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So you want to jump into the expanding whirlwind of photographers?
Here are some helpful notes to get you setup for a good first photo
shoot.
Equipment
You probably have this notion that you should look like one of those
photographers you see in the movies or paparazzi groups you see in the
news when you think about what equipment to get. To your relief, all
you really need to have is a camera that is portable and has good color
reception, or in other words, will capture the colors for you. There
are, at this time, a lot of options in the market that you no longer
have to settle with a point-and-shoot camera. You can now acquire a
DSLR for half the price than it used to sell for. For a starting
photographer, I suggest that you get a DSLR as this type of camera
would allow you to set manual controls and afford you to tinker with
other settings that can widen your photographing range otherwise
unavailable in a point-and-shoot. Most popular ones are Canon, Nikon
and Olympus. These are the three names I trust. However, if we're
talking about options and flexibility, I'd go for a Canon since, not
only do they have a lot of available lenses for DSLRs, but their
cameras are more compatible with the other brand lenses too.
Manual Controls
You will notice that there a bunch of settings available in a
camera. If you check your camera's manual, you'll find that there are
programmed settings for you to easily choose from. There's landscape,
portrait, sport and macro. These settings are just preset or programmed
combinations of the two items I refer to as Manual Controls. Hence, let
me introduce you to aperture and shutterspeed. Aperture is a range of
numbers and so is shutterspeed. The programmed settings I mentioned
earlier are just preset combinations of these two. The portrait setting
has a high aperture and low shutterspeed, the landscape setting has the
opposite and so on. But for more flexibility, I strongly suggest you
use Manual Controls. With this, you can select any aperture or
shutterspeed you wish to use for any given picture at any time.
The aperture is the size of the opening of your shutter. To cut the
chase short, the smaller the number, the bigger your opening is, thus
more light will be rendered on your picture. Shutterspeed almost works
in the same way. The smaller the number, the longer your shutter will
be open to absorb light. Shutterspeed deals with time, aperture deals
with the diameter. Given this, aperture of 2.8 and shutterspeed of 10
will render a very bright picture. Whereas an aperture of 9 and a
shutterspeed of 1000 will render a rather dark picture. It's up to you
how to mix these two to come up with the perfect combination to capture
your picture. This knowledge will enable you to take pictures even in
situations when your programmed controls can no longer manage it.
Framing and Composition
Everybody can tell if a picture is nice or not after looking at it.
But how can you tell if something will make a nice picture or not? This
is the challenge you, as a photographer, will have to undertake. What
might be interesting for others may not be interesting to you, and
vice-versa. In this department, since we're depending on your
creativity and your so-called “eye” for photography, I can only leave
you with two things: 1. check your frame: make sure everything is
within it and leave as little dead space as you can and 2. check the
available light (avoid harsh lighting) and what direction it's coming
from. Light pouring towards you will render your subject black and
light pouring profusely from behind you will render your subject too
bright. Check your frame if everything in it, really has to be in it.
Will it distract the people from your real subject? Is it interesting
enough to be in my picture? Should I do a tight shot instead? These are
some of the questions you should be asking when examining your frame.
Lenses
When you purchase a camera body, it normally comes with a kit lens.
Should it not come with a kit lens, then I suggest you get a kit lens
before jumping to the more complex ones. Kit lens cover the normal
range of aperture numbers. But then again, I don't want to delve into
this so much as you do not want to be overwhelmed with complexities
that come with your lens on top of the complexities of your camera. So
just to quickly give you an idea, there are several kinds of lenses.
Lenses may differ in their aperture ranges and in the material the lens
is made of. There are lenses that are specific to the smaller aperture
numbers. There are lenses made of plastic and some of glass. Those made
of glass have better color reception than the former.
Post Processing
This area is optional, but most of the mind-blowing pictures I've
seen lately have been to some extent, post processed. Post processing
involves some degree of enhancement using any one of the graphic design
software. A very popular one is Adobe Photoshop. It wouldn't hurt if
you tried learning the basic enhancement techniques, not to manipulate
your image altogether, but rather just to clean up your image, enhance
colors and sharpen your subject. This will also prove to be helpful
when you send your photos to an online printing company and see the
final results.
Photography is a very technical subject at the same time highly
customizable. Each photographer has his or her own style that they
incorporate into their photos. The equipment can only do so much. But
it still depends on you and how you want other people to see a
commonplace object or perspective. So as a closing remark to beginning
photographers, let me finish off with a phrase I used to take with me
whenever I go shooting, remember: “safety in numbers”.
Janice Jenkins is a writer for a marketing company in Chicago, IL.
Mostly into marketing research, Janice started writing articles early
2007 to impart her knowledge to individuals new to the marketing
industry. For comments and inquiries about the article visit: http://www.printplace.com
Article Source: www.iSnare.com
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