A Beginners Guide to Photography
Whether you know nothing, or you know most things about cameras, I always find that I learn something new when I go back over the basics of photography.
I’ll firstly start off with types of camera. What most people associate with photography, or professional photography is film SLR or Digital SLR cameras. SLR means Single Lens Reflex, and is referring to the mechanism inside the body, which allows you to photograph exactly what you see through the viewfinder. What these cameras do very well is they give you the freedom and control over your photos to get exactly what you want – whether it is changing the lens or just a simple setting.
Compact and bridge cameras are probably what the majority of people are familiar with. They’re brilliant in that they are well priced, are getting hugely technological and can take some brilliant photos. I just find they break too easily. Bridge cameras are somewhere in between compact and DSLRs and are finding a rise in popularity since they do not have the huge price tag that DSLRs do.
Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) cameras look very old fashioned in this modern day and age, but don’t be deceived, they take some of the highest quality photographs. They have two lenses, one which acts as the view finder and one that takes the photo. It does mean that what you see in the viewfinder is not what will be the final result. The reason why these take such high quality photos is because it is a medium format camera, meaning the film is going to be a lot bigger than a normal camera.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin-lens_reflex_camera
The Rang
e Finder is another type of film camera popularised by street photographers and some of the greatest photographers of the last hundred years. Rangefinders allow you to measure the subject distance and accurately shots that are pin-sharp. It also means that you never need to actually look into viewfinder, making discreet street shots possible. As there is no working mirror, they are silent and less prone to vibration than SLRs are.
That is a general overview of the main types of cameras, there are of course other types, but those are the main ones.
If you are shooting digital then your image is captured using a sensor. On film cameras it’s simply captured on the film. There is more to it than just that because the size of your sensor can alter the quality of your photos. Different cameras use different size films and sensors. A typical film camera uses a 35mm format. Medium format cameras use film much larger called the ‘120’ film format. This gives negatives far larger than normal. In digital ‘full-frame’ cameras have a sensor size equal to that of the 35mm film format. However these cameras are extremely expensive and most DSLRs have a cropped sensor. Compact cameras will have an even smaller sensor. The impact on your photos is that the larger the film/sensor the higher the quality of your photos. There is a more in depth look at the impact of sensor sizes here http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-camera-sensor-size.htm
Lenses, they are the eye of the camera. Unfortunately if you have a compact camera then you pretty much can’t change the lens. I have seen bridge cameras which do have interchangeable lenses, these are very neat.
For a long time when I was starting out in photography, I wondered why my photos felt they looked the same’. It seems a little silly when I look back on it, but I realised, it was because I only had one lens. Different lenses give you a flexibility to shoot in all different kinds of situations, and they’re wonderfully made. In many ways they’re more important than the body of the camera. You also get what you pay for in terms of quality with your lens. If you’re saving up for a new one, then wait that little while extra to get a better one, it will be better for the long run.
There are two types of lens – Prime lenses & Zoom Lenses. Prime lenses have a set focal length, and it is because of this that, a 50mm lens is one of the most common produced lenses and also one of the cheapest. It is definitely my favourite lens to use. If you want to read more about why you should get a 50mm lens read here http://vothphoto.com/spotlight/articles/forgotten_lens/forgotten-lens.htm and if you want to see what kind of photos it can take then look here: http://www.sevenbyfive.net/photos/50-fantastic-photos-taken-with-a-50mm-lens/.
However zoom lenses are so useful, they save you the time of changing lenses or having to move to fit a subject in the photo. They are usually the standard lens that comes with most DSLRs. If anyone has ever gone out shooting for the day they will know how frustrating it can be missing a shot while changing your lens. Zoom lenses are very convenient, but they say because there is moving glass than camera quality is going to suffer slightly. Ultra-zooms are great for shooting things like wildlife or sports photography, allowing you to get right in close with the action.
So the type of the lens you have depends on its focal length, which is the distance from the lens to the film/sensor. It determines how much will be in view when you look through the viewfinder. Read more about different focal lengths here http://www.paragon-press.com/lens/lenchart.htm. The resulting ranges of lenses you get are: standard/wide angle/telephoto/macro and finally fisheye. If you want an in depth reading of all these different lenses and their applications read here http://www.dcresource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8089
Now we shall get on to the more technical aspects of using your camera. Firstly I’d like to say that if you’re using a compact camera, there are many different modes that you can try and emulate some things of what you can do on an SLR. Sometimes they work beautifully, sometimes the settings aren’t very helpful (in my experience anyway) but as compacts get more advanced you can use them with more control than ever before.
Arguably one of the most key aspects is the aperture. It may take a few goes to understand (like it was for me) and apply it but eventually you’ll be able to control your aperture just the way you want it. Aperture is the adjustable opening in the lens. It is used to control the amount of light into the camera and ultimately what falls onto the film/sensor. Aperture is measured in F-numbers or F-stops; the larger the number the smaller the smaller the opening (aperture).
I’ll give you an example where controlling the aperture can come really handy. Say you’re shooting in low-light conditions, you’re outside and it’s getting dark. What I would do is change the aperture number to as small as possible, which in turn would open the camera up to as much light as possible.
Generally speaking I shoot in Aperture priority mode. This allows me to shoot with optimum shutter speed while controlling the aperture.
There is one other really huge reason why aperture is important, and that’s because it controls the depth of field.
Depth of field is all about how much is in focus in your picture, depending on how near or far the subject is. So the smaller the F-number - the shallower the depth of field. This means that I can take photo at F/1.8, have one flower in a bouquet in focus, yet all the others and everything behind look blurry. If I took the same photo with a deeper depth of field, i.e. higher F number then all the flowers in the bouquet will be in focus. I direct you to this youtube video which has a really good way of explaining this visually: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DieOQVj3UKw&feature=related
Understanding shutter-speed is fairly straightforward, but I will explain it anyway. Shutter-speed is how long the shutter is open for. This is measured in fractions of a second. Essentially, the longer the shutter is open, the more light is allowed to hit the sensor/film. This is great for night-time photography where you can let the camera (on a tripod) take long exposures. Controlling shutter-speed is also essential if you want to take high-speed photography like capturing action/sports shots.
Metering readings help you see how much light is available so you know what settings to shoot your camera with. There are handheld light meters, but mostly they are inbuilt to your camera. This is particularly useful when you are shooting in Manual mode. There are however different ways that the camera can interpret that light so there is:
· Centre-weighted metering – Light reading from whole scene then the centre
· Spot metering - reading from small part, usually the centre – highly backlit scenes
· Matrix metering – an average of lots of different zones
When you are shooting in digital you will have a choice in your format to shoot in. Jpeg is probably the format everyone is familiar. They have a small file size and any computer can read them. If you can then I strongly urge you to shoot in a RAW file format. This is like a digital negative. It stores much more information about your Jpeg – which is compressed. Despite the high file size, they allow you to correct aspects of your photo without ever permanently changing the original and ultimately better photos in the end. The downside is you normally need a special program, like Adobe Bridge to read the RAW format.
ISO is the how sensitive your film or sensor is to light. Changing the ISO is a big help in shooting low-light conditions, if you’re shooting hand held. A low ISO setting is 100 or 200 and a high setting is 1600. There is one drawback with shooting with a higher ISO, and it is one that puts most people off tinkering with it. When you shoot with a higher ISO, it makes your photos suffer in quality; the photos will be ‘grainy’ or full of ‘noise.’ There is however a certain style that some people like to shoot in, which produces grainy photos, for a certain effect. This goes against what the majority avoid because most people want clean crisp sharp photos. Fortunately for digital cameras you can add (or remove) noise in your image processing, but go authentic, with high ISO film and see what results you get. I direct you to this youtube video which can explain ISO visually http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPbuK24VL0Y&playnext=1&videos=TL4qFQZKk1M&feature=mfu_in_order
The eye is so clever that it adjusts to whatever situation it is in. The camera is not so advanced so you have to compensate the white balance in the scene. White balance depends on the ‘temperature’ of the light source and it can be adjusted to show true colours of a scene or alternatively be used to achieve a particular mood. Use auto white balance or change it manually, depending in what situation you are in. For example if you are taking pictures in the snow you can make she scene look more blue and cold by adjusting the white balance setting. Advanced, or professionals sometimes use a ‘Gray Card’ as a reference to control the white balance in a scene. If you’re shooting film you can correct white balance by using filters. One more benefit of shooting in RAW is that you can choose your white balance later. There is a really good in depth guide to WB here http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm
Focusing the camera is paramount to getting your subject sharp, but the majority of the time on digital this will be automatic. If you are shooting manually, then really all I can say is double check that the thing you want in focus – that really is in focus. Shooting in with manual focus can be really useful in instances where you’re taking lots of photos quickly of the same thing and you don’t want to waste time refocusing, or when shooting at night when your camera can’t see anything to focus on. My one crucial piece of advice is: make sure a person’s eyes are always in focus.
Image processing is a necessary part of photography, as much as it is time-consuming. For film you have the dark room, where you can perfect your photo to the way you want it. Dark room is a whole session or two by itself so I’m not going to talk about it here. What I will say is that some people are reluctant to process there images digitally because they believe then their images will be somehow be spoiled or make the photo not real. The truth is that ever since film has been invented, images have been tweaked in the dark room and digital image processing is no different. Ansel Adams onces said ‘the negative is the equivalent of the composer's score, and the print the performance.’ I think perhaps the for the majority of people it’s necessary to find a balance you are comfortable with, by finding how you can get the best out of your photos without making them become too unrecognisable from the original. There are of course people who love to create the pictures that are completely unrealistic, but they are an extreme.
Adobe Photoshop is probably what everyone knows as to be the software for image editing. It is hugely powerful and can do so many things – but it’s quite often very difficult to feel like you’re good at using Photoshop. I’d recommend Adobe Lightroom, it’s specifically designed for processing your photos quickly and easily, it’s top quality. Get it (or any Adobe product) while you are a student because you get something like 80% off the price. The free product I’ve heard about is called GIMP, http://www.gimp.org/ - A strange name, but it does the job.
So now you have your camera, and you have the lens you want. The next thing you probably need to look at you accessories. They’re not something that you go out and buy all at once, but something that you acquire over time. There are certain accessories that you will probably never need. I’d say one of the most important accessories is the tripod. You can get cheap tripods or nice expensive ones, but the important thing is to have one of some kind, that can help you take photos at night, or merely group shots (that you want to be in too!) Filters help you take photos in different conditions and they attach to the front of your camera and can be really useful – particularly with landscapes. Remote shutter releases help you take really long exposures. A Flashgun is awesome to use, really makes a difference than using your on-camera-flash, you have much greater control about your lighting. For professionals Studio lights are crucial to portrait photography, kits can be pretty expensive though.
Lastly I’d like to direct you to some further resources that can come in handy when you want to find more about photos
· www.flickr.com
· Digital photographer http://www.dphotographer.co.uk/
· The Guardian -http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/photography
· http://www.dpreview.com/
I think that concludes the general background to photography, I’ve no doubt missed something because there is simply so much. Learning all this is the first step – the next is to actually go out and take photos.
