The Starting Photographer

 

The Starting Photographer

By James Breedlove 

 

Thinking about all the things that is needed to get yourself into photography, even if you only want to be a novice and take some good photos; you realize that there are something that are heard to determine.  Like what's the best camera to use, lens to use.  Is a point n shoot camera good enough for what I am doing or do I really want to get those great shots like I see on the Internet all the time.  Then there is the person who has already invested into some gear or got a decent camera for Christmas or a birthday.  No what to do, how do I get this thing to work, it doesn't seem to operate as easy as my phone camera, where I just aim it and tap the screen and boom. hum....

 

There are a whole host of different questions people have about getting more involved in taking photos and when I write this blog post I mainly think about the things that was difficult initially for me.  I'm not focusing on advanced photographers where the focus might be on the best gear to keep my camera steady as I bracket 5 photos together to get a real sharp image, after having stitched them together in a great piece of software.  

 

The general first questions that can and should be determined is; do you want to take photos only as a hobby or novice; do you plan at some time to develop the set of skills you need to get into a photography business.  Either may start out the same because we all have to learn "how to" in the beginning.  I don't know of anyone who starts out with all the principles of operating a digital SLR already  instilled in them.  Or even if I am starting out with a digital point n shoot camera or bridge camera per say, we have the same thoughts about getting the fundamentals down.  Such as, "what is the rule of thirds and does it even matter".  Or what advantage is there in buying a digital SLR, over just using the cheaper point n shoot I see on display at the local shopping center.  

 

Okay first off, the camera doesn't make the photographer, the photographers skill to get the photo makes the photographer.  Yes it we have heard that type of statement before, but in all seriousness we hear it because it is true. So while having the greatest gear out there is good, it makes life a lot easier, it doesn't make getting a great photos better in terms of composition. Nor does it drive you to the spot where you need to be.  It doesn't however help you understand better principles of shooting out side of "AUTO" mode, any easier.  What more expensive gear does is,  giving you more options to be creative.  It will give you a higher resolution than a point n shoot, even if the pixel counts are the same between a Point n Shoot (PnS) and the Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera.  This is because the manufacturers put their money into the higher end products, knowing that those who buy these cameras are going to be more competitive in nature and may be Professional Photographers, who will buy from the specifications label more than the price tag.  

Advantage of the PnS camera in general; you ordinarily get a good zoom capability, you don't have to worry as much about it getting stolen or damaged as you can save a few pennies and go get another one.  Just about everything is determined by the camera, in how it will take the photo.  I mean they will give you a great set of scene modes that you can manipulate with; sort of like the iPhone ® or other phone cameras.  The resolution will be decent for small prints, perhaps even 8 x 10's.  Great for internet applications, like social media. Also you do not have to worry about buying expensive lenses because the PnS camera is an all in one type lens that doesn't detach.  

DSLR cameras pro's and cons; in short, the DSLR camera is going to be made for photography in mind even if it is at an amateur level, but it will come with a higher end processor that removes grain from photos unlike the PnS camera.  Its processor will handle rapid processing of your images and give you basically the same out put every time you click without as much guess work.  namely because you are going to be equated into the camera more.  You will have to set the camera to your liking on a more straight forward process.  It can be both forgiving or non-forgiving pending on you the USER.  The camera will put out dependable results nearly every time if "you" the user learns the camera and what it is doing.  The PnS camera, is not that reliable, namely because it is making the decisions all the time from a wide range variable lens with low processing power.  The batteries in the higher end cameras are much better in most comparisons to a PnS camera, however the batteries are likely to be proprietary in nature and expensive.  The DSLR camera have interchangeable lenses and normally does not come with a great lens if you buy it as a Kit.  However, you may specify a type of lens you want with the DSLR which will build on quality, but will also build on the cost of the system.  As each lens can reign significant dollar sums.  Some cases the lens may cost more than the camera.  You will never be able to duplicate the zoom range of the PnS camera without spending a fortune in that field.  For a good 600mm lens you may be spending thousands of dollars for example.  On the other hand the lens will nearly always be better than any of the lenses placed on a PnS camera.  The glass will be exceptional not a mass production market for cheap cameras, generally speaking.  

 

By this point you may be thinking I am pushing you towards buying a higher price tag DSLR camera.  The answer is both yes and no.  Okay say I know what I'm going to be taking photos of, I'm going to capture photos of ducks from my fishing boat and I'm typically going to stash the camera in my tackle box to have it ready.  Or I'm going to take bird photos and I'll put my camera in my glove box and keep spare AA batteries around for may camera.  Yep, you need a PnS camera, don't worry about DSLR's.  On the other hand the DSLR camera is built tough, and it will handle abuse to some degree, perhaps more than your cheap PnS camera; the price tag will be counter intuitive for tackle boxes or glove boxes ordinarily.  You might want to buy a camera bag to keep them safe.  So then which should you get... you determine that.  But if you are going to get heavily involved in photos or plan to do this all the time; get a better camera right off.  Learn it.  You might not know anything about shooting with a interchangeable lens camera, but you are capable of learning quickly.  Then after you have shot a few photos, put the dang thing on the "M" mode and figure out how to operate it, by adjusting the speed and aperture.  Find out how the ISO values change the lighting and add grain at higher ISO values.  Keep on shooting in the "M" mode until you have gotten it down pretty good.  Likely you will not want to go back to AUTO unless your not sure you can capture a important event like a wedding or such and you hadn't learned all the in's and out's about shooting in manual mode.  That is what I would tell you, so that you get the most out of the camera and photography in general.  This would be one of the main reasons I could never make myself use a darn phone camera for all my photo needs.  Because I want to control how the photo will look and turn out myself.  

 

Okay, say you decided to get a DSLR, do you still get the neat scene modes.  Yes, in most cases so far, the cameras have all incorporated scene mode and other unique features into the cameras if you want to explore.  Even on higher end cameras.  I do not know if this applies to cameras above full frame sensors or not (medium format).  I doubt you get the full spectrum of neat tricks as you do in PnS and DSLR's.  

 

Heard someone mention, "what does he mean by FULL frame", it applies to DSLR cameras targeted towards professional photographers, having a larger sensor size than standard APC sensor cameras.  What are the advantages between getting a Full frame camera vs APC; the differences may range by more functions the camera will do, the cost weigh significantly in some cases, the depth of photos taken will be effected by the larger sensor being able to accumulate more light from the lens than an APC sensor.  Is it worth the extra money.  Really, only where you might plan on Studio production, or generating large prints and have more adaptability towards external gear like flash/strobe setups. Photo transfer methods are normally more accommodating with the higher price tag, such as WiFi, bluetooth, Ethernet connection, etc.

If you have made it this far into this blog post, you are likely more interested in to the photography aspect of cameras and just shooting as a hobby has likely been determined by now, because you don't want the hassle of using camera lenses or trying to figure out a camera to be able to shoot this way or that.  You are interested in capturing that bunny rabbit in the front yard or the squirrel in the tree.  Believe it or not all camera users do that as well, even those who are professional studio photographers.  Though they may not publish such photos, because it may effect their branding.  They have their own private pics and may put one or two of them on social media.    If you have left the point n shoot world and now own a DSLR camera you likely my miss the ease of reaching out at distance objects and getting a photo, perhaps.  But we rest assure, that so long as I own at least a 300mm lens, I can zoom in or crop in on my photo to where a PnS camera with a 1000mm lens would take and will likely be sharper with the 300mm lens of the DSLR.  That is glass quality and sensor power.  

I got my camera and want to learn how to shoot with it.  After you have glanced at you manual and learned where your buttons are on your camera, and are going through and viewing all the different menu settings and such.  Get on the web and go to your favorite video site that you can type in your camera band and model on and watch a couple.  One about settings and one about the fundamental in's and outs about the camera.  You might want to view other vids on what other people are doing as well.  If you are brand new to cameras then learn about adjusting camera speed and what it does, adjusting the F-stop or aperture diameter of the lens, learn about ISO or sensor light sensitivity.  Those three things control how a photo are produced.  Learn about the detection and auto-focusing system.  After you have gotten all these down pact, try out your focus system modes on different objects including those that move.  Then move on to trying out the camera function modes, Aperture mode, Speed mode, Program mode (sometimes called other things, pending the camera manufacturer).  Once you have got the gist of these and what they are allowing you to do.  Place it in the "M" mode or manual mode and fix you camera on an object, while you adjust the camera speed, then adjust your apertures, then adjust you ISO values.  I would do this one at a time at first.  Take note of how each one changes what the photo will look like, will reviewing the photo on your screen in live view.  Then find an object with lots of contrast in color, maybe a shed or barn or automobile and adjust a couple values like speed and aperture, if the photo needs more light increase the ISO in small increments, if it has too much light decrease ISO to perhaps its lowest setting.  If that doesn't work adjust aperture to a higher number, (termed stopping down) or making the aperture in the lens smaller.  Adjusting the speed of the shutter is one of the main priorities of taking photos, you want to balance the settings to get the best photo possible from our camera.  This will come natural to you after taking enough photos in different environments.  The key thing is to keep taking photos as often as possible.  Once you have these principles down you are ready to go out and try to capture something meaningful.  You may or may not catch photos with blur in them, if you allow the speed of the shutter to become too low for the light conditions.  If my lens shoots sharper at f8 then I try to leave it at f8 as much as possible and adjust around that.  If I need a lot of light in my camera because it's dark out, I will adjust my F-stop to wide open (lowest F-stop value like f2.8) and I may have to decrease my shutter speed to near what my lens is at in millimeters. Example: I have a 50mm lens, shooting in low light, I might be able to get away with shooting at a shutter speed of 1/50th of second so long as my f-stop is wide open at 2.8 or lower.  Or I know that I have great handhold control, or I have a tripod.  I will adjust my ISO value up to allow enough speed to shoot with out blur.  Otherwise I want to keep my ISO values low as possible to remove grain out of the photo.

Oh boy, that was a long winded paragraph.  All of what I said above will snap after you have taken time to shoot with the camera.  However, those who keep their camera in the AUTO mode may never learn these things.  While AUTO mode is good for capturing a photo, you may also miss some photos, because your camera can't determine that a shot can be captured under certain lighting conditions.  Also, for special functions you will miss out all together such as taking photos of firework displays etc, where it require some manual adjustments to focus to a known distance in the dark etc.  AUTO mode remove the ability to do long shutter exposures, while this may not be important if you are not planning on taking photos in super low light or doing any astro photography or shooting vehicle movement to capture the long streaks of light.  Auto mode will most certainly be annoying for those of you with a built in on camera flash.  As it will trigger the flash when ever it deems there isn't enough light for the situation, less you disable that function in settings.  

Camera settings, it is too extensive to cover in a blog post.  However, I will mention a few things you might want to learn about for those with DSLR cameras.  One, image stabilization.  Some cameras rely solely on the IS or IF functions builtin to the lens for stabilization but there is a trend for in body stabilization in particularly with the Sony® cameras.  Shutter Release without lens function.  Important if you have old lenses or new manual only lenses you will be using with your camera body.  It allows the camera to trigger the shutter even when the lens isn't sending a signal back to the camera that it is in the proper mode.  Focus peaking, some cameras now have focus peaking features that highlight the edges of the subject in focus (normally while shooting in manual mode or manual focus mode).  The peaking feature may allow you to adjust the color of the highlight function and wet the level of intensity it is at. Photo quality modes; the modes that adjust the type of photos you will produce in terms of JPG, TIFF or RAW or combination of two.  If you will be sending photos to the internet or to a phone, then you may want to check out the wifi or bluetooth functions of the camera.  Also if your camera is equipped with GPS ability, you can determine if you want that one for all your photos.  Remember though, it will cause more battery usage for GPS locating.  Set up you video mode you normally will film at.  Those with a higher end camera will want to determine the order that photos will be saved to each memory card, where the camera has two card slots.  Most settings you will set and leave it.  Then only change under certain conditions.  But if your camera has user mode preset functions for camera dials, you may want to adjust them to the shooting style you prefer.  This is a more advanced option not likely for beginners.  

 

Choosing peripherals or accessories for the camera like the right type of flash strobe, audio attachments, trigger devices, video output options etc.  I will not cover in this post, because they are all unique to the camera system you support.  I will say with all things you ordinarily get what you pay for, so if you want a good flash then the flash should be a good brand, have high index value and come with most the universal features other manufacturers offer.  Tripods, lamps and umbrellas and all that mambo jumbo is for the pro's.  I wouldn't mess with it unless you tend on going commercial.  Tripod ~maybe.  

Okay, you have done all that and you have read up on photography and all that junk; now you are out to take photos.  But they lack the luster you see on the web of those who take marvelous landscape photos.  You one, need more practice, two most all these photos takes weeks to capture just the right photo, three; you must position your camera in front of something that is worth taking a photo of to begin with, and fourth but not least; you must learn how to stack photos, bracket photos and operate a image editor.  The last part being the most critical.

Real life

As Seen on Web

Lastly practice taking photos all the time, practice on breathing control and your grip on the camera before you got to take that shot.  Remember, unless your shooting from a fixed position like a tree stand or from inside a vehicle you have options to move around.  Get up high, down low, shoot from the side of your subjects etc.  Make it interesting by changing up.  Don't be afraid to try different settings for those not so important shots.  That you might be ready for those that are important.  Simulate shooting conditions if you are going to be shooting something of high value.  Run through the photo shoot in your head and take your camera and simulate the lighting where you will be shooting at. Then you will be able to determine if you need lighting modifiers or your can just shoot with natural light.  If shooting people, always licit response from those who will be your subject, to get the most out of the photo session as possible.  Make a list of things needed and the shots your are required to get.  Make sure you take care of the essentials before venturing to other things.

 

Learn to visualize the photo before you take it, then make that photo as you see it.  Do so as much as possible in camera.  Everyone edits, don't let them lie to you.  Even Ansel Adams edited his photos.