What is photography?
Simply put - It’s capturing light
Our eyes capture light, we have a lens and a sensor. The lens proides the focus, the sensor translates it into the image our brain creates.
In the 1830’s, scientists discovered a substance that reacted to light, with a glass lens to provide focus and a plate with this light reactive substace, a photograph is taken.
Now, we have digital cameras, but they work in the same way. There’s a sensor deep inside the camera to capture this light. This has replaced the light sensitive plate which is translated into a digital image.
Whether it's your eyes, a camera from 1830 or a modern digital camera, we are processing light.
As a photographer, your aim is to capture that light. Usually you're aiming for an image that is correctly exposed and in focus.
If an image is under exposed, it's dark, you won't see much of the detail. If an image is over exposed, it will look very bright and you won't see much detail.
If an image is out of focus, details will be blurry and lost.
There are of course, exceptions, but these should be the starter goals.
How do you control the light?
Aperture
You can determine how much light the camera captures in 3 main ways.
Shutter Speed
Aperture
ISO
Shutter Speed
When you turn a camera on, there is a cover inside the camera that stops the light hitting the sensor, when you take the picture the cover opens and closes again, letting a bit of light hitting the sensor. If you have a slow shutter speed, the shutter stays open for a long time and lets lots of light hit the sensor. If you have a fast shutter speed, it will only let a small amount of light hit the sensor.
Beware, if you have the shutter open for a long time, you will get lots of light, but you will also get movement. If you're taking a picture of something moving, if the shutter speed is too slow, your picture will be blurry.
Aperture
In the lens of your camera, there is a window that you can make bigger or smaller. If the window is almost fully closed (narrow), less light will come through. If the window is more open (wide), more light will come through.
ISO
This setting makes the camera sensor more or less sensitive to light. If the ISO is higher, your photo will be brighter, if your ISO is lower, your photo will be darker.
Shutter speed
You can also look to add and remove lighting externally. We'll look into lighting in more detail in another post
Why this matters
As a photographer, when you take a photo, you should aim to make sure it's correctly exposed and in focus. You can't control the sun, but you can control the camera settings. Changing these depending on the light around you means you will be able to have properly exposed photos.
Next stop - youtube
For every major camera brand, you'll find a video tutorial providing a detailed walk through of every setting you have access to. Watch them, with your camera and learn it.
Once you understand that in a dark area you need to slow the shutter or increase the ISO. When it's bright, you'll learn to do the opposite.
That's a great start, but you then need to know how do it in your camera.
If you start by shooting in M mode (manual), and change the settings yourself, you will learn the behaviours very quickly. When you understand it, you can then make setting changes to suit your preferences.
And then?
Ok, so you know what the camera does and you know how to make it work... Now go and take some photos.
Play around, practice, take 30 photos instead of one, change different things when you're taking each shot.
Things to think about
Don't just take a photo that people can see any time. There's a huge difference between "here is a picture of something" to "here is a beautiful picture of something that makes you think about it differently"
Get low, change the view.
Get high, change the view.
Go close, change the view.
Think about lighting and shadows. Use then to create different views.
Can I just shoot in 'auto'?
Of course
When shooting in auto you're asking the camera to make all the decisions for you, it will change the ISO, the shutter speed, the aperture.
BUT
You will usually get a well exposed photo but you won't be able to control the focus points and the blur in the same way as when you shoot in manual.
So
If you want to learn how to control the camera fully, stick it in manual, make mistakes and learn from them. You'll get there, quickly - I promise.
