HAINK, Heather Anderson Photography

Photography Tips and Camera Basics
by Heather

Camera Overview

Shooting a camera is like driving a car. You have more control if you use it manually. So let's shift gears and take it for a spin. But before we do, let's know how it works. First, a camera is black box. You look through a viewfinder. To take a picture, you push a shutter button. Light passes through the lens. Then, it goes through a shutter into the camera body. The light hits a mirror. A mirror looks at the world, then it swings backwards to record the image onto the film or digital sensor. The light that the mirror bounces back has a chemical reaction with the film or digital reaction with the sensor. That reaction renders grain to create a photograph.

Okay, let's go. To maximize your ride, we need to manually control the aperture, shutter and ISO.

 Aperture

The aperture is inside your lens. It's a mechanical system that controls the amount of light that enters your camera. Let's look at it. Remove the lens from your camera. Watch the glass while twisting the sides of the lens. The aperture is the black funnel opening and closing. The diameter is measured in f-stops.

Remember the bigger the number, the smaller the hole. The aperture controls light coming into the camera and the depth of field of the image. Let's learn more about these aspects:

Light

A camera needs light to render an image. Without light, you'll never get a photograph. Light is the most important element in photography. Sometimes you want additional light to enter the camera. For example, indoors in low light, you want a bigger aperture hole. While outdoors in bright sunlight, you want a smaller aperture hole. The more you can finesse aperture, the better exposure.

Depth of Field

The aperture also controls the depth of field. This is the distance in which things are in focus. Compare it to a garden hose. When you twist the nozzle on a garden hose, you control the width of the spray. If you want to spray flowers close to you, you have a wide spray. If you want to shoot your little brother running across the lawn, you have a narrow spray. Similarly, you control the aperture. But instead of changing a water spray, you adjust the depth of focus. A big hole will give you an umbrella wide and shallow depth of focus. While a small hole will give you a long narrow stream of focus.

 Shutter

The shutter is a door that allows in light into the camera. Look at the spot on your camera body where the lens attaches. Now, take a picture. The curtain that opens and closes is the shutter. You want to control shutter speed because it controls the amount of light and the amount of movement that is recorded.

Light

The longer you leave the shutter door open, the more light gets into the camera. It's the same concept as an aperture. This can be useful at times. For example, during bright sunlight, you don't want much light entering the camera, so you want a fast shutter speed. During the night, you want a slower shutter speed because you need more light to capture images. The reason why you want to control the shutter and aperture is your camera has no idea what you're looking at. It doesn't know whether your subject is a rock or a rocket. You have options. You to think, is it better if I adjust the light with the aperture or with the shutter? You need to know your subject.

Movement

If you want to record car headlights, put the camera on a tripod and leave the shutter open for several minutes. To freeze action, use a super fast shutter speed. If you want to capture a baseball in the air when it is thrown, you would use a very fast shutter speed.

 ISO

This is the film speed. Years ago, when you bought film, it was important to select the right film speed because each has a different sensitivity to light. 100-film speed is great for sunlight. 400-film speed is versatile and good for both day and low light. 800-film speed is excellent for night.

Grain

ISO determines how much grain is rendered onto the film and sensor. 100-film speed is excellent because it renders more grain. This means your picture will have tremendous detail. The problem is what if you're photographing at night? Well, you don't want 100-film speed because 100-film speed is not fast enough to shoot at night. Rather, you want 800-film speed for night because it's more sensitive to light.

Motion

The other thing about ISO is faster films can help you at certain times. For example, if you want to take a photo of a moving train in the rain, you'd want 800-film speed because it's nice and fast.

Now, here comes the fun part. All these things aperture, shutter and ISO are all related. Don't panic! You're just learning. Just know these things exist. They are available. And remember, if you change one thing, you have to adjust the other. Think of it as a seesaw. If you raise (enlarge) the aperture, you lower (speed up) the shutter speed. For example, if you are capturing a waterfall, you may want to slow down your shutter speed three times. Because you are letting in three times as much light during that time, you have to decrease the aperture size three times to compensate for that adjustment.

Good luck! We'll have another lesson soon.