(note: any feed back would be great! everything for spelling, grammar, ease of understanding, things you think need to be added or taken out, stuff I've got wrong etc it inst finished yet as I do have a few things I think need to be added but haven't yet Oh and can someone fix the title for me lol, should be starters not started, stupid typo >.<

Photography: A beginners guide.
by Brychan Asaris

Intro:

I like to think of myself as a “well educated amateur” when it comes to photography. I don't have that big of a portfolio, but having spent many years at art school studying photography and painting, I have been left with a wealth of knowledge in terms of photographic and compositional techniques. So I thought to myself, what is a good way to help me remember the things I have learnt and jog my brain. I figured that I am a member of a few art type forums, why not make a basic guide to photography. This is just a guide to help people get started, with a few personal tips and hopefully some good advice.


What I think the mindset for becoming a good photographer is:

The key to becoming a good photographer is taking pictures, lots and lots of pictures. You have to find what you like in the pictures you take and ask other people what they think. Some people are more naturally gifted at being able to find that magic shot, some people end up lucky, but trust me when I say, you take enough photos, your going to finally get a great image. A goal is to be able to really look at your own photos and being honest with yourself, being about to see what works and doesn't. Asking someone else what they think is a great thing, like writing, it is good to have someone proof read your work. Accept the criticism that is given to you, learn and grow. Even if you have more “photographic” knowledge then someone, most people can tell you if something looks good or not. If you ever get to the point when someone criticise your work and your thought is “what do they know, I've been taking photos for ages, I am a pro” then you need to put your camera down, look yourself in the mirror, because you sir have become an idiot. Never stop learning, even people who have been taking photographs for decades are still leaning new things, new technologies are coming through every day, new techniques, new ideas, being a photographer you are in a constant flux of learning.

The Gear:

Lets face facts, photography is a damn expensive hobby if you let it be, it doesn't have to be though. To start with you will need a camera, some say any old camera will do, this is somewhat true. My advice is to go down to a 2nd hand shop or specialised camera store and look at their 2nd hand range. Find the cheapest camera that allows you to control the aperture, shutter speed and has an inbuilt light meter. Buy that camera, this is all you will need to start with. Also stick with a SLR (single lenses reflex), else you will have some troubles with the composition of your photos with other camera types. Oh and a tip to remember throughout your photographic life, your body isn't important, they are replaceable, your glass is what lasts you a life time.

Digital vs Film
If you want to spend the money on a digital camera, go ahead, digital cameras are great for beginners, because you can just take as many damn photos as you want. You don't have to spend piles and piles of money to start with, just take my advice, find something that lets you control your aperture and shutter speeds and your set. Film cameras are cheap, and knowing that you are limited with how many shots you can take and not knowing how your photo turned out like has a lot of bonuses. It will teach you to be less careless with your shots, gives you a better understanding about colour temperatures and ISO, will also take the idea of post processing out of your mind and forces you at getting good shots “in camera”. Really the amount of quality for price with film,when compared with digital cameras, film (at the time of writing this) is still easily on top. Also to mention when you get further in your photography you may want to go out of the 35mm format and digital at medium format is really damn expensive (talking $50,000+ for a camera) and non existent for large format, so getting knowledge and practice with film from the start is a good thing. But either way, I am a fan of both and I use both, for a beginner it doesn't honestly matter a whole lot.

The manual is your best friend
If your camera came with a manual, or you can find a copy of it from the net, GRAB IT. When learning photography you must learn to use a camera, you must learn to use YOUR camera. Once you get the basic ideas of how a camera works, things might not be in the same place on all cameras, but they all more or less work the same. Also as all cameras are different, I cant give you exact advice about each camera, your manual will tell you the answer. If you cant get hold of your manual then the net or a local camera store should be more than willing to help.

Colour temperatures and ISO:

Now I think it is important that you have a grasp of the concepts of colour temperature and ISO before you go anywhere near a camera, why??? because this will effect how you set up your digital camera, or if using film, which film you want to buy.

Colour temperatures
Light is different colours, how hot or cool the light is depends on what colour it is. Our eyes automatically adjust to this, our cameras don't, so even though to our eye it looks white, when taking the photograph it may turn out yellow or blue if not set up correctly. To counter these problems, films and cameras need to be adjusted to suit the light temperature. Light temperature is measured in kelvin (K) and here is a rough guide to what temperatures certain light sources are:

1,850 K Candle flame
2,700–3,300K Incandescent light bulb
3,400 K Studio lamps
5,000K Horizon daylight
5,500–6,000K Typical daylight, electronic flash
6,500K Daylight, overcast

With film, you have to buy the appropriate film type for the type of photography your taking, you use daylight film for taking photos in daylight and in the studio, incandescent for indoors. There are other ways of fixing this with lenses filters and in the printing process if you don't have access to the correct film. Reading the package of the film you should find the information on it, but if not just ask the person in store, they should help be able to help.

Digital cameras have a in-built colour temperature adjustment, please try not to use the automatic function (this is not always 100% correct), it isn't hard to look at what sort of light your shooting under and taking a few test shots of something white (or 18% grey card which I will talk about later) and see how it looks.

ISO (or ASA)

Film speed:
ISO when talking about film types refers to the film speed, its sensitivity to light i.e. how quickly it reacts to light. Slower films are less sensitive to light and need longer exposures i.e. more light. Faster films react quicker and can be used in low light situations. But there is a trade off, slower films give you sharper, clearer more detailed images, but fast films have larger contrast and more grain. As a basic rule of thumb ISO 100 film for pictures taken indoors with a flash or outdoors in bright light. ISO 200 film is for general purpose photography with a mix of flash and available light and ISO 400 is for sports or low light pictures without a flash. But the real key is to carry various sorts of film with you, giving them a try in different situations and see how it goes. There are piles of different ISO's to try, giving you different effects for different things. Go buy a bunch of different ones and see what happens when shooting with them, you may never know what you discover. You may hear a term called “pushing” or “pulling” your film, just ignore it for now as this is a more advance technique and also effects the way you need to develop your film.

Digital ISO:
Digital ISO is more or less the same as film, it measures the sensitivity of the image sensor. The lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light and the finer the grain, higher settings are generally used in darker situations to get faster shutter speeds, however the cost is noisier shots.

F stops, apertures, exposures, shutter speeds etc etc i.e. “taking your photo”

Now when starting out you might get all hung up on actually taking the photo, set everything to auto (if your camera has this option) and away you click. There is a time and place for automatic settings on your camera, but learning to becoming a good photographer isn't that place. You eventually want to learn how to control as many aspects of your photographs as you can and the automatic function takes that control away from you. So go ahead, don't be scared, break out your cameras manual and turn all your automatic settings off. Oh also, please unless you don't have a choice or you have a specific look in mind, try and avoid using your cameras in-built flash if it has one.

When taking a photo, the basic idea is you are controlling how much light will get exposed on the film or sensor. We use two variables to effect how much light is exposed on the film, the aperture and the shutter speed. The aperture is how much light you let in, the shutter speed is how long you let the light in. These two things walk hand in hand and photography is about balancing these to variables together, to give you the shot you want.

Aperture
The aperture of the camera refers to the hole in which the light travels through, and is measured on your camera with a thing called an f stop. Now each f stop is measured as a fraction, so it maybe a little confusing at first, but the smaller the f stop number the BIGGER the hole in which the light is travelling through. So f stop 4 is really ¼ and the f stop 8 is really 1/8, so f stop 4 is a bigger hole than f stop 8. How does this effect your photos? Other than the amount of light will get into your camera, the size of your aperture effects how much depth of field you get in your image and effects how fast and slow your shutter speed will need to be. Smaller f stop means smaller depth of field, bigger f stop means more depth of field.

What is depth of field?
Depth of field is the amount of image that isn't blurry. You will see in some photography where you have a close up of something and all the background is blurry, this is known as low or narrow depth of field as only a small part of the photo is in focus. There are a few things which effect the depth of field, focal length, aperture and format/sensor size.

What is focal length?
focal length is hard to describe easily but I will try my best. Focal length is the distance from the lens to the film or sensor, when focused on a subject at infinity. So in photography, what does this means? Well the focal length determines how much optical “zoom” your lens has, but it will effect you photographs in other ways. If you have a camera and you put on a 18mm lens and take a photo, with a subject in front and a subject behind. Now if you put on a 55mm lens and take the photo again, with the subject at the front being the same size as the first shot, the subject at the back of the photograph will look closer than what it did in the 18mm photo. So this is something you have to take into consideration in the composition of your photograph.

Why is it called a f stop?
Simply put, F-stop is the focal length divided by the diameter of the lens. For example, a 200mm f/4 lens will be 50mm wide. Get out your ruler and measure it. 200mm/50mm = f/4. That is why f-stop is typically written as f/4 meaning "focal-length over 4" or "focal-length divided by four".


Shutter speeds.
The shutter speed is the measurement of how long the film or sensor is exposed. On a camera the shutter speeds are made of two different types of numbers, one are the actual seconds it is exposed, the other is the fraction of a seconds that it will be exposed. You will need to look in your manual to see how your camera shows the difference between the two, but it is easy to figure out as the fractions will go into the hundreds and thousands. My camera has it set so that the actual seconds have a “ next to it, but the fractions are just normal numbers. So 2 = ½ of a second and 2” = 2 seconds. This may be confusing at first as going from 2” to 4” is making the shot slower, but fro going from 2 to 4 your making the shot faster. Shutter speed is important because it effects how long you want the image exposed, the longer the shutter speed the larger the chance that moving will blur the image. So if you don't have a tri-pod (having to hold the camera in hand), taking photos of fast moving objects or people, you want a fast shutter speed. If you have a still object, or want motion blur, or are in a low lit situation, a slower shutter speed is what you need. As a few rule of thumb to start with, the slowest shutter speed you can have, that will eliminate the effects for taking a hand-held shot, is roughly equal in number to the length of the lens used. A few examples, if you are using a 50mm lens I would set you camera to a 1/60th of a second (you could set it to 1/50th if you have to but it is better to be safe). If you wanted the slowest setting for a 200mm lens it would be 1/250th of a second. 28mm I would set it to 1/30th of a second (as there isn't any 1/28th setting, 1/30th is the closest, and as there is a bit of a difference in numbers I would feel ok about leaving it, obviously you always round up in speed). You probably noticed that the longer the lens there is a bigger chance of showing blur, but also how close the subject is will effect this, so remember that the closer the subject and longer the lens, the more chance of blur.


Aperture and shutter speed relations
Shutter speeds and apertures are all standardised, so if you go up one f stop, you would get an equal exposure of light if going up one stop in shutter speed. Now as a photographer you are going to have to make some choices when taking your shots, what is it you want out of your photograph and what conditions are you shooting in. It can be a complicated process trying to get the balance e.g. getting your aperture small enough to control the depth of field but big enough so you can have a fast enough shutter speed with the light available, to be able to take a clear shot.

Your light meter:
Now you have a basic understanding of what you need to expose your film/sensor, but you need to know how can you tell if you have set up your f stops and shutter speeds correctly. This is where light meters come into play, most cameras come with an in-built light meter, you use this to get your image to a correct exposure. You will need to read your cameras manual on how your light meter works, but most of them are a gauge or needle and the goal is to get it in the middle (usually has a 0 in the middle and a + above it and – under it). When taking photos out doors you can use the sunny rule of 16 as a good guide to start with. In a sunny condition outside, if you set the aperture to 1/16 the shutter speed should be around about the ISO speed. So f/16 and your film speed is ISO 200, a shutter speed of 1/200 seconds should be about correct. I would also advise bringing along with you a sheet of 18% grey cardboard, if you point your camera at this you will find your in built light meter will be a lot more accurate. This card can also be used for helping out with colour balance (for digital) and all sorts of other things, well worth the purchase (especially for tricky lighting conditions).

Buy a hand held light meter when you become a more experienced photographer is a must. These are a lot more sensitive and accurate than the in camera light meter, these work differently and are for more advanced users.

Compositions

Well that is a simple run down of the basic understanding of how a camera works and how you can use it to change what your picture looks like. With that knowledge and piles of experimentation you should be set to start taking photos. There is more to photography than just knowing how to use a camera, there is also the basic concept of composition. This is a very hard thing to get and everyone has their own personal feelings on what is good and what isn't. What I am going to do is outline some simple ideas that you can use as a beginner to play with and maybe use to get some nice photos.

Simplicity
A good start with photography is to make the shot as simple as it can be. Look at what you want to be the main subject of the shot and make it the focus, with as little distraction as possible. Get up close to your subject, take out all that pointless back ground, just show us what it is you find interesting. Photographers tend to forget that simple is sometimes the best.

Rule of thirds
Most people know of this rule, it is simple really, take a picture and split it into thirds, from top to bottom and across. The way you do this is draw two lines from top to bottom and two from left to right, equal distance from each other and the edge (makes a noughts and crosses grid on your picture). The four lines will intersect, these intersections will show you a good indication of where you can put your subject of interest. But you should also consider what your putting in your image e.g. you should always consider the path of moving subjects and try and leave space in front of them into which they can move. Also try and use the lines to bring your photographs vertical and horizontal (e.g. horizon) lines off the centre.

Lines
Diagonal lines are a lot more interesting than just straight lines. Unless it is a horizon try and place your camera in interesting places to give dynamic, diagonal lines to bring interest to straight subjects.

Avoid Merges
When taking a photo take good care about looking at the background (especially in portrait photographs). We see things in three dimensions, so when taking a photo of something that looks like is far away to your eye, it wont look the same in a photograph, it will look closer and flatter. The best example of this would be taking an image of a man in front of a tree, it looks fine when you take the photo, but when you see it printed it looks like the tree is sprouting from the top of the man's head. Try and find simple back grounds and avoid large bold objects in your background to avoid things like this.

Lets look at the world from a different view
When taking photos of a subject try and look at if from a different view. We all know what things look like from eye level, try standing on a table, crawl on your stomach, anything to vary the shot. It will make things look more interesting because your photo will be from an angle we don't normally look at something.

Outro:
Hopefully with this information you can be on your way to taking some really great images. There is a lot of information around that can help you out and go into greater depth about subjects I have talked about. As I said at the start, you will never stop learning new and interesting things about photography, new tips and tricks which makes things easier or look more interesting. I suggest now go out and go take photos of random stuff around your local area, get use to your camera and how it works and most of all just have fun with it and don't be afraid to fail!

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It is ok, I wouldn't talk to me either...