When people get their first good digital camera, many feel they can take photographs like the pros.
And they really do get better photos than they have in the past, partly because of the instant feedback of looking at the photos, and partly because of the technology in today's digital cameras.
However, to really move to the next level of photography, let me suggest you learn to do three things with your camera.
1. Learn to shoot in manual mode.
2. Learn to shoot in RAW.
3. Learn how to use a good flash.
If you learn to master these three things, you'll be on your way to being a photographer instead of a person with a nice camera.
It amazes me how many people see one of my professional cameras and a large lens attached and comment, "You must be able to get some nice photos with a camera like that."
The camera is just the tool. Learning to master the tool is what makes a craftsman.
First, a person should learn to shoot in manual mode. Shooting in manual mode is the only way to truly learn photography. I know some people who get great photographs and contribute to microstock photo sites, but still don't know how to shoot their camera's in manual mode.
They don't know an fstop from a shutter speed. They don't know why their sports photographs come out blurry. All they know is if they keep the camera on one of the automatic modes the photos come out good most of the time.
If you want to learn how to control depth of field, or how to stop action, or took good photos in low light, you have to get a good grip on how fstops, shutter speed and film speed all affect the amount of light that hits the sensor of the digital camera.
Even though technology has changed from film to digital sensors, photography is still about light. Light creates the image in a digital photograph, just like it did on film. A good exposure is making sure the right amount of light is hitting the sensor.
There are four ways to change the exposure:
1. Change the fstop on the lens.
2. Change the shutter speed.
3. Change the iso (film speed)
4. Change the lighting.
If you shoot in automatic mode, chances are you camera will only take advantage of one or two of these. It may be able to do all four, but may choose to do the wrong one.
If your camera has an flash built in, the camera may choose to just blast out a harsh flash in the middle of a quiet moment where flash isn't welcome. Or it may choose a shutter speed so slow that the entire photo is blurry, even though it is well exposed. (This is usually the problem when people ask me to look at their attempt at sports photography.)
In sports photography, you have to use a shutter speed of at least 1/200 of a second to stop the action, which is why I always shoot manual when I'm shooting sports. If I'm shooting high school football, it will probably mean increasing the iso to 1600 and shoot with an fstop of 2.8 or 3.5. Most lenses that come with the least expensive DSLRs are not "fast lenses." Fast lenses are lens that can be opened to small fstop numbers. An fstop of 2.8 is a good fast lens. The smaller the fstop of the lens, the larger the opening that has to allow light to hit the sensor.
Think of the fstop as a hose. An fstop of f22 could be compared to a garden hose, while an fstop of f2.8 could be compared to a fire hose. Because you need as much light as possible to flow to the sensor when you take night sports photos, you need an fstop like a firehose.
As you move from a wide open fstop, or aperture, to a more "closed down" aperture you decrease the amount of light hitting the focal plane. Each fstop has about half the light gathering area of the previous one.
The second way to improve your exposure if you need to adjust the amount of light is to change the shutter speed. The shutter speed is simply the amount of time the shutter remains open. A shutter speed of 1/200 means the shutter stays open for 1/200 of a second. A shutter speed of 1/100 means the shutter stays open for 1/100 of a second. Because its 1/100 is twice as long as 1/200 of a second, it means twice as much light will be allowed into the camera.
However, it's important to learn what will happen if you use a shutter speed that's too slow. As I stated earlier, you need a shutter speed of at least 1/200 to stop the action of people. Even at that shutter speed, you may get some blurring of fast action. As you start decreasing you shutter speed from there, you will eventually reach a point where you get "camera shake."
Camera shake is the movement of the camera while the shutter is open. There is not set shutter speed when camera shake starts to happen. It depends on the length of the lens, the person holding the camera and the type of lens.
In the old days a good rule of thumb was not to use a slower than the length of the lens. That meant if you were using a 50mm lens, you could usually hand hold the camera at 1/50 of a second. However, if you were shooting with a 200mm lens, you should not hand hold at a shutter speed of less than 1/200 of a second.
This is a good rule of thumb, even though some modern lenses has built in anti-shake systems that allow you to hand hold at slower shutter speeds.
Now that you know how to change the fstop and shutter speed of your camera, learn how to change the film speed or iso. In general, the small the iso (100) the better the quality of the photo. However, it is not possible to shoot everything at 100 speed. Using 100 speed is good for sunny days and in the studio. As the light changes, you will need to learn how to adjust the iso so that you can use the shutter speed and fstop to get the results you want.
As you move indoors, you should probably shoot with an iso of 400 or larger. While a flash would probably light your subject and allow you to shoot with an iso of 100 inside, it would leave the background dark and make your photos look less professional.
The key to getting good flash photos is using an external flash that allows you to turn the flash head. This way you can bounce the flash off a wall or the ceiling to light both the subject and background giving better light to the entire scene. Using a high iso like 400 also helps by picking up any available light that might be in the room.
You may want to shoot with out flash and boost the iso even higher, to say 800, 1600 or even as high as 3200. However, remember that as you increase the iso, you also increase the "noise" in the photo.
The final way to change your exposure is to change the amount of lighting you have to work with.
Open (or close) the curtains, turn on more lights, take your subject outside or put a flash on your camera. You can also change the lighting by moving your flash closer to your subject. If the flash is on you camera, move closer to the subject. With a flash that is off camera, just move the flash closer to the subject to give more light to the subject, or move it back to reduce the light on the subject.
These four things, shutter speed, fstop, iso and using flash, are the four ways a camera can change exposure.
Become a better photographer by learning how to set the camera in manual mode and using the fstop, shutter speed and iso that you determine will get the results for the type of photo you want to take.