photography for beginners

Photography for Beginners 

"I am just a casual photographer like all who search for tutorials. So my write ups are just expression of what i felt from my journey"...... not travelled much😜   

A word for Beginner

Mostly we search for "photography for beginners" is a situation that we got a camera and we don't know how to take a good picture.

Consider following when you start 

1. Don't feel bad what others say about our photos(even relatives , they always like that 😜 ).

2. Try to go out for taking picture alone ,which will help us to reveal artist within us (not a joke ,it will help us make composition more natural and immersive)

3. Most of the time follow photo composition rule( i realised it very late).

4. Try to understand the behaviour of out equipment(mobile, DSLR,Mirror-less).

5. Start post process as early( never get completely depend on it ).

Begin with DSLR or Mirror-less camera 

If you don't have a camera ,buy one second hand DSLR(full frame sensor type) or mirror less. DSLR become cheap so that we can get a good deal for full frame sensor(which help us to use the potential of lens) on the other hand mirror less help us to adapt most of the vintage lens which is available cheap on ebay.

                              

Let's start ,hope we have a camera with kit lens(normally believe a crap cheap lens ). for all camera there are different mode of operation like auto , portrait ,Landscape ,A,P,S,M which is on the rotating dial ,mostly on right top of camera.

Auto mode

In this mode almost all thinks we need to do will handle by camera. things we need to do is composition of picture and at what point lens need to be.

Step 1.

Most of the kit lens marked with a scale of 18-55 mm. if you want to take a photo of a person(portrait) turn the lens to 55 mm and try  to get closer to the person where your camera can focus by half pressing your shoot button.,click you will get some nice shot.

step 2.

Consider the area we see through viewfinder or screen as a rectangular plane and make an imaginary division on that rectangular plane. and keep your subject roughly (or person eye) at the points as shown in the image in an artistic way.

         

Step 3.

For taking landscape or nature turn the lens to 18 mm and keep subject at point mentioned above if any, keep straight lines to align with vertical and horizontal lines ,if we take picture of beach try to keep horizon align with horizontal division. take lower line if its a beautiful sky else upper for good landscape or fill in that way so that viewer never feel its a bad one. 

     

always keep in mind these are all tips to photography like learning driving, if we want to be a good one enjoy it instead of doing it...will come up with more 

 

Part 2

Nothing more about modes portrait and landscape , you can try it in different situations.

Program mode(p mode)

Program mode is provided with different setting which is configured by company for matching different light situation , in this case we can make little more control over our camera.

Aperture mode(A mode)

Before starting shooting in A mode we need to understand some basic terminology behind photography. camera act just like out eyes we may seen this in different blogs or tutorials ,i don't like to make things more complicated at this point; for now just consider three terms  "Aperture or opening of lens and iso".  

Aperture 

In front of all lens there are some writing mentioned like 1:4- 5.6 , here its for kit lens.  Kit lens focal length changes from 18mm to 55mm and the numbers mentioned is the maximum opening or aperture of lens at 18mm(which is 4) and 55mm(which is 5.6).
instead of making things complicated at this point consider Aperture or the value in front of lens in following way.
1. If value mentioned is less means more light in to the lens.
2. Improved depth of field ,which means the subject become more clear with good background  blur.
keep above point in mind .

use of lower aperture value is at low light photos can be taken without much issues , during portrait subject or person will be popped out from back ground.

fig 1

fig 2

 Both photos taken on  Nikon D40 with kit lens .
fig 1 with higher aperture value and fig 2 with lower aperture value,we can find the difference..

 while using kit lens aperture value can't go below 4 at wide angle(18mm) and below 5.6 at 55mm , so for taking a particular person or subject try to zoom to 55mm and lower the aperture value as low as possible and try to keep person or subject with background little farther away. so even at aperture 5.6 we will get a good depth of field. try at different focal length between 18mm and 55mm to get the best result out of the lens.

In aperture mode we can control the value of aperture and camera will handle the shutter(next we can talk learn shutter ).

ISO

iso is something which gives light sensitivity , in olden days films with different iso value where used for photography . commonly 100 iso and 400 iso.
just consider this much if iso value go high camera capability to see at low light increases but at same time noise in picture also increases. so for getting clean picture we have to keep iso lower. modern camera can go iso value from 50 to 3600 or even more.
best practices is to keep the value between 50 and 1600max for best result , use our idea . If it is important  to take an event with compromising quality that time we can go for higher value else keep the value low.

Shutter priority( S mode) 

Shutter is some thing like our eyelid. to avoid complexity ,consider this way if shutter is high image will be more standstill. example when we take photo of ceiling fan at low shutter we can see blurring of fan leaves and at high shutter value fan leaves will look like stopped. 

shutter value shows in 1/nth of second .example 1/50,1/100....1/1200 like .

if we want to take sports photography we need to keep shutter at high value .

fig1

fig2

    

 Above two pictures fig 1 is water stream taken at shutter 1/2000 which is even hard to see with our naked eye.
Second one fig 2 is picture of fire works taken with a low shutter speed of 1/4 .we can find the difference of it and can be used logically and in an artistic way .
 In shutter priority mode camera will select the aperture value.

Both aperture priority  mode and shutter priority mode  ISO can be in auto or manual .modern camera ISO keeping is auto will note make big problem.

keep in mind  Aperture = 1/ Shutter , that means in both case if one increase other will go down to adjust the image light or exposure.

Exposure  

Exposure is something which make picture quality . one example when we come out of cinema theatre with out sun glasses at noon we force to keep out eye close because we are not able to see out side all will be bright white this is same case in camera where we call over exposed. under exposed is the case where we enter in to a room from bright sun  we are unable to see inside room this is called under exposed. 

so to get all details of what we are taking proper exposure is required.

new cameras are provided with light meter so in display and even in viewfinder we can see one scale with a dark centre marking. when we change shutter or aperture we can see the bar running over it and trying to come centre ,which is camera trying to keep proper exposure by adjusting other parameters (which will happen only in A,P,S modes). so keep an eye on it if it goes negative means under and goes high means over .

Manual  Mode

In manual mode three parameters need to be controlled . Shutter, Aperture and ISO . so to get the expected output we can use those three parameters. sometimes we need to under expose image by 1 or 1/2 stop manual control will help us to set each parameter in required means.

sometimes to get milky effect of water long exposure is required in such situation shutter speed may need to drop down to 6 or 10 sec and at desired aperture (like sweet spot of lens) by means of ND filters . such situation we may required to control all three parameters of camera.

Most of the time aperture priority or shutter priority will work . nothing less is their using aperture mode since modern cameras have good light metering built in.