According to Google Photography is defined as "The art or practice of taking and processing photographs."
I'd just like to share with you some of the basic elements of photography. Understanding these elements is gonna make photography a whole lot simpler. It doesn't matter what kinda camera you have, be it a digital camera or the high end studio SLRs, all work on the same principle. The 6 elements are Light, Optics, Subject, Aperture, Medium, Time.
Now LIGHT is all around us, its the most basic element we use to capture a subject or make a composition. There are various kinds of light, various ways in which it can be tweaked or used. Various ways in which it can be interpreted.
OPTICS is simply the equipment that we use. The lenses that we have on our camera. The light detecting device. They focus the light to a particular point so we can capture an image easily.
SUBJECT is what we take the photo of. Its often called the composition of the photo. In simple words its the person or the object u show in a photo.
APERTURE is the hole in the lens through which the light enters. We control the aperture to permit the amount of light entering inside the camera.
MEDIUM is simply what we record that light into, now this might confuse u but medium is simply the film or the sensors inside the camera which is used to record the photo shot. Medium, in the earlier days was the films that were used in the cameras and now the ever advancing field has made humongous progress with the high end sensors which do the same purpose more efficiently.
TIME is a very important factor in photography, its the amount of time we're able to record or shoot something onto our cameras. The Shutter controls the amount of time needed to record or shoot an image (shutter speed).
As mentioned before, the mechanics of all the cameras are the same, right from the film camera to the SLRs or the high end studio cameras. The principle is that the light has to go through the lens, then through the aperture. the aperture is simply a hole, we control the size of the hole to control the amount of light getting into it. The next step is to control the light for a specific period of time and this is done by using the shutter. We can set the shutter speed to the desired levels for a designated time. The shutter helps then to capture the light and store it in the medium. The mirror in the SLRs is actually not part of the recording process, its simply there to view the image. Basically the light strikes the mirror at 45 degree angle and bounces up and through the prism and by the view finder to be able to view the photograph before we press the click button this is then recorded onto the film or the sensor to record it.
EXPOSURE : It is the brightness or the darkness level of the final picture. This is very important to get right cuz this makes the photograph more pleasing to look at. The aperture and shutter serve to control the exposure level. We can modify either of the two to get the right exposure. There are three conditions here, underexposed, overexposed and correctly exposed. As the names tell, underexposed is when we don't expose the image to the right amount of light and vice versa with overexposed. The correctly exposed is to say that the image has been exposed to the right amount of light for the right amount of time.
The F-number sometimes called the
focal ratio, f-ratio, focal ratio or relative
aperture is a measure of lens speed. It is a very important concept in photography.
SHUTTER SPEED : It controls the amount of time that we can capture the light for. It is as important as the aperture is cuz it allows us to freeze the action or blur the action for creative effect or sometimes a horribly misplaced effect. It is very essential to capture the image of a suitable shutter speed, the composition can horribly go wrong if the wrong shutter speeds are used and this can spoil the image and blur it out completely. By using a fast shutter speed, we'll be cutting down on the amount of light that reaches our medium and the exact reverse on a slow shutter speed, so its very important to get the shutter speed right.
There are generally 3 modes on the camera dial which are the semi manual modes, they are the program mode, shutter mode(TV mode) and the aperture mode. In the program mode we can vary both the aperture and the shutter. In the S mode we can vary the shutter and the aperture changes suitably and similarly in the aperture mode , we change the aperture and the shutter changes suitably.
We use a technique called panning in which we follow the image shooting with a suitable shutter to give a sense of motion in our picture while keeping the main subject sharp.
On the image quality it is mandatory to use a tripod when we use extremely low shutter speeds in order to avoid camera shake.
This also helps us to build on our creativity especially for landscape photography.
Focus is very critical in photography, its absolutely important to get ur image or part of the image absolutely sharp. It in a way defines the quality of ur image.
ISO : The letters ISO on your digital SLR camera settings refer to the sensitivity of the image sensor. Even in the film cameras, its about the film speed. The ISO camera setting still has the same function as older film cameras. Camera ISO determines how sensitive the image sensor is to light.
Now, putting it all together. It is very important for the photographer to respect the scene. As the great Ansel Adams said, “You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”
Its absolutely important to have the correct combination of the aperture, shutter, focus and the ISO. All these are inter-related to get the composition right.
Personally I've always been fascinated by the way the lenses work. It amazes me how the lens can magnify or diminish an image and for a fact even to this day i can play with a lens like a toy given to a kid. I'd absolutely love it.
To sum it all up this is my first blog and I definitely don't know how its come out. I must say that it was my effort to help amateur photographers like me to come out the automatic mode and switch over to the manual mode or the semi manual mode at the least. Though i firmly believing learning by doing, this was the least i could do. I hope u guys move the dial to the manual mode, Hope u guys click more!! too much is never enough in this! Happy clicking! and thanks for reading my first blog.
Cheers!
I'd just like to share with you some of the basic elements of photography. Understanding these elements is gonna make photography a whole lot simpler. It doesn't matter what kinda camera you have, be it a digital camera or the high end studio SLRs, all work on the same principle. The 6 elements are Light, Optics, Subject, Aperture, Medium, Time.
Now LIGHT is all around us, its the most basic element we use to capture a subject or make a composition. There are various kinds of light, various ways in which it can be tweaked or used. Various ways in which it can be interpreted.
OPTICS is simply the equipment that we use. The lenses that we have on our camera. The light detecting device. They focus the light to a particular point so we can capture an image easily.
SUBJECT is what we take the photo of. Its often called the composition of the photo. In simple words its the person or the object u show in a photo.
APERTURE is the hole in the lens through which the light enters. We control the aperture to permit the amount of light entering inside the camera.
MEDIUM is simply what we record that light into, now this might confuse u but medium is simply the film or the sensors inside the camera which is used to record the photo shot. Medium, in the earlier days was the films that were used in the cameras and now the ever advancing field has made humongous progress with the high end sensors which do the same purpose more efficiently.
TIME is a very important factor in photography, its the amount of time we're able to record or shoot something onto our cameras. The Shutter controls the amount of time needed to record or shoot an image (shutter speed).
As mentioned before, the mechanics of all the cameras are the same, right from the film camera to the SLRs or the high end studio cameras. The principle is that the light has to go through the lens, then through the aperture. the aperture is simply a hole, we control the size of the hole to control the amount of light getting into it. The next step is to control the light for a specific period of time and this is done by using the shutter. We can set the shutter speed to the desired levels for a designated time. The shutter helps then to capture the light and store it in the medium. The mirror in the SLRs is actually not part of the recording process, its simply there to view the image. Basically the light strikes the mirror at 45 degree angle and bounces up and through the prism and by the view finder to be able to view the photograph before we press the click button this is then recorded onto the film or the sensor to record it.
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| By varying the aperture we can control the amount of light entering in. |
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| The LCD display on a Nikon D90 camera. We can use this to vary the aperture and shutter amongst other factors. |
The F-number sometimes called the
focal ratio, f-ratio, focal ratio or relative
aperture is a measure of lens speed. It is a very important concept in photography.
SHUTTER SPEED : It controls the amount of time that we can capture the light for. It is as important as the aperture is cuz it allows us to freeze the action or blur the action for creative effect or sometimes a horribly misplaced effect. It is very essential to capture the image of a suitable shutter speed, the composition can horribly go wrong if the wrong shutter speeds are used and this can spoil the image and blur it out completely. By using a fast shutter speed, we'll be cutting down on the amount of light that reaches our medium and the exact reverse on a slow shutter speed, so its very important to get the shutter speed right.
 |
| Description of an image with various shutter speeds |
There are generally 3 modes on the camera dial which are the semi manual modes, they are the program mode, shutter mode(TV mode) and the aperture mode. In the program mode we can vary both the aperture and the shutter. In the S mode we can vary the shutter and the aperture changes suitably and similarly in the aperture mode , we change the aperture and the shutter changes suitably.
We use a technique called panning in which we follow the image shooting with a suitable shutter to give a sense of motion in our picture while keeping the main subject sharp.
On the image quality it is mandatory to use a tripod when we use extremely low shutter speeds in order to avoid camera shake.
This also helps us to build on our creativity especially for landscape photography.
Focus is very critical in photography, its absolutely important to get ur image or part of the image absolutely sharp. It in a way defines the quality of ur image.
ISO : The letters ISO on your digital SLR camera settings refer to the sensitivity of the image sensor. Even in the film cameras, its about the film speed. The ISO camera setting still has the same function as older film cameras. Camera ISO determines how sensitive the image sensor is to light.
 |
| Photograph at various ISO levels. |
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| The focus is on the wood and the background is blurred(or not in focus). |
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| They are inter-reated A good image has a good mix of these. |
Its absolutely important to have the correct combination of the aperture, shutter, focus and the ISO. All these are inter-related to get the composition right.
Personally I've always been fascinated by the way the lenses work. It amazes me how the lens can magnify or diminish an image and for a fact even to this day i can play with a lens like a toy given to a kid. I'd absolutely love it.
To sum it all up this is my first blog and I definitely don't know how its come out. I must say that it was my effort to help amateur photographers like me to come out the automatic mode and switch over to the manual mode or the semi manual mode at the least. Though i firmly believing learning by doing, this was the least i could do. I hope u guys move the dial to the manual mode, Hope u guys click more!! too much is never enough in this! Happy clicking! and thanks for reading my first blog.
Cheers!
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