Intro to Digital Photography: Weeks 3 & 4

Last week’s class included a field trip of sorts, which used up a bunch of ‘note-taking’ time. Our assignment was portraiture (human or otherwise), stressing the effects of natural lighting–preferably northern exposure, which seems to be the best light for most photographic situations.

After the inspiration we gathered week 3, we hunkered down to take some serious week 4 notes. Here, again, are the highlights.

We started the day with an overview and the classic ISO, Aperture, Shutter triangle, which looks like this:

All three effect how light enters your camera.

ISO refers to the speed with which your sensor picks up light. You might want to think of ISO as a light vacuum, sucking up whatever light it can.

Aperture, which we discussed in week two, is the size of the opening of your camera’s lens. *It’s priority mode is represented by ‘A’ or ‘Av’ on your camera.

Shutter refers to shutter speed, or the amount of time the shutter is open. *It’s priority mode is represented by ‘Tv’ or ‘S’ on your camera.

Of course, the 3 elements of our triangle intermingle, so changing one will have an effect on the others. For some creative similes that might help you understand the triangle and its elements a little better, check out this article at Digital Photography School.

Okay, now on to the rest of the note highlights!

1. Start a routine. This means after a day of picture-taking, transfer your files from your memory cards and onto more permanent storage. My instructor suggests 2 sources of memory–so say one internal and one external hard drive. After you have transferred your images from your memory card, reformat the card to erase all remnants of digital data. You’ll want to replace your cards into your camera bag and charge your battery too. One thing about batteries, if you haven’t yet bought a spare, you might want to save up and get one. Soon.
2. Take advantage of your custom setting(s). Set it up for the ‘average situation’. Since flashes on most digital cameras are useless, program your custom setting to turn it off. You might want to also program an average ISO, like 200. If you have more than one custom setting option, another configuration might be for action shots, say, if you’re a soccer mom.
3. Relating to the last note, figure out how to reset your camera, so you can quickly get it back to its factory settings if you need to.
4. Turn your stabilizer off when using a tripod. Apparently, the stabilizer ‘fights’ with the tripod and it gets stuck in some sort of a loop. Who knew?
5. And speaking of stabilizers, you really only need to have it turned on in dark or dark-ish places and when you’re using slow shutter speeds.
6. There are three ways to focus your camera. 1. By default, which means it’s going to focus on the closest thing in its line of sight. 2. By spot focus–represented by a dot or rectangle on your LCD. This is works great when photographing animals and people close up so you can get a good bead on their eyes, which really should be in focus. And 3. Track focusing; this is when your camera actually follows a moving object. (This one kind of creeps me out for some reason. I have no idea why.)

That's about it for the notes, but I have to go back to that asterisk and that whole ‘priority mode’ deal. It’s not really as scary as it sounds. On digital cameras aperture (Av or A) and shutter (Tv or S) are actually semi-manual modes which means if you choose to shoot in them, you’ll be able to have control over their settings.

Now for next week’s assignment! We’re supposed to play with shutter speeds, so that means I’m going to turn my Canon to Tv and have at it. We were asked to try a variety of shots including capturing a subject’s entire movement at both high and low shutter speeds. High for those ‘catch the action’ shots and low for those ‘it was all a blur’ shots. We’re going to practice taking pictures of moving subjects as well as the effects of shooting stationary subjects while moving our cameras.

January 28, 2009

2 comments  |  294 views  | 

2

DIY Maven's blog (2084 posts)

Featured Writer
Subscribe to this blog
Member since: 11/07/06
About: Self-proclaimed Maven of DIY, I'm up for anything from gonzo rehab to dressing a room. Check...

More by DIY Maven

• Prev: How to make a mantra mirror...
• Next: How to throw a great Super ...