Photography SDS

SDS 10                                                                        Canic Ng

        In the modern age of digital cameras, the skill involved in taking a good picture has decreased, how many people depend on using the presetting.  Has anyone ever considered what the M setting is for, how about the Tv setting or the Av setting?  I think not, so in this essay, it will be teaching you how to use a camera, more specifically using the M setting, the important vocabulary, how to compose a good picture, what rules to follow to get a good picture.

        One might be thinking, “ I don’t need to learn this stuff, when will I ever use it?” but think about it.  Have anyone ever seen the perfect scene but, no matter how much one tries the camera just doesn’t listen to your pleads for a good picture, it just follows what it was programmed to do.  You can make that scenario go away, by learning about your camera, how every part contributes to a picture, and how to not depend on the automated function the goal of this essay is to empower the reader with new found knowledge.  In this essay it will be focusing more around a SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera.

        Now one might be wondering what a SLR camera is now.  A SLR is a type of camera that uses a movable mirror placed between the lens and the film to project the image seen through the lens.  Because it uses a mirror and a pentaprism, an SLR is more bulky than a conventional rangefinder camera, making it less appealing to the average consumer, but in a professional point of view, the SLR camera is much better than a conventional camera, because it allows more control over the focusing, because there is a analog picture of the subject instead of a digital screen that might not have enough sharpness to make a correct focus.  Because of parallax a normal camera would not be able to take a picture of a subject close in, even though this has changed with most digital cameras because of the LCD screen, but the camera would have to have a certain lens to capture that particular image, and making the SLR more favorable, because of it’s ability to change lenses, and to have a direct view of an object.

The basics in all digital cameras are a shutter, an aperture, the sensor, and the lens.  The shutter is what controls the exposure duration, and in turn control the amount of time the sensor is exposed to the light, the more time, the more light that gets into the camera, the longer the exposure the lighter the photo, one might use this to their advantage for making effects such as motion blurring the subject, ribboning in water, and stopping the action, but prolonging a shutter you would need a steady hand, and to balance out the exposure with another setting, that where the aperture comes in.  In the camera the aperture controls the amount of light that goes through in the specific time that was set, the aperture is measured in F-stops.  The sensor is the element that captures the light and turns it into a data that can be stored and viewed on the computer, the sensor most likely can be switched to a high sensitivity or low sensitivity to suit the need of the picture, the problem are that in high sensitivity the picture will start looking grainy and will affect the quality of the picture, the sensitivity are measured by ISO, ISO are an international standard that is responsible for standardizing the film speed, and of many other things such as, the standardization of coated grain surfaces (sand paper).  So now one knows was the main component of a camera, how do you pick a good camera to take the perfect picture?

On any digital camera take the time, and look, see how many pixels there are on the camera, the more might be better, but it also costs more.  The truth is that one only need three mega-pixels to print out a full-page photo, without the photo being pixilated or grainy, so in the end the more pixels just let the editor play around with the image, but three is just a baseline you should look for in a camera.  Also in every camera there is a lens, the lens are a very critical component of a camera.  Without a good lens those extra pixels that you spent so much on will be wasted, it’s full potential will never be reached, for the lens it should have a wide aperture so that more light can come in low light conditions so the camera doesn’t rely on high ISO to capture an image.  Also in a camera one might want to look for a camera with a high optical zoom, without digital zoom of course.  In most SLR cameras you will be able to swap the lenses for different uses.

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In a different light there are many different camera system, which of them are the best?  Most professional photographers use a SLR camera because it allows them to use different lenses with the same camera body, and because instead of using two lenses one for the eye and one for the camera, which creates a parallax, what the photographer see in the viewfinder is what the picture will be, because of that one can also do the focusing manually do create the desired effect, but because a SLR camera is more bulky, doesn’t have a live view of the ...

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