setting the scene
Photography is all about two things: light and composition. Without light, there is no picture and without good composition the picture is boring.
When you prepare to take a photograph, notice how much of the scene before you is in your frame. This deals with the angle of view. When your lens is all the way zoomed OUT (short focal length), you are shooting a wide angle shot. When your lens is all the way zoomed IN (long focal length), you are shooting a narrow angle shot.
Then ask yourself if the lighting is right. This is called the exposure. If the light source (like the sun) is coming from behind the subject, he/she/it is backlit. Make sure you use a flash or open your f-stop OR slow shutter speed. This is called backlight compensation and it gives you the correct exposure for the photograph. Remember that shooting in straight sun requires f16 (or 1/16). Adjust your aperture (f-stop) accordingly for other light types (darker = larger f-stop, f14-f2.0; lighter = smaller f-stop).
Next ask, “Do I need a tripod or steady surface to shoot from?” Remember, you need this if your shutter speed is slower than 1/30 . Our bodies are not capable of holding the camera still at this speed, which causes camera shake.
Terms to Know:
Angle of view: The amount of a scene taken in by a particular lens focal length. Short focal lengths have a wide angle of view, allowing you to photograph a larger portion of the scene than long focal lengths, which have a narrow angle of view.
Aperture: The window in the lens that lets light through to the film. This window’s size, called the f-stop, to control the exposure.
Backlight: Light coming from behind the subject. When light from behind is the main source, the subject is said to be backlit.
Backlight compensation: Adjustment of exposure to prevent the subject from turning out too dark when light is coming from behind it.
Camera shake: The unwanted movement passed along to your camera by involuntary hand and body tremors, it’s a major cause of unsharp pictures.
Correct exposure: The specific amount of light that must strike a given film to produce the best possible picture quality.
Composition: The process of adjusting framing, camera position, and/or focal length to turn the subject into a visually appealing photograph.
Exposure: The amount of light that strikes the film/digital memory when you take a picture.
Film/Digital speed: The measure of a film’s sensitivity to light, film speed is indicated with an ISO number–ISO 400, for example. The higher the number, the more sensitive the film.
Flash: Your point-and-shoot’s tiny but highly useful built-in light source, the flash fires in an action-stopping burst and often has several different modes.
Frame: The rectangle that you see when you look through the viewfinder, used for viewing and composing the subject; or one picture’s worth of film; or that thing you put your prints in.
Lens: A cylinder of shaped pieces of glass or plastic at the front of a camera, it projects a tiny image of the subject onto the film.
Light source: The immediate origin of a scene’s light, such as the sun or a window.
Shutter speed: The length of time the window in the lens stays open to let light through to the film.
Zoom in: Setting a longer focal length on your zoom lens, to make the subject bigger in the picture.
Zoom out: Setting a shorter focal length on your zoom lens, to include more of the scene in the picture.
