Simple Photography for Beginners

Photography may sound dull but if you know some of the basic rules it can be very interesting and you’ll be amazed at the photos you take after adjusting your settings just a bit and of course the most important thing: practice.

Before you start you must know that owning a DSLR or any other fancy camera is not necessary for taking good photos. You can take good photos with any working camera. I don’t know if the settings etc. mentioned here can be adjusted on phone cameras, but you cam adjust the light from your surroundings. It may not be necessary, but owning a proper camera can make it a bit easier for you to take pictures. Keyword: easier, not magically perfect.

First of all. There are three main settings in most cameras. ISO, shutter speed and aperture. All of these can be adjusted. Now, think of the lens of your camera as a tube. At one end is the shutter, which can open and close and different speeds and different diameters. At the other end of the tube is a light sensor, which basically detects light and the sensitivity of the light sensor can also vary.

Shutter Speed:

Shutter speed is the speed at which the lens of your camera opens and then closes back. How can changing the shutter speed have an effect on your pictures? Well, to make it easier, think of light as a liquid (this may sound strange but bear with me). If your shutter stays open longer, then more of this liquid light can flow in. If more liquid light can flow in, then it means that more of it can hit then sensor and your photo will have more light or the exposure will be higher

side note: exposure is the amount of light in a photo. image -1 is under-exposed , +1 is over-exposed and 0 is perfectly exposed.

ISO:

ISO is the measurement of the sensitivity if the light sensor. If you increase it, the picture will be lighter and noisier, which means it will be a bit grainy. And the opposite will happen if you decrease it.

ISO is usually from 100 to 3200, but it can vary from camera to camera.

Aperture: As you have probably guessed by now, aperture is how much the shutter opens. You know, all the way, half way and so on. And aperture is kind of similar to shutter speed because all that changes is our “liquid light”. Aperture can also make the depth of field vary but that is kind of complex and I’m also beginning to forget some of the rules I learnt(-_-) but all I’ll say is that it’s like the depth of the photo. Or if the focus is just on one point or it goes all the to the back of the subject.