The tools
Perhaps most of you thought that using DSLR camera is hard. In fact, actually its not as hard as you imagine! On this post i will give you guys a basic tutorial of photography.Its all about Aperture, Shutter speed and ISO which are the basic elements in photography by understanding how these elements work you can get an image that you want easily.
All you need is only a camera which has an ability to adjust its shutter speed, its aperture (you cannot find these 2 things on common phone camera) and ISO (which you can found it on common camera setting).
Aperture
The concept of the Aperture is the size of the opening of the camera lens. it is determined by “F” and followed by number.
You can see the opening of the lens by half pressing the capture button of your camera, this is the example.
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| F22 |
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| F5.6 |
take a look at the center of camera lens, the opening of the iris is different
The aperture will affect the exposure of your image
all the images and concept above are the example that only the aperture adjusted differently.
pictures below are taken with the same aperture size and shutter speed only the ISO is adjusted differently.
Larger number: smaller aperture size----- less light comes in (lower exposure)
Smaller number: bigger aperture size---- more light comes in (higher exposure)
The aperture also affects the “depth of field” (DOF) of the image.
Mostly, DOF is about how many objects that will be focused on your image. Deeper DOF means more objects will be focused on your image this is usually applied in scenery photography. Shallow DOF means only a few objects that will be focused on your image, when you focusing on fewer objects you will get a BOKEH effect on your images.
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| F22 |
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| F5.6 |
As you can see on the 1st picture you can see the Chinese writing on all the cups clearly. However, on the 2nd image only the middle cup has clear Chinese writing on it, the rest are a bit of focus or we can say ‘soft blur’ this is effect is called BOKEH in photography.
Summary:
Larger “F” number-------lower exposure, more objects focused
Smaller “F” number------higher exposure, less objects focused (BOKEH effect)
Shutter Speed
Shutter speed (SS) is the speed of closing and opening of the lens, this element is very vital in order to get suitable exposure as it gives more impact on the exposure of the image compare to the other elements. Larger number of shutter speed means the closing of the lens is faster which create a low exposure image as less lights are able to come inside the lens. Additionally, with faster shutter speed less time will be given to object(s) in your picture to moving around, allowing you to capture a fast moving object without getting blur.
On the other hand, slower shutter speed will allow more light to come inside the lens which create a high exposure image, slower shutter speed will allow more time for objects in your image to moving around which can create a blur effect. With a slow shutter speed you need to hold your camera steadily for longer time because the lens is having more time to capture the shake created by your hand. Slow shutter speed doesn’t mean bad in photography, some of the photography needs a slow shutter speed for example light trail photography.
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| 1",ISO 4000 |
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| 1/4000,ISO4000 |
Summary:
Faster SS: lower exposure, less blurred (sport photography)
Slower SS: higher exposure, more blurred (low light photography, light trail photography)
all the images and concept above are the example that only the shutter speed adjusted differently.
ISO
ISO (International Standard Organization) I dunno why they put an organization name here but I guess it’s the organization which create international standard, so basically ISO is the sensitivity of the sensor of your camera to the light, the more ISO number set the more sensitive your sensor will be, if your camera sensor is too sensitive with light it will create a noise. To get an image without any noise make sure you put the ISO setting as lowest as you can. and add the noise reduction to the highest level.
pictures below are taken with the same aperture size and shutter speed only the ISO is adjusted differently.
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| ISO 2000 |
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| ISO400 |
as you can see the first pic show the buildings brighter than the 2nd pic. however, look at the dark sky above the 1st pic contains too many noise caused by the high ISO.
There are no exact best composition of these elements to different situation, so you need to always adjusting these elements till you find the better composition.
Hence, in my opinion photography is all about adjusting and balancing those 3 elements, Aperture,Shutter speed, and ISO. and don't forget.... be creative :)
Hence, in my opinion photography is all about adjusting and balancing those 3 elements, Aperture,Shutter speed, and ISO. and don't forget.... be creative :)
