Quick tips for anyone interested in photography.
Exposure: the phenomenon of light striking the surface of film or a digital imaging sensor. The exposure is determined by the volume of light passing through the lens aperture (f/stop) combined with the duration of the exposure (shutter speed).
Aperture: The adjustable opening—or f-stop—of a lens determines how much light passes through the lens on its way to the camera's imaging sensor. “Faster” lenses have wider apertures, which in turn allow for faster shutter speeds. The wider (smaller number) the aperture is set, the shallower the depth of field will be in the resulting image.
Shutter Speed: The length of time the shutter remains open when the shutter release is activated, most commonly expressed in fractions or multiples of a second.
ISO: a number indicating an image sensor’s sensitivity to light.
White balance: The camera's ability to correct color cast or tint under different lighting conditions including daylight, indoor, fluorescent lighting, and electronic flash. Also known as “WB,” many cameras offer an Auto WB mode that is usually—but not always—quite accurate. (In church it’s never accurate and it's always terrible)
Depth of Field: the measure of how much of the background and foreground area before and beyond your subject is in focus. Depth of field can be increased by stopping the lens down to smaller apertures. Conversely, opening the lens to a wider aperture can narrow the depth of field.
Histogram: A visual representation of the exposure values of a digital image. Histograms are most commonly illustrated in graph form by displaying the light values of the image's shadows, midtones, and highlights as vertical peaks and valleys along a horizontal plane. When viewing a histogram, the shadows are represented on the left side of the graph, highlights on the right side, and midtones in the central portion of the graph.
Metering Modes: how the camera measures the reflected light and determines the optimal exposure. The most common metering modes in digital cameras today are:
· Evaluative Metering (Matrix Metering if you’re using a Nikon)- the default metering mode on most DSLRs. It works by dividing the entire frame into multiple “zones”, which are then all analyzed on an individual basis for light and dark tones. One of the key factors (in addition to color, distance, subjects, highlights, etc) that affects matrix metering, is where the camera focus point is set to. After reading information from all individual zones, the metering system looks at where you focused within the frame and marks it more important than all other zones.
· Center-weighted Metering- evaluates the light in the middle of the frame and its surroundings and ignores the corners. Compared to Matrix Metering, Center-weighted Metering does not look at the focus point you select and only evaluates the middle area of the image.
· Spot Metering- only evaluates the light around your focus point and ignores everything else. It evaluates a single zone/cell and calculates exposure based on that single area, nothing else.
Autofocus Modes:
· Continuous Focusing Mode- AI Servo AF (Canon)/AF-C (Nikon) most useful for keeping moving objects sharp within the viewfinder as you track the object. As soon as you begin to depress the shutter release, the camera goes into action and begins to focus. In Continuous focusing mode, the camera detects the subject’s movements and refocuses accordingly to keep the object sharp as a tack.
· One-Shot AF (Canon)/AF-S (Nikon), which represent single-focus capability. In this mode, when you depress the shutter release halfway, the camera focuses on the subject just once – there’s no continuous adjustment. This mode saves battery power, and is ideal for subjects that aren’t moving.
· Automatic Autofocus- AI Focus AF (Canon)/AF-A (Nikon) This is a relatively new feature which has turned out to be quite useful. In this mode the camera’s focusing computer jumps back and forth between Continuous and One-Shot, depending on the situation.
Composition
· “Rule” of thirds.
· Diagonals
· Leading lines
· Negative space
· Don’t crop at joints
· Check your background
· Check your foreground
· Actual rule- level horizon (unless it’s intentional)
