Photography Basics

What is Photography?

To learn photography first we need to know what is photography. Photography is an art of freezing moments of something captured by the camera by our imagination, composition, and light.

The picture that you took with your camera is the imagination you want to create with reality.

Photography is
1. Communication of ideas
2. Creative art

Photography, is a powerful medium of expression and communication, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation, and execution.

So, how photographs create?

Basically, in DSLR there are two parts.

• Camera Body
• Lens

In any lens, there is a hole through which light travels into the camera body. This is called aperture

A digital sensor in the camera body that opens and closes to expose the picture is called shutter

When we press the shutter button, the camera capture the photo.

The photo may be captured as we see as it is, it may be artistic like the light & shadow. Some examples are following

It depends on our concept and imagination. So basically in photography, we are playing with light.

Technically, we can control the light by

• Aperture
• Shutter Speed
• ISO

This is known as the exposure triangle.

Exposure Triangle is the key tools to create a photograph.

Aperture

Aperture is an important part of the Exposure Triangle.
In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane.

In the lens, there is a little tiny hole. You can increase and decrease the hole.

The small number means a big hole and a big number means a small hole. The aperture is known as F stops

What is the meaning of F

Focal
Factual
Fractional

The stops are
f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22

√2 = 1.414
(√2)2 = 2
(√2)3 = 2.8
(√2)4 = 4
(√2)5 = 5.6

Increase one-stop double the light
Decrease the stop half the light

We can see this aperture number on the lens. F/1.8 starts to value and end value

Also, this number defines the exposure and depth of field of the captured image

What is Depth of Field?

How much focus area in the image has. Two types of Depth of Fields are there

• Deep DOF
• Shallow DOF

Before press the shutter button, first we need to think how much Depth of Field we want for the captured image.

For Portrait – Mostly use F/1.8, F/2.8
For Landscape – Mostly use F/11, F/16 or F/22

Shutter Speed

In photography, shutter speed or exposure time is the length of time when the film or digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light, also when a camera’s shutter is open when taking a photograph.

ISO

In the digital segment of photography, ISO measures the sensitivity of the camera sensor to light. Higher ISO used in a darker situation.

FAQ