So you just got your new camera and are anxious to get it out and start snappin away. Well I thought I would write a little on some common basics for beginners just starting out with photography. Just some simple suggestions and tips that might make your first few days less complicated or intimidating.
While you can use any camera, cell phone etc. It's very difficult to shoot wildlife or anything other than landscape or portraits. So to get great photos I would highly recommend a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) or a Digital Mirrorless. In general a DSLR will be your best choice if your on a budget. Mirrorless cameras such as Sony Alpha series or Nikon Z cameras or more expensive to get the same features as an Equivalent DSLR. Go with the best you can afford. Or you may want to upgrade after the first few months. An FX (Full frame) sensor is in general better than a DX/APS-C or crop sensor. FX sensors are larger therefore are able to record more light information. Camera companies are not on a standard for terms and sizes etc. So check out your specific brands manuals and terms and all that. I am more familiar with Nikon so I will use Nikon terms typically. The current popular ranking of best cameras goes like this. #1 Best is Sony. More expensive for lenses and the camera though. Sony is pretty far ahead of Canon and Nikon. #2 is Canon. Canon lenses are a little pricier than nikon but not by too much. #3 Right on the heals of Canon is the Nikon selection. Typically a little more affordable than the 1 and 2 slots you can get more for your money and prettymuch any lens ever made for a nikon will fit any nikon still (manual or AF - f mount). That opens up a ton of possibilities in lenses and aftermarket.
Aftermarket lenses are something to seriously consider for any camera you buy. These days Tamron and Sigma are about the same as the equivalent brand lens. They both make great lenses for entry level to pro and the pricing is great for the features you get command of on these well built high quality after market lenses.
Do your own research so you have the knowledge to make an educated decision on what camera and lens selection is best for you. This way... YOU are happy with your choice.
Alright let's talk about what settings you should consider learning about and messing with right out of the box. I'll try to be short, simple and to the point so it's not so technical.
There are three settings that you will want to learn. Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO. Every DSLR that I know of has these settings and can be manually controlled one way or another. They will also have Auto and priority modes for Shutter Speed And Aperture. If you just want to take a picture and not worry about anything you can use Auto. You can also use shutter priority or aperture priority which will keep your setting and then automatically adjust the other two settings. Alot of people will use aperture priority. For me I just use manual.
So here we go...
The objective is to get the best exposure possible. And to do this we use the three adjustments to adjust the sensors to the amount of light on our subject. Using Auto may sound like a great option but Auto can have multiple issues with background lighting or the colors and position of your subjects. Even with changing the metering settings. While Auto does work well on most cameras and is great for quick get the shoot moments, you will probably want to make adjustments to get a much better exposure manually. For me I'm always adjusting shutter speed and ISO more than my aperture.
1. The least used of the three for me is the aperture but not less important. The Aperture or f-stop controls how much light is allowed to enter the camera through the lens. This is solely a lens setting and every lens has a set f-stop designated on your lens right after the letter f. Some lenses do not put the f. See the pics below. It can be one number like f2.8 on a prime lens or have a range like f3.4 - 5.6 on a zoom lens. The numbers listed will usually be the maximum aperture (the largest it will open). The smaller the number the more light that lens will let in. Along with that smaller number comes a larger price tag because the more light that lens can allow in; the lower you can bring your ISO and the faster you can adjust your SS (Shutter-Speed) to be in the same exposure range giving you better options for lower light photography like on cloudy days or indoors or even at dusk and dawn. On the other end the minimum aperture (the bigger numbers) is how small or how little light it let's in before it is closed. This can go really high. Common minimum apertures can be f22, f32. That would allow very little light into the camera and would only be used with a lot of light or slow shutterspeeds. Commonly used for landscapes. In general the higher the number the more of your subject will be in focus and allow objects around or in the background to be more visible. A low number f2.8 ish will give you a much tighter focus on your subject allowing you to make your subject stand out like in portraits. Oh and a useful tip. A lens with a low f stop like 1.8 or 2 is considered a fast lens while a slow lens would be f6.5 and thats not the slowest.
2. Shutter Speed is how fast the shutter in the camera body opens to allow light to hit the sensor or film, expose the image then close. This is that Snap sound you hear. On most mirrorless cameras this has an option to be done mechanically or electronically with the Snap sound being generated digitally or silent if set. Shutter speed is measured in fractions of a second up to seconds and minutes or even bulb which is as long as you want to hold the shutter open. Typical shooting range for normal daytime settings will be around 1/640th to around 1/2000th of a sec. Of course this depends on your aperture and ISO settings too. For me I'm usually shooting at 1/800th to 1/1000th on my long lens because my max aperture is f6.3 at 600mm. To shoot morning night or dusk photos you'll want to slow your Shutter Speed to allow more exposure time to compensate for no light. Or bump your ISO up. Which I try to avoid. A slow shutter speed will allow for blured images while a fast shutter speed will freeze everything in the Composition. Slow is below 1/640th ish depending on shaking vibrations and movement. Use a tripod. You can get better shots with short lenses at slower SS. Faster freezing shots are around 1/1000th of a second and faster. Used for sports and fast moving wildlife. The lens you are using can make a huge difference on all adjustments.
3. ISO (pronounced as it looks Ice Oh) surprisingly is not an acronym. It is it's own word. It is probably the most adjusted setting used in manual and in Auto. Where shutter speed used to be the most adjusted setting in days of film due to film being a set ISO. Now it's just fun to say ISO. You will probably make an ISO Adjustment everytime you have a new composition, subject or lighting change. ISO is the light sensitivity adjustment of the sensor. In film cameras this was directly a product of the film itself. Each film roll or package would be labeled with the ISO or Speed of the film. A slow film like ISO 100 would have a finer grain of crystals allowing a smoother image without grain. A faster film like ISO 1000 would have larger grain crystals allowing it to capture more light quickly. Higher ISO film would give you a grainy image because of the rough grain crystals. This is were we get the term grainy from. Nowadays this term is translated to digital as "Noise". So when you take a low light picture and you have a high ISO then you see that it looks grainy or has some digital distortion; that is called Noise. You can use software to "denoise" your photos which helps immensely in post. I very minimal edit, but I do denoise alot because I shoot in forest areas with lower light.
Now that you know what the three primary adjustments are and how they work. It's time to use them to get a perfect exposure.
Let's start with some basic settings. And then we will use the exposure meter in camera to adjust the exposure quickly. You should have an exposure meter in the viewfinder of your camera. It should also be displayed on the rear display of the body. When the indicator is on the left of the middle or ("0") of the meter - side. It is telling you that the image will be under exposed or too dark. If the indicator on the meter is on the right side of the "0" + side, the exposure will most likely be over exposed or too bright. The exposure meter is not always correct. That is where experience and practice getring used to YOUR camera settup comes in. But it will get you close enough for now.
If you are under exposed according to the meter then you have three choices to make. Adjust ISO, SS or Aperture. For photos outside in daylight, just to start out I would set your f-stop/aperture at f8. And we won`t mess with it for now. That leaves us with SS and ISO. The easiest and quickest adjustment would be SS. But how far can you adjust it for your composition? Shooting daytime let's say 4 o'clock ish no clouds. The SS is currently set to 1/800th of a second. We have the subject targeted and the meter says we are under exposed by 2 of the tik marks. The object is to get the indicator in the center "0" (for now). If we dial the SS down to increase the exposure time our subject might blur slightly at 1/640th. (Remember that this all depends on your lens and shooting invironment). And if we bump it up we will shorten the exposure time because our SS is faster, which would make the image darker. That leaves us with the ISO. If your ISO is currently set for like 200 ish that's a low ISO and a really good setting because the lower you can keep your ISO the smoother and pretty-much better your photos will be. So in our setting here, we are going to adjust the ISO. Watch your meter and adjust the ISO up toward the + side until your indicator is centered at 0. Your ISO should be somewhere around 400 or 700 ish which still isn't bad. Especially in bright light. I don't like to have my iso above 1000 but sometimes I must. (My preference for my crop sensor camera) That's where denoise comes in. This is all hypothetical but you should get the idea. You can check the photo you shot on your rear display. Then make any other changes to compensate and take another shot.
Now if we really don't want to go higher on our ISO and we don't want to budge on the SS then we can open the aperture a notch or two letting more light in. Set your aperture to a lower number like f5.6 or f4 then watch the exposure meter to see the change. It moves the indicator up the scale. (Remember lower apertures have a smaller focal plane. Less of the image is sharp) Take a couple shots and check the results. If you set a higher number like f10 you'll see the meter drop below the "0" indicating your shot will be under exposed. Experiment with these and see how your camera performs. Thats one of the beauties of digital photography. You can take as many pics as you want and just delete them.
Developing/Post Processing. Back in the day we had to bring our roll of film to a developer and it would take days to get your developed and printed pics back. Or you could invest in your own chemicals, paper and gear then hide in a closet or (darkroom) and do it yourself. That was fun. Really it was. And it was expensive. Now its all instant and awesome.
I suggest a good photo editor/manager like Capture One or Lightroom. It makes a difference. I do not recommend photoshop for post Processing unless you are a guru at it and you want to change your composition greatly. Photoshop is not an editor or manager. I like to do as little post processing as possible keeping my photos as close to the original composition as possible. I will be doing some basic post Processing tutorials soon Using Capture one 21, Lightroom and Denoise AI.
As for a denoise application. Both Capture One Phase One and Lightroom from Adobe can denoise really well. But Denoise AI from Topaz labs is specifically designed for removing the noise. See the free trials below and Download them to give them a go when your ready.
Using the links below will help me out.
Capture One offers a great editor and a free trial to test it all out here:
Please use the link below to check out a great denoise app:
Lightroom offers a built in slideshow creator if you need to render a slideshow.
Now get out there and experiment, have alot of fun and I hope this helped you out a little. Take care and have a Snaptastic day. See ya in the next blog.
More to come! let me know if there is a subject you would like me touch on.