How To Use Your Camera – Part 1

I have had a lot of people ask me how to do different things with their cameras…mostly I get the question “How do you take pictures like THAT?” I pretty much suck at explaining things to people (ask my mom!) and it doesn’t help that I don’t really know HOW to take the pictures. Well I do…but I don’t if that makes any sense at all. It’s all very confusing to me but some how my brain just gets how everything works together and gets it done. Sometimes. Trust me I get a LOT of send to recycle bin worthy photos.

So, since I have no idea why any of this actually works or how to really explain it I will just try to tell it the way that makes sense to me.

First off you need a camera that you can control the settings on manually. Even though I rarely shoot fully manual.

There are three main things that work together to make a picture:

Shutter Speed: Pretty simple…it’s the speed of the shutter. How fast it clicks. The faster the shutter the more you freeze whatever you are taking a picture of. This is just a number on the camera (MY camera anyway) but is also written as a fraction. 1/#…fraction of a second that it’s closing.

Aperture: This is also called an F-stop. This number shows up with an F in front of it. Why? No clue, but it does. This one tells how wide the opening in the shutter is that lets the light into the camera. It’s confusing though because the SMALLER the number is the BIGGER the opening. Also, the smaller the number the LESS is in focus (causing blurry background) and the larger the number the more that will be in focus.

ISO: This number still really makes no sense to me and I have no idea how to explain it other than it goes along with the other two to make a picture. I know that it has something to do with how bright the picture is. If you are shooting in low light you want the ISO number to be higher to help your picture be brighter. BUT…the higher the number the more grainy your picture will be. Of course if you have a fancy newer camera they work better at a higher ISO. My D80? NOT so much. It’s a grain monster.

Some other things to know:

Exposure: How light or dark your picture is.

Depth Of Field (DOF): THIS was my first question when I was trying to learn my camera and it’s the first question I get from other people as well…”How do I make one thing in focus and have everything in the background all blurry?” THIS has everything to do with aperture.

Now that I think I have somewhat explained what goes into a picture I will start with one bit at a time. Lets start with aperture since that is what makes the purdy background blur that is the photo “must have”.

To make this easier dig out your camera’s instruction manual and find out which one is the aperture priority mode. If you have a Nikon it’s the big fat A on your little dial. If you have a Canon start Googling because I have no idea. Aperture priority means that YOU get to set and play around with the aperture (F-stop) and the camera will set the shutter speed for you. Also, while you have your manual out you might want to figure out how to change your aperture.

Ok, assignment #1. Get your camera out and turn it to the aperture priority setting so you can change the aperture but the camera will do everything else for you. Start as low as it will let you go and take a picture. Move up a few numbers and take another…then up a few more and take another. Do you see how your background will start out blurry with the lower F-stop and come into focus when the number moves higher?

Here are some pictures I took today to show the difference in f-stops
F2

F5.6 – There’s a little difference

F11 – Now the background is coming into better focus

F22 – Now it’s too high and my camera couldn’t adjust the other settings enough to make the exposure right so it turned out a little dark

I hope this all made sense…if not do what I did and check out MorgueFile and take the free courses by Jodie Coston.

Tomorrow I’ll do an example of different shutter speeds and what they can do to a picture.