Photography 101: Basic Tips For Amateurs

You love cradling your DSLR in your hands and going places with it. You get a surge of excitement clicking away to glory, capturing the sights and memories around you. But, something is still amiss. You are an amateur and you find yourself clueless now and then. especially when you are faced with the jargon and profusion of information available on photography everywhere. You have come to the right place as we are here to make this process a little less daunting. Loving photography comes effortlessly to most people, and with the right knowledge and experience, even mastering it can be just as effortless.

- Nandana James

1) Simplifying the jargon/ Understanding the terminologies:

Exposure, Motion, Depth and Noise

In lucid terms, exposure is how light or dark an image is. Aperture, shutter speed and ISO constitute what is known as the “exposure triangle”. Though capturing photos on auto mode won’t necessitate an understanding of the exposure triangle, a thorough understanding of it enables the photographer to fully take charge, shoot on other modes, play around with the settings and come up with great shots.

1.1 Aperture

Also called the pupil of the lens, it is a hole in the lens that enables the light to travel into the camera sensor. As it determines the light reaching the camera sensor, a large aperture will let more light pass through and a small aperture does the opposite.

Aperture also determines the depth of field, which is that part of your photograph that appears sharp from front to back. For instance, images with a “shallow” depth of field will have a background which is out of focus. Images with a “deep” depth of field will have both the background and foreground sharp and in focus. A large aperture implies a large amount of background blur, which makes it suitable for shooting portraits. On the other hand, a small aperture implies a small amount of background blur, which makes it conducive for landscape and architectural images.

In photography, aperture is expressed in “f” numbers, also referred to as “focal ratio” or “f-stops”. One confusing detail about apertures (though a useful one) to remember is that small numbers imply large apertures and large numbers imply small apertures. This is because an aperture is a fraction. So, an f-stop of f/8 is smaller than an f-stop of f/1.2

1.2 Shutter Speed