I always had an interest on taking photographs of human face and people. I have been taking lots of photos at my home, every single event I go or any place I visit. I thought that’s photography. Once I had a chance of seeing some pictures taken by people who are so passionate about photography. It looked completely different. Pictures were very colorful, sharp focused on one particular subject. And I saw different subjects other than human faces. And now I decided to go out with my point and shoot camera and shoot places and birds. Felt somewhat better with the result. Now thought of getting and better camera. Tried to understand the technical specification of a camera confused me a lot, then the lens. I finally bought beginner professional camera (which is the cheapest, but costliest for me). I am into photography only for this past 2 months. I had too may question on photography. I have spent lot of hours trying to understand from various WebPages, forums and people. I want to put to gather my understanding on photography so that it will be helpful for another beginner. I will be using very minimal technical jargon's for the simplicity. I am putting to gather little knowledge together to help the beginners like me.
About the camera
Main advantage of a DSLR camera is you can do that manual settings without letting the camera to use its auto settings. Other words understand the settings and use your intelligence to take the picture without depending on camera. Use appropriate lens based on the need are the main simple advantages.
When people think of buying the camera they always see only the MP (megapixels). Don’t think if the MP is higher you get a great picture. No. There are several other factors; MP will help you when making the maximum sized blowups or do heavy cropping (Resizing the photo to smaller size to focus on correct area and remove unwanted area.). Now we will see what camera to buy.
Go for professional camera where you can take control of the camera settings. Beginner, intermediate and pro cameras. It you are sure that you want to use your same camera for next five years at least, by a Pro one. If you buy a Beginner or intermediate camera, you may have to replace it in next 2 years. When you are getting more into it. You may have to sell your old ones. But for buying this budget does matter here.
| Camera Type | Approximate Price in India | Model examples |
| Beginner Camera | 35000 NRI | Nikon D3100 |
| Intermediate Camera | 70000 NRI | Nikon d7000 |
| Pro Camera | 100000 NRI | Nikon D300 |
Remember that photography is a (very very) costly hobby. (My examples are Nikon, as I have a Nikon). Canon or others will have some model similar to this).
Why do I have to a professional camera? What are the settings that I can make?
If you see any camera there are different modes of settings like
| Setting modes in camera | What it means |
| Auto | Camera decides everything |
| Portrait | Now you are getting better and saying the camera I am going to shoot human faces |
| Sports | Now you are getting better and saying the camera I am going to shoot a fast action |
| Night mode | Now you are getting better and saying the camera now it is too dark |
| Landscape | Now you are getting better and saying the camera now you are capturing a scenery |
| Programmed Auto | Camera sets both shutter speed and aperture for correct exposure |
| Shutter-Priority Auto | User selects shutter speed and camera sets matching lens aperture for correct exposure |
| Aperture-Priority Auto | User selects aperture and camera sets matching shutter speed for correct exposure |
| Manual | Now you are getting better and saying the camera I know what settings to make for Aperture, ISO, Shutter Speed, Etc . |
Play around with your camera in this order to understand more about the settings. Within a week you must be good to play with manual settings.
- Check for Auto focus motor in the camera rather than the lens. You can get a lens for a cheaper rate.
- There 2 major types of camera sensor, Full frame sensor and cropped sensor . Full frame sensor cameras are very costly. Most of the present cropped sensor.
In a professional camera you can see one more setting “M”, which means manual. You decide on what the setting should be. For example what does “Sports” mode does? It adjusts the camera “shutter speed” faster to capture the fast action. What does “NightMode” do? It adjusts the camera ISO. You go manual and set the shutter speed that you require or ISO that you require based on your knowledge. Sorry I started using technical jargons as “Shutter speed” and “ISO”. I will explain what these are.
Taking a picture is nothing but letting in the light to your camera sensor. You can let in the light by below mentioned means. But you need do decide on how you are going to do that. Main 3 settings to let the light in to your camera sensor is given below.
- Aperture (generally mentioned as "f" prefix to a number)
An opening through which light travels into your camera sensor. Usually represented as f 1.4 to f32. Least the number (f1.4) is called the big aperture. Bigger the number is called smaller aperture (f32). Aperture plays a lot of role on Depth of field (DOF). Bigger the aperture (f1.4) will give shallow depth of field (sharp focus only on the area that you focus, rest of the areas will be dim). Smaller aperture (f32) will give sharp DOF.
- Shutter Speed
- ISO
This can be used to in low light situations. But this will introduce some grains to the photograph.
You can let in the light by changing any of the settings.
o Moving the aperture to the lesser number (example f1.4)
o Moving to lower shutter speed (Example “2)
o Increasing the ISO (ISO 3200).
So when one is increased, we have to adjust the others 2 settings to compensate this. This comes only by experience.
Focusing
We can do manual focus or auto focus. Set the focus to “A” in lens or camera settings to auto focus. If you press the half way before taking picture will auto focus. Then press the button to take the picture. For Manual focus we need to change the setting to “M” in lens or camera settings and use the zoom ring in front of the lens to get the correct focus. Manual focus is suggested for controlled situations or when you are taking a macro short. Some times when your use manual focus can use it will be hard to focus through viewfiender (if your eyes are too sharp, may be you can). So change the view to LCD view and then try to focus so that the changes are visible in LCD.
Tips
- When you see through the viewfiender, you can see the aperture, shutter speed details. In the middle you can see the meter. This meter is the make sure the picture is correctly exposed. If it moves to the left hand side with a + symbol this means picture is over exposed (Picture will look more bright when over exposed. If underexposed it will look darker. So make sure the picture is correctly exposed.
- Shoot in RAW format if you are going to edit the picture and make some corrections. Initially when you are playing around .JPEG Fine should be good. Later after few months change the settings to RAW so the color and other corrections can be made.
Buying new lens
This is a very big time consuming task for a photographer. Deciding on what lens to buy and how much to spend. There are different types of lenses. The main 3 types are.
- Prime Lens
This has only one focal length like 35mm, 50mm etc. In other words no zoom. This one might cost around 5000 NRI to 20000 NRI. Comparatively cheaper lens. Good for low light situations and portraits.
- Zoom lens(Standard, telephoto)
Needed for shooting long distance objects. Get zoom up to 300mm or 400mm.
- Macro or close-up Lens
Required for extreme close-up shorts. Normal lens can’t focus very close object. Need this specialized lens for this.
Aperture – Higher the aperture costlier the lens.
Other features in a Lens
VR (image stabilization) – Reduces your hand shake so that you can get a better image. VR is a term used in Nikon lenses. Other brands will have some other term equitant for this. Line in sigma lens it is OS.
ED - They deliver stunning sharpness and contrast even at their large maximum apertures ED lenses is in fact so highly color-corrected. ED is a term used in Nikon lenses. Other brands will have some other term equitant for this. Line in sigma lens it is APO.
Other accessories
Tripod – This is required to get a stable shot,so that hand shake can be reduced.
Note: Photography require lots of accessories which I will add when I come to know about few more.
Other short cuts
Extension tubes – can be use for macro photography without buying a macro lens. This is just a empty tube which can be attached between the camera and the lens so that we can get closer to the object. Manual extension tubes (around 1000 NRI) are cheaper and auto (8000 NRI) are costlier.
Teleconverter (sometimes called tele extender) is used to increasing the zooming capacity of the existing lens.
Photo Editing
Unedited photo is not a complete photo in this digital world. Can use different software for correction the mistake that we made at the time of taking the picture.
Place in Chennai
Good place to buy photography relates stuff in Chennai is Ellis Street (It took 2 months for me to know this J ). There are lots for shops where you can look for a better deal.
Final suggestion
- Go around with your camera.
- Visit lots of different places.
- Know about the birds, flowers, etc names of the subjects that you shooting. This will make the work more interesting.
- Try different styles like macro, portrait, landscape and abstract.
- See lots of pictures taken by others and get inspired
Akalaivan (aka Ganesh Chandrasekaran)
