If we look at the simple definition, it is the process of capturing light and storing the image. However it can be so much more complex than that. What makes it art is perhaps the ability to use light to paint a vision the artist sees.

Parts of the Camera

Lens

The lens, which is made of glass, is used to let light into the camera. Some cameras have a single, built-in lens while others have detachable lenses. The type of lens you use affects the appearance of the image. Some lenses create distortion, while others create a very close approximation to what is seen with the human eye. The role of the lens is to bend light to focus on the sensor inside the camera body.

LCD Screen

The majority of cameras on the market today come standard with an LCD screen. Older film and digital cameras may not have one. The LCD screen is used to view and change options and settings, view pictures after they are shot, and on some cameras, as a viewfinder. Some cameras allow you to edit photos while they are still on camera, and the LCD screen makes this possible.

Holding the Camera

If you have not picked up your camera yet, this is actually one of the first steps to creating successful images. Holding it steady that is. Stand with your feet at a comfortable distance apart to give you stability. You may find that a wall to lean on would also be helpful. Pull your elbows into your sides or find something at a suitable height that they can rest on like a table, chair or fence post, to help stabilize the camera.

Lighting

Lighting is an important factor for a good shot but you will find that using the existing lighting can be problematic and sometimes a bit boring. Existing lighting consists of natural lighting like the sun and artificial lighting like the light on a desk. That said, existing lighting can create very interesting photos if you know what to look for, like interesting shadows or reflections. The image below uses an amazing sunset to provide backlight for the subject; however an overcast day can also create a good atmosphere as seen beside it.

The characteristics of light

It is important to give you a bit of theory about the characteristics of light at this point. Our brains have an amazing ability to adapt to different conditions, so you might not have noticed that not all light sources are white. In fact most are not white at all. The sun gives off a blue cast and indoor lights generally reflect more yellow and orange. The camera is not quite as adaptable as our brains so there may be times when you will need to tell it what light situation you are shooting in. This is called white balance and most cameras will have the ability to manually choose a setting. If you have an SLR camera you might have slightly more control with an option that allows you to use a neutral grey card to calibrate the white balance. Take a few minutes and practice setting the while balance on your camera

The images below demonstrates how using the wrong setting in the first example created a blue cast on this image shot outside. In the second image the setting was changed to outside lighting and looks much more natural. You should have noticed a yellow or orange tint to images shot inside with a daylight setting. This is clearly not what you want, so don't forget to check your white balance.

Light Levels

A common complaint when shooting inside is the fact that lower light levels can result in images that are dark or blurry. Extra light from a flashlight or lamp bounced off a wall might help. You might consider positioning your subject close to a window to take advantage of the sunlight. Just don't forget about white balance.

If you are outside the problem is the opposite. The light from the sun is so bright that it can make your images look washed out. Try moving so the sun is behind you or make use of a shadow from a building to cut the glare from the sun. You may also want to experiment with the different picture icon settings you have. You will probably have settings for portraits, landscapes, fast action, and close-ups. These are camera presets for optimal shutter and aperture settings for those kinds of shots. If you do not have manual control of these settings, experiment to see what happens when you use the presets for different situations.

Composition

Have you ever seen photographers make a little window at arm's length with their hands? Sometimes this is done to get a clearer idea of the composition. Composition is the way in which all the elements in a photograph are arranged. It is the design phase of photography. Similar to a graphic designer, a photographer composes by arranging the elements in the scene. The necessary elements and the position of the main subject in the picture should be the first considerations when composing a picture.

We will address principles and elements in photography later on in this section.

The Necessary Elements for the Picture - The key to a strong image lies in its simplicity.

There should be nothing in the photograph that doesn't contribute to its overall message. This isn't to say that the photograph must be sparse, but that all its elements must add up to something that makes sense. You must always be on your guard against backgrounds that distract, subjects that compete, and inclusion of the extraneous and unessential. You probably don't want a kid waving in the background of your image for this year's top athlete. Ask yourself what's important to the shot, and don't rely on post-processing to fix your mistakes.

Going beyond the automatic settings

Rule of thirds

Stronger points of placement are suggested by the rule of thirds, which recommends that you mentally divide the rectangular frame of your photograph into thirds both horizontally and vertically. This creates four points where the imaginary lines intersect. These points of intersection create strong areas where the image can be placed. They are called hot spots or power points in a composition. When the subject is located at one of these points, it creates a more pleasing composition.

Taking pictures of people is a bit more complicated as split second decisions need to be made. You have to keep in mind that whether you are shooting still images or capturing video footage, there is an expectation from the viewer for movement in the frame. This will be most critical when you are shooting in profile. If the subject is placed in the center of the frame with even amounts of space before and behind the subject, the person will lack direction.

There will be times when you need to take a shot that places the person in the middle of the picture especially if it is a one-shot. Consideration should be taken regarding the amount of space above the person's head, called head room. If you leave too little, the person may look cramped in the frame and if you leave too much it will make the person look lost in the frame. There is no special formula— just good judgment.

In general positioning the subject's eyes one third of the way down the frame is a good start. This principle also works when there are more people. You will note that the girls' heads are positioned in the upper two hot spots.

Using the Three Kings to take a perfect picture

As you point your camera at a subject and press the shutter button, the subject gets into your camera lens in a form of light. If your subject is well-lit, there is plenty of light that travels into the lens, whereas if you are taking a picture in a dim environment, there is not much light that travels into the lens. When the light enters the lens, it passes through various optical elements made of glass, then goes through the lens “Aperture” (a hole inside the lens that can be changed from small to large). Once the light goes past the lens aperture, it then hits the shutter curtain, which is like a window that is closed at all times, but opens when needed. The shutter then opens in a matter of milliseconds, letting the light hit the camera sensor for a specified amount of time. This specified amount of time is called “Shutter Speed” and it can be extremely short (up to 1/8000th of a second) or long (up to 30 seconds). The sensor then gathers the light, based on a pre-defined sensitivity, also known as “ISO”. Then the shutter closes and the light is completely blocked from reaching the camera sensor.

To get the image properly exposed, so that it is not too bright or too dark, Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO need to play together. When lots of light enters the lens (let’s say it is broad daylight with plenty of sunlight), what happens when the lens aperture/hole is very small? Lots of light gets blocked. This means that the camera sensor would need more time to collect the light. What needs to happen for the sensor to collect the right amount of light? That’s right, the shutter needs to stay open longer. So, with a very small lens aperture, we would need more time, i.e. longer shutter speed for the sensor to gather enough light to produce a properly exposed image.

When aperture is right/wrong

Now what would happen if the lens aperture/hole was very big (low F number)? Obviously, a lot more light would hit the sensor, so we would need a much shorter shutter speed for the image to get properly exposed. If the shutter speed is too low, the sensor would get a lot more light than it needs and the light would start “burning” or “overexposing” the image, just like magnifying glass starts burning paper on a sunny day. The overexposed area of the image will look very bright or pure white. In contrast, if the shutter speed is way too high, then the sensor is not able to gather enough light and the image would appear “underexposed” or too dark. There's a fine balance between aperture and shutter speed, as one increases, the other must decrease to balance the shot.

ISO - when you can't use aperture and shutter speed to fix the shot

Remember, ISO means sensor sensitivity. Lower numbers mean lower sensitivity, while higher numbers mean higher sensitivity. If you were to change your ISO from 200 to 400, you would be making the sensor twice more sensitive to light. If you are trying to take a shot and you've gotten your aperture wide open and your shutter speed needs to be fast enough to freeze a moment and the shot is still too dark, then you need to increase the sensitivity of your sensor. At this point you'd start increasing ISO to the point where you consider the noise level of the image to be no longer ideal.

Typical examples

1. What should I do in low-light situations? Use Aperture-Priority mode, set your aperture to the lowest possible number. Be careful if you have a fast lens such as Nikon 50mm f/1.4, because setting aperture to the lowest number (f/1.4) will make the depth of field very shallow. Set your “Auto ISO” to “On” (if you have it) and make sure that the maximum ISO and minimum shutter speed are both defined, as shown in section 3. If after increasing your ISO you are still getting small shutter speeds (which means that you are in a very dim environment), your only other options are to either use a tripod or a flash. If you have moving subjects that need to be “frozen”, you will have to use flash.

2. What do I need to do to freeze action? First, you will need plenty of light. Freezing action during the broad daylight is easy, whereas it is extremely tough to do it in low-light situations. Assuming you have plenty of light, make sure that your aperture is set to the lowest number (again, be careful about depth of field), then set your “Auto ISO” to “On” (if you have it) and set your minimum shutter speed to a really high number such as 1/500th or 1/1000th of a second. For my bird photography, I try to keep shutter speeds at 1/1000th of a second and faster.

3. What settings do I need to change to create a motion blur effect? Turn off Auto ISO and set your ISO to the lowest number. If the shutter speed is too fast and you still cannot create motion blur, increase aperture to a higher number until the shutter speed drops to a low number below 1/100-1/50 of a second.

4. What do I do if I cannot get proper exposure? The image is either too dark or too bright. Make sure that you are not shooting in Manual Mode. Set your camera meter to “Evaluative” (Canon) or “Matrix” (Nikon). If it is already set and you are still getting improper exposure, it means that you are probably taking a picture where there is a big contrast between multiple objects (for example bright sky and dark mountains, or sun in the frame) – whatever you are trying to take a picture of is confusing the meter within your camera. If you still need to take a picture, set your camera meter to “Spot” and try to point your focus point to an area that is not too bright or too dark. That way you get the “sweet middle”.

5. How can I isolate my subject from the background and make the background (bokeh) look soft and smooth? Stand closer to your subject and use the smallest aperture on your lens. Some lenses can render background much better and smoother than others. If you do not like the bokeh on yours, consider getting a good portrait lens such as the Nikon 50mm f/1.4 or the Nikon 85mm f/1.4, which is considered to be one of the best lenses when it comes to bokeh.

6. How can I decrease the amount of noise/grain in my images? Turn off “Auto ISO” and set your ISO to the base ISO of the camera (ISO 100 on Canon and ISO 200 on Nikon).

Extra Info:

• Filetypes (jpg vs. RAW)

• VIRTUALCAMERA

What are some of the differences between these two photos by Annie Leibovitz?

Depth of field refers to the area in front of and behind a point focused on that is acceptably sharp. In more specific and practical terms we use the term F-Stop. The f-stop is derived from the mathematical relationship between the aperture diameter and the focal length of the lens. High depth of field shots have "high" F values on the 22 end of the scale (in reality they're lower values because the number is actually 1/22 so the larger the F number the smaller the actual fraction). F values closer to 1.8 lead to shallow depth of field shots (again it's 1/1.8 so is actually a larger value).

Depth of field is controlled by a few factors:

1. Aperture setting

2. The distance between the camera and the subject. The farther your camera is from the subject, the more everything is in focus

3. Focal length. The longer the lens, the more blur is produced.

In order to go to the lowest available aperture on your lens, you need to have it zoomed all the way out

All shots approx f ~ 2

Lightroom is like two programs at once: a cataloging software and a light editing software. It allows importing/saving, viewing, organizing, tagging, editing, and sharing large numbers of digital images. Unlike Photoshop, Lightroom's edits are always non-destructive by keeping the original image and the edits applied to it saved separately. There is however a catch depending on which version of LIghtroom you're using.

Lightroom Classic

When you import photos into Lightroom, you create a link between the photo itself and the record of the photo in the catalog. In the case of importing from a camera or card reader, Lightroom copies the photos to your hard drive and adds the links to the photos in the catalog. However, if the photo location is ever moved, the link breaks and you have to re-link it again before Lightroom will display the image.

WHAT THAT MEANS FOR YOU IS COPY YOUR PICTURES OFF OF YOUR SD CARD TO A LOCATION AND DON'T MOVE THE LOCATION.

The first time you start lightroom you will be asked to define a catalogue location. I recommend keeping a single catalogue for all of your shots throughout the semester, but you could create different catalogues for each assignment conceivably. Note, if you move computers and your catalogue is on the local disk drive then you will have to copy it across to the new computer you're working on.

Lightroom CC

This version of lightroom keeps your changes across platforms by storing your photos and changes in the cloud. It is a great application since it will track you across your devices (computer, camera and has a web interface). We will NOT be using this. As a professional you well may use this version of lightroom, but because of privacy concerns we'll only use Classic at school and if you install at home, also at home.

When importing, you work from left to right in the import window.

–First, on the left, identify what files you want to import (the source files).

–Then, in the middle of the window, choose how you want to import them into the catalog (when importing from a camera or card, you copy them).

–Finally, on the right, specify where you want to store the files (the destination folder) and other options for the imported files.

Across the top right you'll notice various functions within lightroom. The two most important in this course are LIBRARY MODE and DEVELOP MODE.

In LIBRARY MODE:

It is the 'Organizer' like in Adobe Photoshop Elements and other image organizers. This module imports and exports images, creates image collections, organizes images by their metadata, and adds ratings to them. Metadata is crucial in helping search (mining) catalogues for useful images once you get a large number of photos. It also allows for "Quick Developing" which is when you want to apply a simple alteration (e.g. black & white filter) to one or more shots.

In DEVELOP MODE:

Supports non-destructive editing of images. This module is more for retouching, i.e., enhancing and improving digital photographs, including changing color balance, improving tone, removing red-eye effect, sharpening, reducing noise, cropping, straightening or converting to black-and-white. It has very limited photo doctoring features. It has several standard presets for color correction or effects, and supports sharing custom presets online. Another often used feature in the Develop module is the ability to synchronize edits from one selected photo to the whole selection. E.g. you make a colour or lens correction for one photo and you can paste it across many others.

Online Lightroom

If you're using the online version of Lightroom you can edit the photos you've taken on any interface (computer or phone or chromebook or PC) and they changes will appear everywhere. You won't experience the broad range of tools available in Lightroom Classic (really it should be called Lightroom Develop).

On the other hand, shutter speed can also be used to do just the opposite – freeze motion. If you use an especially fast shutter speed, you can eliminate motion even from fast-moving objects, like birds in flight, or cars driving past. If you use a fast shutter speed while taking pictures of a water, each droplet will hang in the air completely sharp, which might not even be visible to our own eyes.

All of the above is achieved by simply controlling the shutter speed. In summary, quick shutter speeds freeze action, while long shutter speeds create an effect of motion when you photograph moving objects. Remember paradoxically though a slow shutter speed actually has a LOWER looking value on your camera because shutter speed = 1/value. When we want fast shutter speeds, we want very small slices of time and thus the bottom of the fraction gets big making the overall speed fast.

Shutter Speed and Exposure

The other important effect of shutter speed is on exposure, which relates to the brightness of an image. If you use a long shutter speed, your camera sensor gathers a lot of light, and the resulting photo will be quite bright. By using a quick shutter speed, your camera sensor is only exposed to a small fraction of light, resulting in a darker photo.

All things being equal: if you want to control how frozen or blurred a subject is you want to use shutter speed priority and control the speed of the shutter and let the camera control aperture and ISO automatically.

If you want to control how deep your depth of field is and don't care about how long the shutter's open then you want to use aperture priority.

Most cameras handle shutter speeds automatically by default. When the camera is set to “Auto” mode, the shutter speed is selected by the camera without your input (and so are aperture and ISO). However, you can still set shutter speed manually if necessary:

1. By setting the camera to “Shutter Priority” mode (S on Nikons, Tv on Canons), you choose the shutter speed, and the camera automatically selects the aperture.

2. By setting the camera to “Manual” mode, you choose both shutter speed and aperture manually.

Within both of these modes, you can choose to set ISO manually or automatically.

How to Find Shutter Speed

Do you know how to find what your camera shutter speed is set to? It is typically very easy to find the shutter speed. On cameras that have a top panel, the shutter speed is typically located on the top left corner, as circled:

What is Metering?

Metering (also known as “using the light meter”) is how your camera determines what the correct exposure should be, depending on the amount of light that goes into the camera and the sensitivity of the image sensor (ISO).

A Brief Note on the Problems with Metering:

Camera meters work great when the scene is lit evenly. However, it gets problematic and challenging for light meters to determine the exposure, when there are objects with different light levels and intensities. For example, if you are taking a picture of the blue sky with no clouds or sun in the frame, the image will be correctly exposed, because there is just one light level to deal with. The job gets a little harder if you add a few clouds into the image – the meter now needs to evaluate the brightness of the clouds versus the brightness of the sky and try to determine the optimal exposure. As a result, the camera meter might brighten up the sky a little bit in order to properly expose the white clouds – otherwise, the clouds would look too white or “overexposed”.

What would happen if you added a big mountain into the scene? Now the camera meter would see that there is a large object that is much darker (relative to the clouds and the sky), and it would try to come up with something in the middle, so that the mountain is properly exposed as well. By default, the camera meter looks at the light levels in the entire frame and tries to come up with an exposure that balances the bright and the dark areas of the image.

The most common metering modes in digital cameras today are:

1. Matrix Metering (Nikon), also known as Evaluative Metering (Canon)

2. Center-weighted Metering

3. Spot Metering

AutoExposure-Lock / AutoFocus-Lock

The AE-L / AF-L button stands for “AutoExposure-Lock and AutoFocus-Lock” and its primary function is to lock camera exposure and/or focus. What does this exactly mean? If you are using any of the camera modes like Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority or other scene modes, the button could be used to force the camera to use a certain value for shutter speed, aperture, ISO and white balance. Since in any of the automatic modes the camera uses its metering sensor to determine the optimal exposure, instead of having your camera re-evaluate the light every time you recompose, you could lock the exposure to a value you are comfortable with – hence the term “AutoExposure-Lock”. There are many cases where using this feature is very helpful. One example is when you photograph panoramas. It is extremely important to use exactly the same exposure from frame to frame in panoramic photography. If one exposure differs from another, it is practically impossible for panoramic software to stitch images together in a consistent, continuous form. Another good example is if you are photographing a subject with a constantly changing background and you want to expose the subject exactly the same way from shot to shot. Basically, any time consistency of exposure is required and you do not want to switch to a full manual mode, the AE-L button can be very useful.

What about AutoFocus-Lock (AF-L)? Similar to exposure lock, autofocus lock can be used to stop the camera from making the lens reacquire focus when you recompose. For example, if you are photographing indoors in dim environment, you will find that using the center focus point is going to give you the most accurate results. This is because the center focus point is always the most accurate, especially on entry-level DSLRs that only have one cross-type sensor. So if you want to use the center focus point to acquire focus, it does not always mean that you want to position your subject in the center. As soon as you recompose your shot and half-press the shutter button again, the camera will be forced to reacquire focus. If the camera is set to “AF-C” or “Continuous Focus Mode”, then the camera will always continuously reacquire focus when you half-press the shutter button and recompose your shot. So if you do not want to deal with these situations, you could use the AutoFocus-Lock feature of the camera to lock the focus on your subject, then you could recompose the shot and take a picture. The focus will remain on your subject and will not change, as long as you continue to hold the button. Please note that you have to be careful when recomposing shots like this, because the focus plane that is parallel to camera sensor changes, which will often result in bad focus when using large apertures.

Light from different sources can actually have different colours- colour temperatures.

• Direct sunlight (around noon) = “normal” colour temperature - about 5000K)

• Incandescnet light bulb = more orange than sunlight (warmer) -about 3200K)

• Shady areas = more blue than sunlight (cooler) -about 6500K

Have you ever taken a photograph that looks too blue or orange and when you looked at the scene it looks normal?

Our brain compensates for different colour temperatures, so we just see it as a normal colour. The camera does not automatically compensate for different colour temperatures (unless you set the camera accordingly) Cameras capture the light and colour temperatures that are actually in a scene, not what your eye sees.

White balance balances the colour temperatures in your image. It adds the opposite colour in an attempt to bring the colour temperature back to neutral. Instead of whites appearing blue or orange, they should appear white after correctly white balancing an image. Most cameras come with the option to manually set or adjust the white balance.

Basic White Balance Settings

●Auto – this is where the camera makes a best guess on a shot by shot basis. You’ll find it works in many situations but it’s worth venturing out of it for trickier lighting.

●Tungsten – this mode is usually symbolized with a little bulb and is for shooting indoors, especially under tungsten (incandescent) lighting (such as bulb lighting). It generally cools down the colors in photos.

●Fluorescent – this compensates for the ‘cool’ light of fluorescent light and will warm up your shots.

●Daylight/Sunny – not all cameras have this setting because it sets things as fairly ‘normal’ white balance settings.

●Cloudy – this setting generally warms things up a touch more than ‘daylight’ mode.

●Flash – the flash of a camera can be quite a cool light so in Flash WB mode you’ll find it warms up your shots a touch.

●Shade – the light in shade is generally cooler (bluer) than shooting in direct sunlight so this mode will warm things up a little.

In most cases you can get a pretty accurate result using the above preset white balance modes - but some digital cameras (most DSLRs and higher end point and shoots) allow for manual white balance adjustments also. You can do this by buying yourself a white or grey card which is specifically designed for the task.

How to manually set white balance:

Inside your camera's menu find White Balance on the shooting menu options.

Scroll down until you see PRE setting (photo below) and highlight that. It stands for Preset and is Nikon's terminology for custom white balance.

Hold down your WB (white balance) button for a few seconds until your LED display is flashing. Alternately if your model doesn't do that, find the PRE setting in your menu and press your toggle to the right, choose “Measure” and set for Okay.

Take a photo of the gray card

You're done, it should now be set.