Jump to content

ICF photography thread


zen

Recommended Posts

Your pics are similar to P&S because you used the auto mode. One of the main ideas of a DSLR is to give you full control over how you want your image to be exposed. To get the best out, you also need a fast lens. The 50mm 1.8 is dirt cheap and can be very useful in low light photography. At some point, you will also need an external flash and a tripod. You could start by shooting in Aperture priority mode (A or Av). In this mode you can select the aperture and the camera selects the relevant shutter speed. The next question is what aperture to use? This also depends upon how fast the lens is. A fast lens is one with a larger aperture, which allows you to shoot at faster speeds. Let's take 50mm 1.8 for example. The number 1.8 represents the biggest aperture of that lens. The lower the number, the bigger the aperture and vice versa. Usually, the aperture stops are as below: F2, F2.8, F4, F5.6, F8, F11, F16, F22, with F2 being the biggest aperture and F22 the smallest. This means that at F2, the lens allows the most light to come in, at F2.8 the light would be reduced by half and so on. So what do these aperture values do in photography: 1. Bigger aperture allows you to use your camera hand held in low light 2. Bigger aperture gives you a shallower depth of field. Which means that only the subject is in focus, and the background is blurred. As the aperture gets smaller, more things start to come in focus (like point and shoot) F2.8 and higher, i.e. f2, F1.4 are fast apertures. Anything w/ F2.8 or lower number (bigger aperture) is a fast lens. The lens is not always at its sharpest at the bigger aperture. F8 and F11 are normal apertures. You use this when you don' care much about the highlighing the subject from the background. The lens performs at its best around these apertures. F16 and F22 are slow apertures. This is when you want everything in the picture to be in focus like in landscapes. Diffraction can kick in at these low apertures so again the lens may not be at its sharpest. Whatever lens you have, try shooting an object (say a coke can) which is at a respnable distance from the background. Shoot it at every aperture value from the same position (preferably w/ camera on a tripod too) and then analyze the pictures. This is probably the easiest and best way to learn. And ofc you could also get some photography books. Hope this helped!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^ That was how you expose the pic. How you compose the pic is also very important. Try not to place the subject in the center in just about every picture. To improve the composition, you can use the rule of thirds, fill the frame, etc. :nice:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...