Photography for the Bloggerby: David Fisher/Tibbon

Twitter: @Tibbon1

Who is this guy?

• Engineer: Taylor Barefoot Productions 2003-2005

• Music Business Management: Berklee College of Music 2006

• Portrait Innovations, 2006-2007

• Jazkarta, 2007-2008, @natea’s company

• GamerDNA, 2008-Present

Twitter: @Tibbon2

Eyes

Twitter: @Tibbon3

SeeingAnd the most important skill in photography is

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Diffusion

Lighting

Chemicals

Camera

Shutter Speed

Program Mode

Blur

Aperture

ASA

Depth of Field

ISO

Flash

Autofocus

Film

Zone System

Digital

Coatings

Lens

Grey Card

RAWJPEG

Compression

SLR

Rangefinder

Point & ShootRule of Thirds

Filter

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Why?

6Why do we take photos?

Communicate

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Light

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What do we capture? Light.

Everything is a function of light coming into the camera. This is why photos in the dark don’t work well. Without light there is no photo

Subject

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What are we taking the photo of?

How?

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Light enterscamera through

lens

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Sensor (digital)/Film

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4 Important Settings

• Aperture

• Shutter

• Focus

• ISO/Sensitivity/Film Choice

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Exposure

= Amount of light hitting sensor

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Shutter Speed = Time shutter allows light to

sensor

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Faster Shutter SpeedLess light hits sensorRequires more light

Sharper imageLess Blur

Freezes motionExample, 1/2000th second

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Slower Shutter SpeedMore light hits sensorBetter for dark/night

Less sharp imageMore blur

Can convey motionExample, 1/30th Second

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Aperture=

Size of Lens Opening

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Large Opening (f/1.2)19

Small Opening (f/8)20

Aperture

• Aperture is expressed in f-stops.

• Smaller number = more open = more light hits sensor (f/1.2). Narrow Depth of Field (DoF)

• Larger number = more closed = less light hits sensor (f/8). Deep DoF.

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Narrow DoF: f/1.622

Wide DoF: f/823

Using Aperture

• If little light, use largest aperture possible (ex: f/2.8)

• If lots of light, you have choices. Aperture can be used to cut down on light.

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ISO/Sensitivity

• Sensitivity of film/sensor to light

• Lower numbers (ISO/100) need more light.

• Lower numbers have less grain, higher image quality

• Higher numbers (ISO/3200) need less light.

• Higher numbers have more grain, lower image quality

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Grainy Photo: ISO160026

Low Grain: ISO10027

Review

Need More Light?

Need Less Light?

Slow shutter speed

Speed up shutter speed

Open Aperture (smaller

numbers)

Close Aperture (higher

numbers)Higher ISO

(1600)Lower ISO

(100)

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But wait!

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How does this affect me? How does this work with my camera? I have program modes and a point and shoot. What Aperture and shutter aren’t skills.

Problem Solving

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They give us the vocabulary for problem solving skills.

Easy

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Taking photos is EASY. We can all take photos. But how do we take good photos? You’re going to have problems at some point taking photos and you have to have the problem solving skills to get around them.

Complex Situations

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Bloggers encounter complex situations often in photography.

Simply & Analyze

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These terms allow us to analyize and simply photographic situations.

Meters

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A few final things. Most modern cameras have meters. These tell us how much light is coming into the lens, essentially help try to tell us how much light we need coming into the camera. This helps tell you how to set the aperture, shutter and iso settings that we just talked about.

Programs

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Which brings us to Program modes. Cameras today are smart and often contain powerful computers that can help guess settings for us. In many settings these modes can do fine jobs at producing average photos.

4 Mode Settings

• Program (automatic)

• Shutter Priority

• Aperture Priority

• Manual

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Problem?

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So whats the problem? Why can’t we just use program mode and pull the trigger?

What is important?

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What is important in the photo? This seems like a basic thing, but let’s consider some photos.

Choice

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That is your choice. Let’s look at some photos that illustrate this.

Aperture setting

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I personally use Aperture priority settings 95% of the time.

Not enough light?

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What happens is there simply isn’t enough light to make it happen with these settings?

Flash!

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Then flash can be the answer

Lighting is complex

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Lighting is a complex topic, so I won’t go too much into it asides to say that using it too much can look bad, create harsh portraits. OFF-camera light looks the best.

strobist.blogspot.com

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This blog will help lead you through all things flash related and tries to not break the bank.

Buying a Camera

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Most salespeople are poorly informed

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How many Megapixels?

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Looks good to me!48

2.74MP

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Megapixels DONT matter

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Don’t ask them general questions!

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What do you want to do?

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• People

• Sports

• Video

• Professional

• Landscapes

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Weight

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SLRs are heavy

& BIG55

Megapixels don’t matter.

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Lens

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One of the most important aspects however is the LENS. Good lenses aren’t cheap. If you go with an SLR expect to spend about as much on decent lenses as you do on the camera body.

Egronomics

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If you don’t like the way a camera feels, then you aren’t going to use it much. For professionals these often become make or break features. Do you like the way it feels in your hand? Can you figure out the menus easily? Are things marked well? Does the button placement make sense for you?

Ken Rockwellwww.kenrockwell.com

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Q&A

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Flickr.com

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Smugmug.com(referral tibbon@gmail.com)

$5 off

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B&H Photo (bhphoto.com)

Twitter: @Tibbon63