Digital Photography - General photography skills

Exposure Principles

• Shutter Speed - How fast the shutter will open and close

- faster speeds will have less light, slower will have more light

- The amount of time the shutters are open will affect the amount of light let in

- Shutter speed refers to how long the shutter stays open

• Aperture - Determines, the depth of field you have,

- The smaller the aperture the larger the number, the smaller the number the larger the aperture

- The smaller aperture brings focus to a smaller subject

- The larger aperture has a larger focus affection what will be not blurry

• ISO - Sensitivity to light

- starts at roughly 100, can go very high about 52,800 depending on the camera

- High ISO settings allow you to get very clear photos in dark situations, concerts and other things at night.

- Minimal lighting is difficult to shoot in, higher ISO helps alot

  - Trade off is you get noise(grain) when at a high ISO you get a lot of noise

- Low ISO gives minimal noise

- Minimal amounts of noise or grain can look good in the right situation, its a

  aesthetic thing

• Snap shots and adjust is one of the best ways to figure out to adjust these things throughout photo shoots when is manual

• Use the cameras auto settings will get you far without having to constantly adjust the settings the entire time

Camera Modes

• Manual mode allows  you to dial in Aperture, ISO and Shutter speed
• Presets for various circumstances
• Theres a easy mode where it will detect flash, a easy mode with no flash
• Av allows you to decide aperture with the camera adjusting everything else for you accordingly
• Tv gives shutter speed priority having the camera set all other modes accordingly
• (Person with a Star) low light mode when you don’t have a lot of time to dial in the camera settings, there is nothing wrong with releasing on the cameras software

Main settings to use when using the auto functions of the camera

• Sports mode
• Low Light/Party mode
• Portrait mode

Camera shutter speed lets in light, similar to your eyelids

• Longer the shutter stays open, the more light it lets in
• Faster shutter speeds freeze action
• Controlling the shutter speed will allow a crisp shot or slightly blurred image
• Experimenting with sports mode will show you the power of fast shutter speeds

Panning shot/technique

• Keep the camera focused on a moving target with continuous shutter and out of all those shots one of the shots or more will be a great focused shot with a blurred background, works on moving targets, looks great when done properly

How aperture affects the overall focus

• 1.9 would be a low aperture, 22 would be a high aperture
• Aperture works because of the convex shape to the lense
• Will affect help you control what's in focus with your shot
• 50 mm lense is only good for portraits, similar to what the human eye can see
• Aperture also affects how much light is hitting your target, usage of this will become more obvious the more you use it
• Large aperture reduces the area of sharp focus
• Small aperture increases the amount of sharp focus

General tips for various photography things

• Pay attention to backgrounds
• Better shots, will be harder to tell what time it was really token at
• Exploring various location with subject and on your own time to get good clean shots
• Not all backgrounds need to be simple, it all depends on what shot you're trying to take and if you want some chaos in the image with colors and other things
• Using all the materials available can really make for some great shots
• Some lense are adjustable from 18 - 55(about) mm that you can can change to make the shots you're doing better
• Wide angle lense are great for exaggerating shots, from various perspectives mostly
• Wide angle is about 12mm, telephoto lenses are more even flat type of shots

Basic lighting

• Most people don’t look good when taking shots in sunlight
• Shade or darker settings is the best way to go about it
• Open shade is the best setting for portraits
• Flash can be a powerful tool, getting familiar with the manual setting will allow you to learn when flash is best during normal daylight

Take group shots

• Avoid using the portrait mode unless you want that kind of look
• Arranging people in a way that makes sense, keeping rows tight is affective as well as shooting from a viewpoint high above the group, the main challenge will be in getting all the heads to be the same size as perspective matters a lot for this kind of thing
• Viewpoint does most of the work with group shot

Party mode

• Great default setting for difficult or dark lighting settings
• Shutter is much slower making some of these shots a bit more difficult
• Long exposure can make some really cool effects, not perfect for everything
• Can really mess with light for some cool stuff