny rectangles clustered in the center of the viewfinder. When the camera autofocuses, the point(s) it uses change from black to red.
Press and hold the shutter button halfway down.
When focus is established, the camera beeps at you.
You can silence this beeping via Shooting Menu 1.
The autoexposure meter continues monitoring the light up to the time you take the picture, so the f-stop and shutter speed values in the viewfinder may change if the light shifts.
Press the shutter button the rest of the way down to record the image.
While the camera sends the image data to the camera memory card, the memory card access lamp lights. Don’t turn off the camera or remove the memory card while the lamp is lit, or you may damage both camera and card.
When the recording process is finished, the picture appears briefly on the camera monitor. By default, the review period is two seconds.
