Photography Notes

5 Quick Tips for Photography –

1. Shoot in Aperture Priority Mode
2. Shoot in RAW (not JPEG)
3. To Avoid Blurry Photos:
i. Use a Fast Shutter Speed
ii. Use a Tripod
iii. If Tripod isn’t available:
A. properly grip the camera with one hand and place the other hand under the body to support
and stabilize.
B. For vertical, the grip hand should be on top when shooting vertically. The bottom hand will be
able to better stabilize the camera versus the other.
C. Bring your elbows into your body real tight, focus on the subject, and as you’re about to take
the photo, hold your breath and squeeze the shutter release button.
4. Adjust the diopter of the camera until things become clear in the viewfinder.
5. Have your photos reviewed by another like-minded photographer.

Painting with light –

1. Light = Paint
2. Media-card = Canvas
3. Camera Gear = Brush
Ways to Control Light to Paint with:
1. Camera Gear
2. Lenses
3. Light Modifiers
4. Editing

• The size of the aperture controls how much light reaches your camera sensor.
• Digital camera sensor is not sensitive to light.

The three main elements of photography are ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed.

ISO – ISO is the camera setting that can affect the brightness of available light during capture. The higher the
ISO number is the light we paint becomes brighter.
ISO amplifies the light to be brighter. The higher the ISO, the noisier the photo.

Aperture – Aperture is a hole in your lens. We can control how big the hole is. The bigger the hole, the more
light is sent to the camera; the smaller the hole, the less light travels through the camera. The size of the
hole is represented by a number like F/2.8, F/4, F/8, F/16, etc. The smaller number, the larger the hole, and
the larger number smaller the hole.
Shutter Speed – A shutter in front of the camera sensor blocks the light from being recorded. When we
create a photo, the shutter opens and the sensor can record the light. How long the shutter opens is based
on the speed we set for the shutter. Some common shutter speeds are 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000,
1/2000, etc.

Shutter Speed:
Slower = More light
Faster = Less light

ISO tips -
1. When shooting outdoors on a bright sunny day, use the lowest ISO available on the camera, for
example, ISO 100.
2. If it’s partly cloudy or completely cloudy use ISO 400 to 800 depending on how dark the clouds are and
how much sunlight it is restricting.
3. When shooting indoors, use ISO 800 to 1600 or higher depending on how dark it is inside.

• The larger the aperture, the more the background is blurred out.
• When it comes to the area of focus, this is referred to as Depth of Field (D.O.F).

Large D.O.F = more in-focus

Small D.O.F = less in-focus

• The closer you are to the subject that you’re focusing on the shallower or the smaller the D.O.F.
• The greater the distance between the camera and the subject that you’re focusing on the greater the
depth of the field.

Small aperture no. like 1.8 represents a small D.O.F and a large number like 16 means a large D.O.F.

• An aperture number in photography is referred to as an F-number

• F in F-number stands for Focal Length. Each of your lenses has a specific focal length represented in
millimeters (mm).

Shutter Speed provides two creative options, either to freeze the action or blur the action.

• The speed of the subject can affect the amount of blur and so does the distance of the subject from your
camera.
• The farther your subject is from the camera the less blurring will occur.

Shutter Speed Tips –

• When it comes to photographing kids or people in general, sports o even wildlife and you wish to freeze
the action, a good starting point is 1/500th of a second.
• If the action is really fast and you’re close to it then you may want to go up to 1/2000th of a second or
faster like 1/4000th of a second.
• Sometimes adding motion blur can help create something unique.
• Panning is a technique to create motion blur more on the surroundings than the actual because you’re
focusing on that particular subject.
• When it comes to shooting landscape there is generally little to no action in the scene unless of
• course, you’re shooting a waterfall or a landscape on a windy day.

Pro-tip to reduce blurring from camera shake:

• Based on the lens you’re using, take the focal length and double it. If it’s a zoom lens, for example, 18-
55, use the longest length, in this case, 110, and then we convert that into shutter speed which would
be 1/110th of a second. If the camera doesn’t have the shutter speed then round up. So, in this case,
1/125 of a second is the minimum shutter speed, we should use for this lens.

When your camera gets the exposure wrong you have two options that include:
• Changing the default light metering mode or
• Adjusting the exposure value also known as exposure compensation.

There are 3 popular types of metering modes that include:

• Matrix or Evaluative metering
• Center Weighted metering
• Spot metering

Matrix or Evaluative metering – The Matrix or Evaluative metering mode is designed to evaluate all the
light you see in your viewfinder. It evaluates the light in 5 different zones and then calculates the
different light levels in each section to give you exposure.

Center Weighted metering – The Center-Weighted metering mode evaluates the light more towards the
center of the viewfinder and ignores the light outside of it.

Spot metering – The Spot Metering mode is even smaller at around 3 – 5 % of the viewfinder area and
basically, it only evaluates the light in that small spot in the center of your viewfinder.

Exposure Tips –
• The matrix mode is great where the lighting situation is like this:
• If the lighting of the scene is backlit, the matrix metering mode will be going to overcompensate the
large brightness level and will further underexpose the image.
• Matrix metering mode is great even on cloudy days where the light is muted.

A stop in photography is the terminology we use to describe what happens to the amount of light
reaching your camera for your exposure based on when you change a camera setting from one to
another. In essence, a stop refers to doubling the amount of light or cutting the amount of light in half.
So, when you switch from ISO 100 to 200 that is considered one stop. Going from F/4 to F/2.8 is one
stop, going from 1 second to 2 seconds.

• Increasing the exposure by 1 stop means you’re doubling the amount of light. 2 stops would then
quadruple the amount of light.
• Decreasing by 1 stop cuts the amount of light in half. 2 stops is a reduction to ¼ of the light.

What is the Dynamic Range?

In essence, the dynamic range in photography refers to the range in which your camera can successfully
capture the brightest and darkest area of a scene without losing detail.

In nature, you can say there’s an infinite level of brightness from blacks to whites and grays in between. This
brightness range can be measured in stops.

Both your camera and your eyes are not capable of seeing every level of brightness depending on the
intensity of light in your scene. When it comes to your eyes, you can see around 24 stops of brightness
levels. High-end cameras range from 10 -14 stops and lower-end or older cameras are closer to 7 stops. So,
this means your camera is not capturing details in the darkest areas of the shadows or the brightest areas in
the highlights. If you expose the highlights, you’ll capture those details but you’ll lose more details in the
shadows. This is known as exposing to the right which is better than exposing to the left or the shadows.

What is a Tonal Range?

The Tonal Range refers to the brightness levels captured by your camera but it is directly related to the
tones captured by your camera.

To overcome the camera’s inability to give you desired exposure, here’s the solution:
• Control the Light – by diffusing it or maybe you can add more light to the shadows. Now if you’re a
landscape photographer it is difficult to control the light this way. What you can do is use a polarizing
filter to darken up parts of the scene or the landscape or you can use a graduated neutral density filter
which is going to darken up the sky and the scene even more which is going to reduce the number of
stops in your scene.
• HDR Photography – which consists of taking one underexposed, one overexposed each by one stop, and
then the third exposure in between. Then in post-production, you can merge the three exposures to get
more detail in the shadows and highlights.
How do you know if you have the correct exposure?

Histogram – A histogram is nothing more than a graphical representation of data using bars of different
heights. Those bars represent the different tonal ranges or brightness levels captured by your camera.

The tonal range of histogram:

The tonal range goes from zero percent or pure black to up to 100 percent or pure white and everything
else in between is a shade of gray. So, these different shades of gray are divided up into five zones
within your histogram. Each zone of your histogram of course represents a different level of brightness.
In addition to those zones, there’s also a black point and a white point.

Deep dive into five zones of your histogram, the black and white point:
• The very first bar of your histogram is the number zero and is pure black. It is known as the black
point. It is the darkest part of your image and contains no detail.
• The last bar is number 255 and is pure white. It is known as the white point. It is the brightest
part of your image and contains no detail.
• Next to the black point, we have 25 more bars known as the blacks. In essence, the blacks are a
lighter shade of pure black and unlike the black point contains detail in that tonal range.
• The blacks are followed by what is known as shadows. It includes 51 bars.
• Next you have your mid-tones which include a whopping 102 bars that represent a large portion
of mid-gray tones.
• The next zone is known as highlights which also have 51 bars.
• The final zone is known as whites and it consists of 25 bars. So, the whites are a darker shade of
pure white.

Always review the histogram to get the correct exposure.

According to the histogram, two warning signals can indicate whether or not the image is
underexposed:
1. The first is the left side of the histogram where there are lots of bars all bunched together. So,
this could be an indication that the image is underexposed.
2. The other is on the right side where there’s a gap between the highlights and the whites. This is
another warning that your image is underexposed and not all the details were captured.

The bars in your histogram can also change heights based on the number of pixels in a specific tonal
range. If there’s a predominant brightness level, you’ll see a spike for that specific tonal range.

When it comes to capturing a photo, you have two options:

1. Choose one of four Auto Modes (The camera will set the ISO, Aperture, and/or Shutter Speed to
get proper exposure).
2. Shoot in Manual Mode (You have to manually set each of the three camera settings).
Relationship between ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed:

What is an Exposure Triangle?

It explains the relationship between your different camera settings with a visual tool.

Getting Started with Manual Mode:

Step 1 – Choose your ISO based on available light. Remember to use the lowest ISO number possible
based on the brightness of the available light

Step 2 – Next you have to decide on your creative vision for the photo you want to create if you
want to freeze or blur the action if you want a small or large depth of field, which one of those is
most important?

Step 3 – If the depth of field is the most important element set your aperture accordingly or if
freezing or blurring the action is more important then, choose your shutter speed.

Step 4 – Now, it’s time to set the third camera setting based on your creative vision to get the
proper exposure and the secret tool you’ll use to help you do this is a light meter. Look through your
viewfinder to locate it which is displayed with multiple dashed lines.