Beginner looking to educate myself Locked

You mention mentoring.

If you choose to follow the DPR forums then imo the likes of, and not in any particular order, bobn2, Michael Fryd, FingerPainter, Bill Ferris are well worth following especially on the basics of photography - exposure

Take pictures, experiment, post here, and ask questions...

atom14.

Don't get too far into the weeds -- a basic understanding of exposure -- specifically aperture and shutter speed, and how changing them changes your photos -- is fundamental.

It's important to have a basic understanding of ISO and how it relates to exposure (though beware, much misinformation about what ISO really is; just start out with how changing ISO relates to changing exposure.

Nikon's Online School used to have a great Fundamentals of Photography class, but it's gone now (oddly enough, the Beyond the Fundamentals course is still there). Maybe it'll come back. For books, I highly recommend an older edition (11th, maybe 10th) of Photography by London, Stone and Upton (because the current edition is pretty darn expensive). It's been a standard college text for decades, and I still use my 6th and 9th Edition as references.

There is lots of good info here, but things often get into very complex background discussion. Certainly that will come in handy -- the more you learn, the more control you can exercise over your photography and the more performance you can get out of your camera. .RAW processing, ETTR-ing, lens sweet spots -- those things will come, but for now, get down the basics of exposure and learn how to manipulate depth-of-field and motion blur, and you'll have the right basement to build on.

Oh, and be warned, if you say anything about the Exposure Triangle, someone here will mail you a wet noodle with which to lash yourself.

Aaron

GavinSwitzer wrote:

I feel like I can compose an image.

Can you please post some of what you think are your best "composed" images ???

Post as many as you like ... and you may state what you specifically like about them ???

Autonerd wrote:

Don't get too far into the weeds -- a basic understanding of exposure -- specifically aperture and shutter speed, and how changing them changes your photos -- is fundamental.

It's important to have a basic understanding of ISO and how it relates to exposure (though beware, much misinformation about what ISO really is; just start out with how changing ISO relates to changing exposure.

I think it's important to also mention than when using manual exposure changing the ISO doesn't change the exposure at all - IMHO learning photography is best done using the manual mode as then changing one parameter doesn't influence the others, only the result.

Nikon's Online School used to have a great Fundamentals of Photography class, but it's gone now (oddly enough, the Beyond the Fundamentals course is still there). Maybe it'll come back. For books, I highly recommend an older edition (11th, maybe 10th) of Photography by London, Stone and Upton (because the current edition is pretty darn expensive). It's been a standard college text for decades, and I still use my 6th and 9th Edition as references.

There is lots of good info here, but things often get into very complex background discussion. Certainly that will come in handy -- the more you learn, the more control you can exercise over your photography and the more performance you can get out of your camera. .RAW processing, ETTR-ing, lens sweet spots -- those things will come, but for now, get down the basics of exposure and learn how to manipulate depth-of-field and motion blur, and you'll have the right basement to build on.

Oh, and be warned, if you say anything about the Exposure Triangle, someone here will mail you a wet noodle with which to lash yourself.

I kind of like the below version

Less useless exposure triangle

GavinSwitzer wrote:

I am looking at this from a purely artistic standpoint. My theory on life is to learn the rules, so you can know when to break them. So the more knowledge I gain the more I will know what is relevant.

A good attitude. Keep in mind that one purpose of learning how to set the camera is that it does affect your photos.

Example: Assuming ISO is constant, a photo taken with a shutter speed of 1/15-sec and an aperture of f/16 will look the same in terms of brightness as one taken with the camera at 1/1000 and f/2 (if my math is correct) (what you might call "properly exposed"). But the photos will look very different in terms of how many elements (objects in the photo) are in focus (depth-of-field) and whether moving elements are blurred or frozen.

The trick is to learn to set the camera controls so you can make the photo look the way you want. For example, one can set aperture so that only one element is in focus while the background is blurred, or one can set it so that all elements are in focus. Lens choice matters, too: You can get the same framing with, say, a 50mm and a 28mm lens simply by changing where you stand, but a wider-angle gives a very different feeling to the photo than a longer one.

I agree 100% that artistic concerns should trump technical concerns; a boring photo is still a boring photo no matter how sharp it is. But also keep in mind that having  technical knowledge will help you get the effect you want.

One of the reasons I love that Upton/Stone/London book is it breaks this stuff into easy-to-follow chapters and is well illustrated. One glance at their illustration of depth-of-field (two photos and a diagram of the scene) explains it way better than a thousand words.

Aaron

barbara j wrote:

GavinSwitzer wrote:

Wow, thank you all for the great information. I will defiantly be looking into all of your recommendations. This was extremely helpful.

thanks

Gavin

Yes, I get a little defiant when it comes to shifting ISOs. Film was so much easier.

I agree, but is this because people's perceptions have changed? In other words, in the Film years, a grainy photo was acceptable, but today everything has to be "1000% Instagram Perfect" otherwise it's considered sub-par.

Or because you are challenging yourself to take the best possible photo and 100 ISO is "where it's at" ?

barbara j wrote:

GavinSwitzer wrote:

Hello all,

I have been consuming a lot of content involving cameras and lenses and am starting to grasp the language used (which lead me to this site). However, what series is recommended to really give an overall crash course in the basics?

I am a 2-year hobyest looking to constantly improve my photos. I feel like I can compose an image but I want to get away from the auto setting and really play around with all my camera's capability. I like to shoot landscapes and wildlife when I travel.

I am currently using a Canon EOS M50 with a Canon EF-M 15-45mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM and a Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM lens.

I've done some research but I'm really looking for a simple basic/ mentoring series either on youtube or text.

Thanks

Gavin

Film photography had simple basics, digital photography complex. I watch this video every so often to refresh. Sean Tucker talking about the digital basics

Did I mention the video discusses (quiet voice) the Exposure Triangle? Not to be missed

Oh dear. Did you have to?

This video is yet another regurgitation of the usual garbage.

The short version

Tucker makes a number of common errors and omissions:

• He uses the term "exposure" incorrectly. When he says "exposure" he means "image lightness"
• He incorrectly says that ISO is a parameter of exposure. It isn't. It is a parameter of image lightness.
• He incorrectly claims that the ISO setting affects the sensitivity of the sensor to light. It doesn't. It affects the camera system's "output sensitivity" which is how light it makes a JPEG from a given exposure.
• He incorrectly associates the shutter speed with the mechanism of the mirror swinging out of the way in a dSLR. The shutter is a separate mechanism.
• He incorrectly claims that ISO, shutter speed and aperture are the only three things you need to know about to "balance exposure". He leaves out one of the three actual parameters of exposure: scene luminance, and totally ignores the Exposure Compensation setting.
• He incorrectly claims that a higher ISO setting brings in more light. In fact, in an autoexposure mode it will cause the camera to bring in less light, and in manual mode will not affect how much light the camera brings in.
• When listing ways to bring in more light, he leaves out adding more light to the scene.
• He incorrectly associates the noisiness of the image with the ISO you have set. In M mode, increasing ISO will either not affect noise at all, or will very slightly reduce noisiness, depending on the camera.
• In discussing Depth of Field (DoF), he confuses "in focus" with "sufficiently sharp".
• He omits discussion of the choice of aperture's effect on aberration blur and diffraction blur.
• He omits discussion of the effect of changing aperture and shutter speed on image noisiness.
• He leaves out of discussion consideration of lens sharpness, when it sometimes should take priority over DOF.
• He incorrectly claims that to get image noisiness as low as possible, you should always make the ISO as low as possible.

The long version

Sean Tucker is using the term "exposure" in its common, but technically incorrect sense of "image lightness". In photography and sensitometry, exposure is actually the amount of light falling on the sensitive medium (in this case, the camera's sensor) per unit area.

Do you have to know the correct definition of "exposure" and what ISO actually does in order to take good photos? IDK. Sean Tucker seems to take some pretty good photos (of one particular style) without knowing what exposure actually is. But as Mark S Abeln said, eventually you will run into technical roadblocks if you don't understand the actual terminology and correct fundamentals.

Exposure is important to two aspects of how a photo looks:

1. Exposure is one of two factors that equally control how light or dark the image looks. How light or dark an image looks is what Sean Tucker seems to mean when he says "exposure", but this is better referred to as "image lightness". The other factor equally affecting image lightness is the camera's ISO setting. Tucker includes ISO in his list of three factors affecting what he incorrectly calls "exposure", and he is correct that it does affect image lightness. Doubling the ISO setting or increasing exposure by doubling the amount of light hitting the sensor both increase the image lightness by the same amount.
2. The other major effect exposure has on how a photo looks is with respect to noise. The lower the exposure, the noisier the image will look. Noise in a digital photo shows up as little dots of colour different from the colour of the parts of the photo immediately adjacent. It can sometimes look very similar to the "grain" one saw in high ISO film, but it has a separate cause from film grain. Film grain is caused by the physical properties of the emulsion. Digital image noise is caused primarily by the quantum properties of light.

The exposure is controlled by three parameters

1. The video correctly identifies one of the three parameters: the length of time the sensor is exposed to light, but incorrectly associates it with the amount of time the mirror of a dSLR is swung out of the way. In fact, many dSLRs allow you to swing the mirror out of the way well before the exposure time starts. The time length of the exposure is controlled by the shutter, which is a separate mechanism present on both dSLRs and mirrorless cameras. As a result, this parameter is often referred to as "shutter speed".
2. Tucker mentions another parameter affecting exposure. He calls it "aperture" and correctly says that it is often denoted by an f-number. Aperture is the apparent diameter of the inside of the lens when viewed from the front element. Unfortunately he writes his f-numbers in the form "f 1.4" or "f1.4". A more useful notation is f/1.4. This notation reminds you that f isn't just a name. It is a variable representing the focal length of the lens. The '/' is there because it is the mathematical division operator. When you divide the focal length by the f-number you get the diameter of the aperture. So f/4 on a 135m lens is not the same diameter as f/4 on a 28mm lens, but you need the same f-number (not the same aperture diameter) on both lenses if you want to get the same exposure when your other two exposure parameters are the same. When you set a 50mm lens to f/2 you get an aperture diameter of 25mm. (The focal length f is 50mm, which, divided by 2, is 25mm). Unfortunately, it isn't actually aperture or f-number which is the factor that best measures how much light is getting to the sensor. It is a related factor called "T-stop". Cine cameras care about T-Stop, However, given the way still image cameras meter, and that such cameras give no direct way to control T-stop, the f-stop will give a close enough approximation to T-stop and we can pretend that Tucker is correct to list aperture or f-number as one of the three parameters of exposure.
3. There is a third parameter affecting exposure. Tucker says this is ISO. It isn't. ISO affects what Tucker is mis-labelling "exposure" - image lightness, but it doesn't directly affect actual exposure - amount of light falling on the sensor per unit area - especially in the manual mode that Tucker is describing how to use. The actual third parameter of exposure is scene luminance. This is the amount of light in the scene coming from the scene towards the camera. Unlike shutter speed and aperture, there is no control on the camera that totally controls the scene luminance parameter. If the camera has a built-in flash, you can affect the scene luminance of scenes that are close to the camera. Photographers can also sometimes affect scene luminance by using things that add light to a scene, like lights and strobes, or opening window blinds and doors. They can also affect scene luminance by using things that subtract light from the scene, like scrims and flags.

So if ISO is not a parameter of exposure, what is it? It is a camera control that tells the camera how light or dark to make an image from a given exposure - a given amount of light falling on the sensor per unit area. ISO is an image lightness control. Since Tucker misidentifies image lightness as "exposure", he misidentifies ISO an an exposure control. Tucker claims that the ISO setting adjusts the sensitivity of the sensor to light. It doesn't The sensor reports the same amount of photons hitting it at a given exposure, regardless of ISO setting. What the ISO setting actually does is determine how large a pixel value the camera or its accompanying software will record in a JPEG photo for a given number of photons reported by the sensor at that pixel. Larger values are lighter tones.

A correct modelling of a change in shutter speed would not only show that as you increase the shutter speed you increase control of motion but it would also show that you increase image noisiness, and are more likely to lose shadow details, whereas slowing the shutter too much risks blowing desirable highlight detail.

A correct modeling of a change in F-number would not only show that as you increase f-number you increase DOF it would also show that you increase diffraction blur, reduce aberration blur, increase image noisiness, and are more likely to lose shadow details, whereas widening the aperture too much risks blowing desirable highlight detail.

A correct modelling of ISO in manual mode would show that as you increase ISO the image gets lighter (but the exposure doesn't increase), you increase the risk of blowing desirable highlight detail and you reduce the risk of losing shadow detail. On most cameras at some ISO values you will get a small decrease in noisiness when you increase ISO, and on others you get no change in noisiness. This means that once you have set the slowest shutter and widest aperture you can tolerate, if you want to minimize noisiness and you have highlight headroom, you should increase ISO to use up that headroom.

Only items on a plane perpendicular to the lens axis at the subject distance are "in focus". "In focus" means resolved to a point, Other items in the DOF are resolved to disks too small for the viewer to tell they are not resolved to a point. The are properly called "sufficiently sharp", not "in focus".

Tucker claims the only two questions you have to ask are about DOF and motion blur. In fact, lens blur can sometimes be more important than either. Sometimes you are better off selecting the lens' sweet spot than fine-tuning the DOF.

He suggests setting ISO first and then leaving it unchanged, In fact, one often gets best results from setting ISO last. Setting it too high originally will result in too noisy of an image if you get desired image lightness. Failing to increase it when you have highlight headroom at base ISO and desired aperture and shutter, will leave the image a little bit noisier than it needs to be on many cameras.

Excellent post explaining the actual facts in an easy to understand way.

I have "snipped" out most of it because I have just a very short contribution to add.

FingerPainter wrote:

<snip>

Do you have to know the correct definition of "exposure" and what ISO actually does in order to take good photos?

</snip>

I suppose the answer to a large extent depends on one's definition of "good photos".

If "good photos" includes minimising the noise that will be seen sooc then, especially in low light situations, the answer is it will definitely help the photographer to minimise noise if they know and understand the correct definition of "exposure" and what ISO actually does and does not do, as you correctly explained in your post.

Danno B wrote:

FingerPainter wrote:

<snip>

Do you have to know the correct definition of "exposure" and what ISO actually does in order to take good photos?

</snip>

I suppose the answer to a large extent depends on one's definition of "good photos".

Interesting discussion point. I would say no, because people can get good photos (good composition, good exposure, good lightness) with all controls in automatic mode. I have certainly snagged some good photos with fully-automatic cameras. However I would say there's a lot of chance at work as well. If you know the correct definition of exposure, and how to manipulate it, I would say you are more likely to get precisely the photo you want, precisely how you want it to look.

Aaron