The Bangladesh Traveller

Technical photo tips for technophobes

Posted on 21. Jan, 2009 by Mikey Leung in Events, Photography
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Do you want to create striking photos of Bangladesh with your newly purchased digital camera? If so, you must learn the basics of exposure first, or you’ll find it difficult to make your photography excel to a new level.

Here’s a quick guide to some of the most useful functions of your camera. Whether you own a compact digital or a digital SLR, these tips should prove useful. (A training session will be held on these topics at the Nordic Club next Monday 26 January, see end for more details.)

Let’s start the tutorial with a glossary of terms.

Lens Aperture: The aperture is the diaphragm of a lens. It can let in more or less light through the lens.

Shutter speed: The shutter of a camera is the gatekeeper of light. When the gate is open for a longer time (eg 1/15th of a second), more light hits the sensor, causing a ‘brighter’ exposure. Conversely, the gate can be open for a shorter time (1/500th of a second), causing a ‘darker’ exposure.

ISO: The ISO setting controls the amount of light needed to ‘properly expose’ a picture. With a high ISO (eg 1600) less light is required for good exposure, but the image fidelity decreases. With a low ISO (eg 200), more light is required but the image quality is higher.

So far so good? If not, don’t worry. The training session is definitely for you and I’ll make sure you understand before it’s over. Now let’s consider how the three concepts tie up.

Each of the three concepts are related mathematically. But since we’re not into math very much, here’s the easy way to understand it.

Let’s say we’ve got one potential image with a certain amount of light.

With that light, if you increase your shutter speed, you will also need to increase the aperture size to get a correct exposure.

Conversely, if you decrease your shutter speed, the aperture size must also decrease to get correct exposure. This is what’s happening in the above photo. The shutter speed is low, causing the people in the foreground to blur. But to compensate the shutter speed became faster.

If you increase your ISO, you can use a lower shutter speed and/or a smaller aperture. But then the image quality will decrease, because of colour ‘noise.’

At this point, if you’re confused by all this but still want to learn, you should come to the session at the Nordic Club next Monday, Jan 26, so I can explain it in person.

But if you’re following me so far, then I’m going to introduce two more concepts that will prove useful for your photography in the future.

Depth of Field
Lenses have a special property that is a result of physics known as ‘depth of field.’ This can have a dramatic effect on your resulting photographs.

When the aperture is wide open, the depth of field is very short. In other words, your foreground and background objects will be hard to focus at the same time. This is known as a ‘low depth of field.’

When the aperture is very small, the depth of field is very long. You can have background and foreground objects in focus at the same time.

Motion Blur
When it comes to shutter speed, there’s one ‘golden rule’ that you MUST remember — shutter speed must be HIGHER than the focal length of your lens, or else you could get motion blur, ruining the potential perfect frame.

This is particularly an issue in dark situations, like when you’re indoors or when it’s dusk.

If it’s too dark, you’ll need to switch the flash on in order to get enough light to expose the picture.

If the above is at all confusing, I highly recommend you attend my technical photography tutorial where I will explain all the above concepts in greater detail, and take the time to make sure you understand.

The Perfect Frame Part 1: Technical Training click the photo for full-size preview
Monday, January 26; Nordic Club Hse 18, Rd 55; 18.30 to 20.00; Tk1,500 each. Attendance will be limited to 15 students so register now. If you’re not an expat club card holder then give me a call at 01714 361 173, and we’ll get your name on the list at the gate.

To register, drop me an e-mail at joybangla.info AT gmail.com. Provide your name and phone number and I’ll send you a confirmation.