Photography Tips for Beginners

Cameras today offer a wide range of settings from fully automatic, to fully manual, to everything in between. There are advantages and disadvantages to all of the modes, but it is very much to your advantage to learn what they are and how to best utilize them to their fullest potential.

Fully Automatic or Program Mode: Both terms mean the same thing depending on the brand of camera that you have. Great for quick point and shoot photography or if you haven't picked up your camera in a few months and are not sure which settings are the best to use. Works in most situations to get a decent to good photo for you, but can easily be fooled by lighting conditions that it doesn't interpret properly.

Aperture Preferred Mode:Allows you to set the Aperture and the camera set the shutter for you. Good for when you want to control the depth of field and are not concerned about the speed of the shutter as much.

Shutter Preferred Mode:Great for when you have fast moving objects and are most interested in freezing the action and less concerned about depth of field.

Scene Mode:The scene settings basically clue the camera in on what type of subject you are shooting. i.e. Portrait mode will fuzz out the background (shallow depth of field) so that the subject is in focus but the background will be more subdued. Scene modes tell the camera how to be a little smarter about how to handle assisting you in taking a great photo.

Fully Manual:This is where you have total control over the camera. As a professional, this is pretty much the only mode I use. It allows me to totally change and control all of the settings to get them exactly where I want them for a great photo.

Photography Tips: Don't let manual mode intimidate you. It basically is just letting you set aperture, shutter speed, white balance, and iso. Truth be told, set the camera on auto white balance for most everything and auto white balance (both set via the cameras menu), and you really only have to set aperture and shutter speed!

The aperture works just like the iris in your eye. It opens to let in more light, and closes down when you go outside to keep too much light from entering your eye.

Depth of field control is primarily the purpose of setting the aperture. In the next section, depth of field is fully explained. The aperture or "f/stops" as they are called are really fractional numbers, thus the reason the aperture gets smaller as the number goes up. i.e. f/16 is really 1/16. Each f/stop as the number increases lets in half the amount of light. i.e. f/4 lets in twice as much light as f/2.8.

The larger the f/stop, the more depth of field you have. If you are taking a photo of say a person and you want the background fuzzy and just the subject in focus, use an f/stop in the f/2.8 to f/4 range. If you want everything in focus, choose an f/stop in the f/11 to f/16 range.

These are just approximations to give you an idea and a ballpark to with within. Once you master the concepts of f/stops you'll easily see how to vary them to your advantage.

Depth of Field controls just what is in and out of focus in a photo. When you want the background (and to some extent the foreground) out of focus, use a large f/stop in the f/2.8 to f/4 range. For photographing groups of people, landscapes, and to have everything in focus, lean towards the f/11 to f/16 range.

Three things will affect the depth of field...

1) The focal length of the lens (wide angle vs. telephoto). The closer to telephoto the lens is, the less depth of field you will have.
2) The Aperture. f/2 is shallow, minimum depth of field while f/16 is maximum depth of field where everything is sharp.
3) Distance of the camera to the subject. The closer you are to the subject, the less depth of field you will have.

Shutter Speed allows you to capture a moment in time. The faster the shutter, the more it will freeze the action.

A slow shutter (1/30, 1/15, etc.) is great for blurring the action for effect or if the lighting is very low and you are not using a flash. You would use a slow shutter speed if for example you are photographing a waterfall and want to blur the water, or at the racetrack to blur the movement of the horses.

Be careful going too low with your shutter speed as you may end up with blurry photos. The lower the shutter speed you set, the longer the shutter is open. That means that tif you move the camera while taking the photo, it will be blurry. It's best to use a tripod with any shutter speed slower than say 1/60 of a second until you develop your technique and skills.

Also be aware that when using a flash, often you are limited to a maximum shutter speed for flash photography. Often this is around 1/250, but refer to your camera manual for the exact shutter speed you can use.

ISO is how you set how sensitive the camera is to light. Outdoors you want to set a low sensitivity like ISO100 since there is a lot of light outdoors and the camera doesn't need to be as sensitive to light to take photos. Also, if you set the ISO too high, you won't even be able to take photos outside since the camera is set to be very sensitive to light and will get overloaded by too much light.

High ISO settings are for shooting indoors or where there is a lot less light. It makes the camera more sensitive to light so that you can take photos with the minimum amount of additional light, like flash.

The general rule of thumb is to use as low of ISO as possible to still get the job done.

When shooting with flash, it's often good to use a higher ISO (i.e. ISO800) as this will require less flash which saves both your batteries and the eyes of the person you are probably photographing. Ideally you wan to use as little flash as possible to maintain the atmosphere of the surroundings you are photographing. This allows you to take more natural looking photos.

White Balance allows you to tell the camera what kind of light it will be photographing. i.e. daylight, indoors, flash, etc. These days auto white balance does a pretty good job of figuring it out for you, but if you encounter a scene where there is a a predominant color, like a room with a great deal of red for example, it's very possible that the camera won't be able to figure out when white balance to use.

The chart included here will give you a good idea where to set your camera if need be. For the most part though, use auto white balance and you'll get great photos. If the photo looks good on the display in the back of the camera, you're in good shape.

It would be a good idea though to practice a bit under different lighting conditions to get a feel for just what white balance can do in case you ever need it.

Often when photographing people you are shooting them early morning or late in the evening. Both of these times the white balance (color temperature of the light) is changing pretty quickly as the sun is rising or setting. This is where auto while balance will come in very handy as it will automatically adjust for the changing light conditions.

Half way between fully automatic and fully manual are the semi automatic modes. This allows the camera to handle some of the work and allows you to maintain a bit of flexibility in your camera settings.

Aperture Preferred: Often denoted by the "A" setting on your camera dial. The name may vary, depending on your camera make and model. The "A" setting allows you to control the aperture, while the camera controls the shutter for you.

Shutter Preferred: Often denoted by the "S" setting on your camera dial. The name may vary, depending on your camera make and model. The "S" setting allows you to control the shutter speed, while the camera controls the aperture for you.

Manual Mode: Often denoted by the "M" setting on your camera dial. The name may vary, depending on your camera make and model. The "M" setting allows you to control the aperture and the shutter speed.

Program Mode: Often denoted by the "P" setting on your camera dial. The name may vary, depending on your camera make and model. The "P" setting is equivalent to the automatic mode where the camera controls everything for you.

Scenic Mode: The scene settings (portrait, landscape, close-up, sports, etc.) let's you give the camera a better idea of what exactly it is that you are shooting so the camera can better control the settings to give you the best results.

Scene modes are a good compromise between fully automatic and fully manual. The camera does all the thinking, but you've made it a little smarter by setting the dial telling it what it is you are photographing.

The more advanced cameras have removable lenses to allow you the flexibility of using both higher quality lenses and different focal lengths without compromising quality.

Removable lenses add to the cost of your camera, require you to change lenses, and can be a pain to carry around, but they offer higher quality and more artistic flexibility so the tradeoff may be worth it to you.

Camera flashes come in various flavors and sizes. Some are even sophisticated enough to work together where you can group them to set up your own portable photo studio.

Unless you are well versed in flash photography, I would highly recommend sticking with the flash that is the same name brand as your camera as they tend to offer the best compatibility and ease of use.

Flashes tend to be compatible with the entire camera line, so if you change out your camera some day and stick with the same brand, then more than likely you won't need to buy a new flash.

There are many accessories available for flashes as well to help modify the light. As you get better at understanding the basics of flash photography you can easily and inexpensively add flash accessories to compliment your setup.

The list is almost endless. There are many accessories available to the avid photographer today. It's up to you and your wallet as to how far you go down this path of neat cool toys.

Start with the basics and you'll both be in great shape and not break the bank. A good camera bag can really help in keeping everything in one place, safe and protected, and allow you to easily transport your equipment to where ever you are shooting. I've personally used Lowepro bags for many, many years and they hold up incredibly well. If they can hold up to a professionals use, they will last a long time for you.

Photography Tips: A tripod can be very handy. From self portraits to long exposures at sunset, to anything where you need to keep the camera steady, you will find a tripod to be a valued accessory.

Composition allows you to frame a photograph in such a way as to make it more aesthetically pleasing to view. There are a few basic rules of thumb that will help to greatly improve your photos.

Photography Tips: Don't put the subject in the center of the viewfinder. Remember the game tic-tac-toe? Picture the crosshatch of that game in your viewfinder. Put your subject at any point where the lines intersect and you'll be in great shape. If the subject you are shooting is predominately horizontal, align it with the imaginary horizontal line. If vertical, align it with the vertical line.

This is called the rule of thirds and will vastly improve the look of your photos. Just by utilizing this one technique, you will be off to a great start in creating beautiful photos.

Photography Tips: Here is a simple chart that shows the relationship be aperture, shutter speed and iso. They all work in conjunction with each other and sometimes a chart like this can help it all to make sense.

Understanding the relationship between these three settings will allow you to master any camera that you have now or in the future. These are the fundamental settings that are on any camera.

And finally, have fun! Photography can bring such joy and passion to your life. Once you learn the basic settings of how to control your camera and they become second nature, you will really start to experience the joy of photography.

Freeing you mind from having to think about what setting to use or how to shoot a particular subject will allow you to get more creative and spread your artistic wings or at the very least, you'll be able to take great photos that you will be proud of for years to come.

The feeling of capturing an image that is uniquely yours or the expression on your child's face is truly amazing. Capture those fleeting moments in time forever and ignite your passion for photography. It will be a lifelong journey that you will thoroughly enjoy.

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