13 Steps To Understanding Your Expensive Camera

Remember that expensive camera you got for the holiday season, or maybe your birthday?  Remember how excited you were to change your Facebook profile picture to a quality photograph?  When people asked you what kind of camera you had, you would say a “Nikon something or other” or a “Canon in D Major”.  Here are 13 steps to understanding your camera:

1. The dial

• Auto: The camera automatically makes all the decisions for you about shutter speed, ISO, aperture, and flash.
• No flash mode (the one that looks like a lightning bolt crossed out): is similar to auto but without the effect of the flash
• P-Program mode: is different for each model and make of camera.  The camera sets the aperture and shutter speed but you have control of the white balance, ISO, and flash.
• S-Shutter Priority mode: You select your desired shutter speed and the camera does the rest automatically.
• A-Aperture Priority mode: You select the shutter speed you want and the camera does the rest automatically.
• M-Manual: You have full control over all of the functions of the camera.

2. Flash
When using flash, be sure to stand an appropriate distance away from your subject.  The closer you are, the brighter they will be in comparison to the background.

3. Change Your Perspective
Humans see the world from eye level all of the time.  Try getting closer to the ground or higher up in order to show a different perspective of the world.

4. Lenses
Be careful when changing your lenses.  Make sure that no dust or debris gets inside of the camera.

5. Focal Length
Many cameras come with a lens that zooms.  Use this to our advantage in order to change the composition of an image and include only the parts that will add to the value of the image.  Crop out any distractions that pull away from the subject of the photo.

6. Rule of Thirds
 For a more interesting composition of your image, try placing your subject in either the right third or left third of the image.

7. Shutter Speed
This is one of the main components to the exposure of an image.  The longer the shutter exposes the sensor to light, the brighter the image will be.  For instance, 1/50 of a second will be half as bright as 1/100 of a second because the sensor is only exposed for half as long.

8. Freeze an Action
If you want to freeze the action in an image, choose a faster shutter speed.  If you have 1/250of a second vs. 1/50 of a second, you will get a more frozen shot of the action in the image.  You have to balance this factor with the amount of light that is allowed to reach the sensor.  While it might seem great to use the fastest shutter speed possible, if it does not allow light to reach the sensor, you will end up with dark, unusable images.

 
 1/1250 second vs. 1/80 second

9. Focal Length vs. Shutter Speed
There is an important relationship between shutter speed and focal length.  Focal length measures the length of your lens (i.e. 18-55 mm).   In order to prevent blurry images, your shutter speed should always be brighter than your focal length.  For example: 50 mm focal length and 1/60 of a second shutter speed.

10. F/ Number: Light
The f/ number is the measure of how open the aperture of the lens is.  The smaller the f/ number is the more open the lens is.  The larger the f/ number is the more closed down it is.  The more open the lens is, the more light is allowed to reach the sensor.  

11. F/ Number: Background Blur
The smaller the f/ number the more background blur there will be. This happens because when the lens is more open, there is a smaller depth of field.  Depth of field is a term used to refer to how much of the image is focused back to front.  If you want a lot of your image in focus then choose a higher f/ number and if you want to isolate the subject (i.e. for portraits) then choose a smaller f/ number.

 
f/ 1.8 vs. f/16

12. The Exposure Triangle
The three factors that affect exposure are shutter speed, f/ number, and ISO.  You have to keep these three in balance in order to produce nice images.

13. ISO
ISO is a way that your camera can electronically make a photo brighter.  Most cameras have a base ISO of 100, which means 100% of the light that reaches the sensor is used in the image data.  If you increase this to 200, you make the image twice as bright (in other words, twice as much light is rendered).  This starts to become a problem as you approach ISO 1600 where images start to lose color definition and start to look grainy.

 
ISO 100 vs. ISO 25600

Photography by Lilio Camere

Lilio Camere is an avid photography who majors in Music and Hospitality Management.
Camere’s Camera specializes in portrait work and creating lasting memories for its clients.