Understanding Photography

Christianne Lynnette G. Cabanban

Topic Outline
The Triangle of Exposure
Understanding Focal Point and How it Affects Your
Image.
Guide to Aperture and Sunny 16 Rule
Depth of Field
Shutter Speed
Photography Projects to Jumpstart Your Creativity

Triangle of Exposure
There are three main ingredients to good exposure: Aperture, Shutter Speed,
and ISO.
Think of a perfect exposure as a perfect triangle all the angles are
equal, all the sides are equal. Now if you change just one part of that
exposure or triangle, it is no longer perfect so you will need to change
another point of the exposure or triangle an equal but opposite amount to
make that triangle and therefore the exposure perfect again

All the elements of exposure have an effect on the others so

with that in mind we need to know the hows and whys of all the
different elements to best understand how to get both a good
exposure and the desired results in our photographs.

Aperture
Aperture is a circular opening (somewhat) in our lens
that is adjustable from a very small circle to almost as
large as the lens itself. We adjust it to let more or less light
hit the digital sensor or film.

The opening of our lens or Aperture is expressed in f

stops and here is a very typical range of f stops:

Depth of Field
When we look at an image, there is a part that is in
perfect focus and then there are parts that begin to be out
of the range of focus. You can have a small Depth of Field
(DOF) where only your subject is in focus, or you can have
a deep Depth of Field where practically everything is in
focus or really anywhere in between.

Depth of field is determined by three things; aperture (f

stop), distance to your subject, and lens focal length
(50mm, 200mm etc), with Aperture having a profound
effect on DOF

Photographers that shoot portraits usually use larger

apertures (low numbers) for a shallow DOF to highlight and
isolate their subjects. Landscape photographers usually use small
apertures to have a very deep DOF, all the way from the foreground
to the background.
As usual, there are exceptions to these rules and that is ruled
by the photographers artistic ideas and vision.

Shutter Speed
Shutter speed controls how long the light comes
through our aperture to our digital sensor or film. The
longer the time, the more light will hit their surface. That
is technically what shutter speed does.
Artistically, shutter speed controls motion. Whether
we want to freeze motion or show motion, shutter speed is
the portion of exposure that will control that aspect.

Shutter speeds are expressed in fraction of a

second 1/8, 1/125, 1/1000 etc.

Beyond that we can now make an artistic

judgment do we want to stop action, or show
movement? And this is a judgment you need to make.
Sometimes we may want to freeze our subject and keep it
sharp and clear. Other times we want some blur on the
subject to give the viewer the impression that the object
is moving or is at speed.

ISO (International Standards Organization

We use ISO to help us achieve what we want to do with the
other two sides of exposure; Aperture and Shutter Speed. You may
ask; Why dont we just use the most sensitive one and forget
about it? Well because the downside of higher ISO is that it
increases the noise or grain in our images. This can sometimes
make the image look so bad that it becomes unusable

So our objective is to use the lowest ISO possible,

but balancing that to what we want to achieve.
Shooting outdoors on sunny or even slightly
overcast days we can use ISO 100 or 200 with ease. On
heavy overcast days we may need to change our ISO to
400. Especially if we use a small aperture (letting in
less light) for shooting a deep depth of field landscape
shot, while still being able to maintain a shutter speed
that we can safely handholdwithout a tripod.

As we move indoors to a brightly lit room we may need

to move up to ISO 800 1600 to take natural light photos
without the need for using our flash. As we move to dimly
lit rooms or street scenes, we may need to move up to ISO
3200 or higher (remembering again that not all cameras
can shoot at these higher ISO without excessive noise).

Focal Length
Selecting different focal lengths can really reshape
the aesthetics of your scene. Zooming in and out on the
same subject area greatly changes the way that a subject
relates to the background and the perceived distance
between the two.

However, there is never one best lens or focal length

choice. If youre wanting to show how a subject relates to
the background, using lenses of different focal lengths
can change the way the background appears in relation
to the subject.

Experimenting with these various focal lengths is

a powerful part of the creative process. Focal length
choice is a huge part of the composition process of an
image. You can use a wide lens to lead into a
background or create distance, or choose a longer focal
length to compress your subject against the background.
A focal length of any choice can be a good one
dependingon the way you envisionthe scene.

18 mm from 18-55

70 MM from 55-200

35 mm

Sunny 16 Rule

Rule of Thirds
The basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine
breaking an image down into thirds (both horizontally and
vertically) so that you have 9 parts. As follows.

The theory is that if you place points of interest

in the intersections or along the lines that your
photo becomes more balanced and will enable a viewer
of the image to interact with it more naturally.

Point of Focus
When a photographer uses the term "point of focus", he is referring
to that object in a photograph at which he wants to draw the most
attention. "Focus" itself refers to the amount of the image that is
sharp. Both the point of focus and the amount of focus affect the
resulting image. In short, altering each one changes the look of the
final photograph.

Specific, Single, Off-Centre Auto Focus Point

If your camera has this function, then you are able to select just one
of any of the focus points as reference.
For example, you are doing a commercial or stock shoot of some bottles
or glasses of wine all in a row. You want them fading into the
distance using shallow depth of field and want just the first glass, on
the left of the frame in focus whilst the remaining bottles fade and
blur into the background.

All Focus Points

As we touched on briefly before, there are only a few situations
where I personally would use all points, being mainly sports or
nature photography with subjects that move independently and
erratically.
These would be particularly useful for fast moving objects where
it is virtually impossible to keep them over any single point. By
selecting all points, the smart chip in the camera decides which
point the moving subject is closest to and switches back and
forth instantly to keep the subject well in focus.

Ideas to Kick Start Photography

1) Fixed Focal Length Shoots - shooting with a prime lens (fixed
focal length) that makes you think about the composition of
your shots a little more.
2) The 1 Roll Rule - limit yourself to 36 shots (the number in a roll
of film). In doing so youll find yourself really thinking about
your shots. Youll time them better and make sure each shot
counts!

3) Compositional Rules
4) Explore other techniques
5) Lighting Technique - similarly set yourself the challenge
to practice your skills with a particular lighting.
6) Manual Exposure Mode Weekend

Photography Projects
1) 365 Days Project -take a picture of anything every day
for a year.
2) 52 Photowalks - you should get out of the house once a
week with your camera.
3) 100 Strangers - The idea is to approach someone youve
never met before, ask if you can take their picture, and
talk to them a bit to get some kind of backstory

4) A-Z - You can pick a place and try to get a picture of objects that start
with or represent each letter of the alphabet.
5) Pick-A-Something - For instance, pick a color and try to go all day
photographing only red things, or try only getting pictures of things
that are square when youre on a walk.
6) Go Mono Your goal is to get better at converting photos to black and
white, to see things differently, and figure out what photos would
look better in mono, and which ones wouldnt.

RESOURCES
http://digital-photography-school.com
photo.tutsplus.com/