An Expert Guide to Equipment: Camera, Meter, Flash, and Tripod in 2022-23
Photography 101 Part 1
Photography 101
First part
Equipment: camera, meter, flash, tripod
This article is a simplified photography course aimed at new photographers who want to know where to start.
If you really want to learn photography, the first thing you need is a good, cheap and reliable camera. It is imperative, and I repeat, to be able to shoot in both fully manual and fully automatic focus modes. (That leaves almost any digital camera on the market right now, sorry.) To really learn photography, you have to understand the equipment. You'll learn how manipulating shutter speed, aperture and focus can have a dramatic effect on your photos. Meters If you have a camera that can work in full manual mode, you should have an internal meter that's appropriate for what you're doing. Whether it's a tripod, portrait work or landscape, you need one. Thankfully, you won't have to spend a lot of money here. Just something light and durable. Flash, you can buy a separate camera mounted flash, which is better if you can afford it. Consider what kind of photography you are doing. If you're going to be doing mostly nature and landscapes, you'll only need the fill flash that comes with most cameras today. If you plan to do portraits alone, consider a camera-mounted flash that has an adjustable angle.
Movie, movie speed must be right. Slow speeds (25 to 400) are for portrait and landscape photography. Fast shutter speeds (600 and up) for action shots and photojournalism purposes. So first you know what you are going to photograph and make sure you have the right film for the job.
Now that your camera is loaded with film, consider the shutter speed. Do you want motion blur, or freeze? If there is no shutter speed, what would be the shutter speed to expose the scene with natural light? 1/60th and below the bulb setting will cause too much motion blurFor example, if you want to simulate the fluidity of a liquid, a setting of 1/30th should work. (You'll need a tripod, though.) 1/125th is a common setting for most shots. Many cameras have the 125th setting marked in a different color to make it more obvious. If you want to freeze the action you need to start at 1/500th and work from there. The faster the speed, the faster the shutter speed needed to stop motion. Most cameras go down to 1/2000th of a second. If you're trying to use natural light in a scene, you'll want to determine the aperture and then see what shutter speed is needed to properly expose the scene for the available light. (Remember that sometimes there needs to be more light.)
Aperture, these are the set of numbers on your lens closest to the camera body. They can range from 1.8 to 22 and are called F-stops. These numbers determine how much light reaches the film inside your camera. Most internal meters will flash at the appropriate aperture for the shutter speed you set, or if the speed you set is correct for your f-stop speed. Both F-stop and shutter speed can be changed to better frame the scene. Consider that the faster the shutter speed, the more light is needed to properly expose the sceneIt makes sense if you think about it. If the shutter is not as open as a long, fast shutter speed, there is less light on the film, and therefore the scene must be brighter to properly expose. To learn, bracket your shots. Take the first shot at the aperture suggested by your meter, move up a stop, take a photo, down one, take another photo.
Flash, I personally like to shoot with natural light as much as possible and most of all I use fill flash. But if you're going to do portrait work, you'll probably be indoors a lot of the time and you'll need the occasional flash. For amateurs the flash units on top of most cameras today are great for basic work. You will need to read your manual on your specific flash unit to find out what it can and cannot do. Here are fully manual and fully automatic cameras that are great for amateurs. You can usually set it so that the camera meters and sets the flash output accordingly, and you can still control the shutter speed and aperture.
This week's assignment: make several rolls of 400 speed film, find a subject you can work with that doesn't move, and shoot a roll of film. Shoot a few rolls in the morning, afternoon and evening. Bracket each shot, taking notes on the time of day and lighting conditions and what your settings (aperture) were for each frame, keeping the film speed the same for the entire roll. Develop the film and examine the photographs. You should be able to see the difference in each frame. You repeat this process
