Photography 101: The Digital Photography Guide for Beginners

By David Johnston

Photography 101 will help you through every step from taking your DSLR camera out of the box to using your camera in manual mode. This guide for beginners will help you gain confidence when you aren't shooting in an automatic mode, and it will encourage you to progress your photography skills while developing your understanding of the world of photography. Read along as you go through topics of camera modes, file types, composition, guidelines of photography, lighting, and much more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Johnston
• Release date: Oct 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311036247

Book preview

The Photography Essentials Series

Photography 101

By David Johnston

Copyright 2014 David Johnston

Distributed by Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Chapter 1: A Brief Introduction to Shutter, Aperture, and ISO

What is shutter?

Your camera collects and monitors light using three things: shutter, aperture, and ISO. These three light gathering functions work together to balance light in order to properly expose a photograph. Shutter is the amount of time that a photo is being taken. The shutter is represented as a fraction such as 1/200. That means that the shutter will be open for one two-hundredths of a second.

When thinking about shutter, you must also keep in mind the amount of motion that will show up in your photographs. For faster movement, you will want to use a faster shutter speed to capture the subject without blurring.

For slower motion or no motion at all, you can set the shutter speed as long as you can without your own arm movement affecting the photograph. If you have a tripod, go crazy and set the shutter speed as low as you want! Just remember, don’t let the tripod or camera move or else your photograph will be blurry.

What is the aperture?

When using the aperture, you must determine how much depth of field (out of focus background) you want in your photograph as well as balance the amount of light entering your camera’s sensor.

The aperture can be confusing. A lower aperture numerical such as f/1.4 lets in a lot of light and has the most depth of field.

A higher aperture numerical such as f/20 lets in a very limited amount of light and has the least depth of field.

So, as the aperture numbers get smaller, the more light and more depth of field you will produce. The opposite is true for the higher numbers. As the aperture numbers get larger, the less light and less depth of field you will produce.

Learning to balance the light and depth of field you desire for your photograph takes a lot of practice. Understanding the concept of aperture is the first step!

What is ISO?

To me, ISO is the person in a family who moderates and makes peace with every situation. If you are struggling to get the light just right with shutter and aperture, ISO comes along and resolves the issue… then shutter and aperture hug and make up. It’s a beautiful thing.

If the photograph is still too bright or dark, use the ISO to fix it. Low ISO numbers such as ISO 100 make the camera sensor less sensitive to light. Higher ISO numbers such as ISO 3200 make the camera sensor more sensitive to light.

Reviews for Photography 101

[ragluyas2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Clear and precise. Not too technical. Great for beginners and for those who have a good camera and are getting good photos but need to do better. Learning to read the histogram and operate the camera in manual mode opened new horizons for me.

[john1138 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As a long-time snapper, I've been interested in moving on to taking better photographs and considering the purchase of a better camera. I've been a bit intimidated about splashing out a load of cash, given the apparent complexity of photography. This book gives a very clear, concise, introduction to the subject and explains a lot of the terminology in a way that I could understand. As a primer, I would recommend it.