Ok I bought a dSLR now what?

OK

I bought a digital SLR camera. . .

now what?

A few people have approached me lately with essentially the same question, some were asking about what kind of lenses they should buy others about what kind of software they should use. Thinking that these were probably fairly common questions I decided to write up a little guide outlining a few things you should consider. They are arranged roughly in the order you should consider them too ;)

What attachments/accessories/lenses should I buy?

This all depends on what you plan to do and your budget but here are a few suggestions:

UV Filter

Chances are good that if you bought your camera at any respectable shop they would have tried to sell you one of these right away. No it's not a con by the sales associates (mostly) the idea is that it if something is going to get scratched it'll be a $30 filter instead of a costly lens. If you're just starting out in photography you probably won't need a top of the line brand filter so don't let the sales person get carried away trying to upsell you there.

*Tip: One interesting quirk to watch out for is what you see in the image above. It happens if you're using filters when taking long exposures at night of northern lights. I won't get into the physics of it but it has to do with a certain wavelength of light and the two parallel faces of your lens and the filter.

Lenspen

I think that all photographers should have one of these in their bag. At around $10 you'd be crazy not to have one anyway. One one end is a retractable brush that is good for knocking loose dust and debris and on the other side protected by a cap is a slightly concave felt pad for getting more stubborn materials off your glass. Over time (and depending on usage) they should probably be replaced so you have a new felt tip, that being said I've had mine for years and see no need to change it yet.

• Tip: They also make lenspens for point and shoot cameras, they have a smaller triangular felt pad for cleaning the smaller lenses.

Carrying bag/Camera Backpack

You just dropped a lot of money on your new camera so you should spend a little cash in order to protect it. There is a plethora of options in this department, unfortunately once you're getting into dSLR size bags the price goes up because there is less demand for them.

Above are some choices from LowePro, a company that's been around for decades and is well respected among photographers. There are a variety of choices ranging from simple hip pouches to sling bags and full backpacks which even accommodate laptops.

*Tip: One word of advice is buy a slightly bigger one than you need so that if you pick up a few lenses later on you can still carry them.

Tripod/Monopod

Investing in a decent tripod would probably be next on the list for most people.

Why do I need a tripod? There are a number of reasons but mostly it allows you the luxury of shooting at slower shutter speeds without producing blurry pictures. If you read my guide on understanding lighting you'll already know that you always want to keep your ISO as low as possible (sensitivity to light) in order to get the sharpest photos, however if your available light is already quite low the only options are to increase your aperture and/or lower your shutter speed.

If you're wanting to do any of the following photography you'll need a tripod:
Landscapes, wildlife, macro, sports, lowlight/night photography (lightning, northern lights) and anytime you're using a telephoto zoom lens

The rule of thumb is that 1/60^th of a second is the slowest shutter speed you can safely shoot handheld (though this is changing as image stabilization technology improves) but with a tripod you can have exposures lasting as long as minutes or even hours. As I mentioned above any time you're using a zoom lens you should be using a tripod, the reason is when you're zoomed in that far any small movement gets multiplied by your magnification X.

Good brands for tripods are Manfrotto, Slik, Gitzo, Velbon to name a few. Avoid tripod's designed for video cameras, they tend to be sloppier. When you're looking for a tripod you want one that is sturdy and won't allow your camera to move when all the adjustments are tightened up.

Tip: A monopod may be what you're after as well, they are good for sports photography because they don't take up much space . Keep in mind though that you can always use your tripod as a monopod simply by not splaying the legs out. I'd recommend starting with a good tripod and if you think you need a monopod later then go for it.

Extra lenses:

In short the best two lenses you can add to your kit are a zoom that compliments your kit lens and a nice fixed prime lens.

Zoom lenses:

Most dSLR's come with a general purpose standard lens, typically around 18-55mm. For most situations this is the best lens to use however sometimes you need a little extra zoom and that is where the telephoto lenses come into play. A good companion to say an 18-55mm kit lens would be something like a 70-200mm or a 70-300mm, this way you're not missing much range between the upper end of your 18-55mm and the lower end of your telephoto. If you find a good deal on a lens that will leave you with a gap don't rule it out though, it just means you'll have to keep this in mind when shooting and you may have to move back a little to get the same composition in your shot.

Depending on your camera manufacturer you might be able to find older lens used for a fraction of the cost of a new lens. For example Canon's EF lenses will work on their dSLRs but due to the fact most dSLR's have a smaller sensor the magnification factor will be larger and I'll explain this below in a bit. When in doubt call your local camera shop (Don's or Phase II for example) before purchasing a used lens to make sure it will work with your camera and if possible try it out on your camera first to make sure it fits and the auto-focus is compatible.

A note on cropped sensors:

If you have a dSLR camera and paid less than $3000 for it chances are good that your camera's sensor is what's referred to as a “cropped sensor” or “crop sensor”. This goes back to the days of 35mm film cameras, the film was the part that “sensed” the light and was 35mm diagonally across. The sensors in consumer grade dSLR's are smaller than that of the 35mm frame hence the term “cropped sensor”. What this means is that if you find an older used lens that was made for a film camera the zoom rating will not be accurate anymore. For example if you put a Canon 100-300mm EF lens on a Canon Digital Rebel dSLR which uses a 1.6x crop sensor your effective zoom will actually be 160mm-480mm.

1.3x – Canon EOS 1D/1D MkII
1.5x – Nikon D40/D50/D70/D70s/D80/D200/D2XD2Hs Minolta 7D/Fuji S3 Pro Pentax *istDS/K100D/K110D/K10D
1.6x – Canon EOS 300D/400D/20D/30D

Here's a nice little reference table of standard zoom sizes and their effective zoom's on a crop sensor.

Full Frame 1.3 Crop 1.5 Crop 1.6 Crop

Don't let any of this dissuade you from saving some cash by picking up an older telephoto though as there is another advantage besides the extra zoom. All lenses suffer from some inaccuracies due to how the lenses are ground and what materials they are made from etc, this results in the center of the lens being sharper than the outer edges of it. When you put one of these older lenses on a crop sensor camera you dramatically improve the quality of the image because the sensor only uses the central portion of the lens thus discarding most of the area that is degraded.

As mentioned previously if you plan on shooting with a zoom lens you should really consider using a tripod, at higher zoom ranges any vibration or shakiness is multiplied dramatically and will result in blurry images.

One last thing to note is that when buying any lenses you typically pay a lot more if you want a larger aperture (aka a faster lens). Where a 70-300mm F5.6 lens may cost $250 the same lens capable of f2.0 may run in the thousands.

Prime Lenses

Before the days of variable zoom lenses they were all fixed zoom aka prime lenses. Why would anyone even consider a lens so limiting? Below are 3 very good reasons:

1. Image quality
Variable zoom lenses are made up of many more elements than a fixed prime lens, this means any errors in how each of these elements are ground will add up and therefore decrease the total optical quality of the lens. Due to this fixed lenses tend to be sharper across the entire image, not just the center. Other optical issues like barrel distortion, pincushion distortion, and chromatic aberration are reduced in prime lenses.

2. Speed
This term may be new to you but when someone refers to a lens as being “fast” they mean it takes in a lot of light allowing you to use a faster shutter speed. Due to how they are made they often are available with very wide apertures (1.2, 1.4, 1.8 etc) compared to the variable lenses. Why is this important? Photographers always run into the same problem: not having enough light. Say you're shooting indoors and want to avoid the use of a flash (at a wedding for example) and your camera tells you in order to get a proper exposure you need to shoot at 1/4^h of a second at ISO 100 at f5.6. 1/4^th of a second is going to result in a blurry shot even if you're using a tripod because the people will probably be moving a little. If you have an F1.4 prime lens available that would give you 4 more stops of light to play with letting you shoot at 1/60^th of a second instead which is shoot-able handheld. In short it gives you options.

3. Shallow depth of field thanks to wider apertures

By using a very wide aperture (F1.4 or 1.8 etc) a very dreamy effect can be accomplished as backgrounds softly blur away allowing the viewer's eyes to be drawn to what matters.

So which focal length should you buy?

If you're going to pick up a prime lens I suggest going for a 50mm. The reason is that this is a very popular focal length for portraiture and therefore manufacturers make higher volumes resulting in lower prices. For both Canon and Nikon a 50mm prime can be found for under $150 and most likely other manufactures have similar prices to stay competitive.

Keep in mind though you may have to apply that multiplication factor to the focal length that we covered earlier in this article so your 50mm may end up working more like an 80mm if you're shooting a Canon. Don't get hung up on that though as generally “portrait” lenses are regarded as anything between 50-100mm.

Software Options

Here are a few options when it comes to image editing/library management. I highly recommend trying all of the free ones first as well as any trial downloads you can find before spending any cash at all.

Photoshop (CS4 is $1000, Elements Ver 8 is $129.99)

Now for image editing software Adobe Photoshop is the gold standard in the industry (CS4 is the current version), it’s the program that everyone uses. It is also ridiculously expensive which leads to a lot of pirating, there are tons of torrents available if that is the path you choose (I'm not condoning it). Another, more affordable option, is Adobe Photoshop Elements which is a "lite" version that sells for $129.99 as I write this at London Drugs. Check Adobe's website for downloadable trial versions before dropping any cash.

• Pros: It is the industry standard bar none.

• Cons: Pricey, A bit of a steep learning curve, I've used it for 8 years and am still learning new things every day.

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) FREE!

GIMP has been around for years now and has come a long way, it is by far one of the most full featured photography programs second only to Photoshop and maybe a few others. The best part is that since it started out in Linux the software is FREE. I recommend downloading simply because it is free and trying it out, chances are it will do everything you need it to do. Realistically the stuff that Photoshop has that GIMP lacks is more for advanced users anyway. There are parts of GIMP that aren't very user friendly or just outright backwards if you're used to Photoshop but the price kinda makes up for that ;)

• Pros: Its FREE, full featured, and has an abundance of free tutorials and books online

• Cons: Steep learning curve, not user friendly in some instances, awkward if you're used to Photoshop

Picasa a FREE program made by Google

I'm a huge fan of FREE and often recommend this program. It's no Photoshop when it comes to features but it is very user friendly and covers all the basics like cropping, resizing, exposure correction, and some nifty filters for spiffing up your photos. Picasa also acts as a photo manager for organizing your pics and has other handy features like "email" that will re-size your photo and automatically place them in a new email for you to send (supports outlook, gmail, and a few others). Personally I don't like the photomanager portion of it but that's just me.

• Pros: It's FREE, covers most if not all of the “basics”, allows for fun projects like collages and slideshows

• Cons: Due to its easy to use nature more serious photographers may not like the lack of complete control.

Adobe Lightroom ($369.95)

It takes its name from the film days where photographer's would view their negatives on a light table etc. Essentially it is a workflow tool for organizing your photos and is also a feature rich "digital darkroom". It gives you a plethora of controls for developing your photos and most "pros" use this to import & tweak their images before editing them in Photoshop. This isn't really a tool for beginners but if you're shooting in RAW already you might want to look into it.

• Pros: Its fast becoming the industry standard for workflow and photo management, offers finer development control and Photoshop, great for processing RAW files

• Cons: Price, Semi-steep learning curve, really meant for serious photographers

Guide to getting into off-camera lighting

**Originally written for the camera club at my work**

So you took the plunge and bought a digital SLR, you've been having fun shooting in available light but you want to start playing around with studio lighting, this is your poor man's guide to getting started. If you're not poor you may want to look into starter studio lighting kits (starting around $600-$700) however this guide only covers speedlights which are cheaper and more portable & versatile than a full studio setup.

Requirements:
Camera with a hotshoe or PC Sync socket
Internet Connection (optional but you'll want to be doing lots of reading)
Budget:$100-400 depending on how far you want to go

1) Flash - $50 and up depending. You'll need a flash to start off with, we'll be using them like studio strobes so we don't need the fancy "auto ttl" style that cost big $$ (I made the mistake of buying the fancy ones and I never use any of those features). Look on ebay or kijiji for older flashes, it doesn't matter which brand because we'll be triggering them wirelessly. I snagged two Nikon SB-26's off kijiji for $100 each which was a good price, I wish I would have just bought these instead of my fancy ones and saved hundreds of dollars. Make sure that have the following features:

• Manual power settings - most are adjustable from 1/1 (full power) down to 1/64th or 1/128th in 1/2 or 1/3 F-stop increments

• Adjustable head that tilts and pan

• PC Sync Socket – Not completely necessary but a very handy feature to have

• A standard hotshoe - Some older Vivitar flashes as well as others have an oddball hotshoe that require an adapter to fit in a normal hotshoe, its best to simply avoid these ones.

• TTL trigger voltage -ie 5 or 6V, anything below 12V or so should be safe. Some older flashes can be up to 600V and can fry equipment so never use older flashes directly on your camera. You can check this with a volt meter by charging the flash to fire (set it to the lowest power incase you get zapped) then use the DC setting on the meter to check between the side pin and the center pin. Its kinda hard to describe in text, hopefully this picture makes it clearer. If you're buying on ebay make sure to ask about the trigger voltage if it is not listed, don't risk buying it if you can't be sure. If you're buying it off of kijiji then bring some batteries and a meter along to test it out yourself

Some suggestions on decent older flashes to look for would be Nikon SB-26's or 28's (Nikon flashes are great because they have built in optical slave triggers*), Canon 540EZ, Vivitar 285 (be careful as older model 285's have high trigger voltages). If you want to buy new flashes but don't want to break the bank checkout www.bhphotovideo.com and look at 3rd party brands like Bower or Nissin, $150 will get you a Nissin that is comparable to a $600 Canon EXII and still has all the ETTL-II auto features. *More about Optical Slaves in the next section Triggering Options

2) Triggering Options – Prices vary

Alright so now you have a flash but still no way to trigger it remotely, there are a few options that can be done cheaply:

• Wireless triggers – Starting at $20-30

  This is the method I'd recommend hands down. The “gold standard” in photography for triggers are Pocket Wizards but they cost around $300 for each transceiver and you need at least 2 to start. Lucky for us our friends in China have made affordable versions for $20-$30 a pair (includes transmitter and receiver). The triggers I recommend are the PT-04 model, some manufacturer makes these and various companies put their logo on them (YongNuo, Jiansi etc). At the time of writing this article you can pick up three (as show in the image below) for $34.99USD with free shipping on ebay. People sometimes jokingly refer to these triggers as “Poverty Wizards”, some say that they're not as reliable as their pricey alternative but I've never had any issues. I have 4 sets and I use them on professional jobs without any worries, I normally only use 2 at a time and the other 2 are backups. With a bit of modification you can even extend the range by adding an antenna to the transmitter although even un-modded you'll get 50-100ft.

Pros:

Cheap, no wires, flashes aren't likely to get accidentally triggered by other photographers, does not need line-of-sight.

Cons:

The cheap “poverty wizards” may have quality issues (though I haven't experience it), batteries will eventually need replacing (but last over a year at least)– AAA's in the receiver are easy to find but the transmitter takes 23A 12V which are harder to find – Here's a link to a 5-pack for $3.48USD http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.475

• Optical Slaves
  I mentioned optical slaves earlier, some flashes come with built in optical slaves but you can also buy little adapters. This is a very cheap method of firing flashes off-camera however they have some big problems with digital cameras!! These triggers were great back in the days before digital however the new flash systems do not work well with them. The reason the flashes on new cameras fire a pre-flash before the main burst of light, this pre-flash lets the camera's sensor determine the proper power required for a good exposure. If you're trying to trigger the slave with your camera's built in flash the pre-flash will trip the slave and by the time the main burst comes the slaved flash will have already fired.
  
  There are ways around this however. Buy a specially designed optical slave which accounts for this (Wein Digital Peanut) for around $100, OR the cheaper route is to trigger it with another flash that is in manual mode and therefore will not emit this pre-flash. Often I'll use only one wireless trigger on my Canon 580EXII and use it to trigger my Nikon SB26's which I've set to slave mode.
  

Pros:

Wireless, No batteries (for the basic ones, not sure about the advanced ones), very simple

Cons:

Doesn't play nice with digital flashes using ETTL (pre-flash), needs line-of-sight, will be triggered by any other flashes present (ie other photographers in the area)

• PC Sync cables (oldschool)

  $5 or less for very short cheap ones to $50+ for longer brand name ones

  Last on the list is the wired solution. Its not a bad idea to have a few of these cables around as a last resort but I wouldn't suggest using them as your primary means of firing your flash. The cables aren't that cheap (even though they should be) and the connector they use is very poorly designed, I don't know why its even still around when a simple headphone jack would work better and is abundant. These cables have a lifespan and become intermittent over time, the connector doesn't lock in place so they often slip out. All in all the worst of the options.

* I'd still recommend buying a few short PC sync cables especially if you get the PT-04 wireless triggers that have the socket, as crappy as they are they can still save your a$$ is a pinch ;)

Pros:

Simple and straightforward

Cons:

Not really that cheap especially for longer cables, connections deteriorate over time and become intermittent, connection is not secure and can fall out while shooting.

3) Light Stands & Adapters

Now that you have a flash or flashes and can trigger them remotely you'll need to put them on something. Investing in at least one proper light stand is recommended but cheap tripods can fill in as well depending on your needs. If you're wanting to special softboxes etc a light stand is the way to go but if you just want to mount the flash or even add an umbrella or two a tripod will suffice. Places like XS cargo or the various liquidation centers often have tripods for around $20. With that said you can find cheap ones at www.bhphotovideo.com starting at $20 USD + S&H as well. Cheap swivels can be found for ~$10 each online, “normal” ones are about $30 each. Post adapters like the 1/4” receiver can actually be pretty pricey so just try to buy a swivel that comes with one ;)

Shown here is an umbrella mounted on a tripod using an umbrella swivel. Note that if you are using a PT-04 wireless trigger it will add more height to the flash and it won't hit the center of the umbrella, this is where a small PC Sync cable between the receiver and flash comes in very handy.

4)Basic Light Modifiers (Umbrellas, Softboxes, Grids, Snoots, “Stoffen”etc)

If you're getting into off camera flash chances are the look you're going for isn't going to be produced with just a bare flash. Flashes emit light from a small source which means harsh shadows. The sun is a small point of light high up in the sky and you see how harsh mid-day shadows can be however on overcast days the whole sky becomes the light source because the clouds are “diffusing” the light. The most common light modifiers are trying to do the same thing, turn a small light source into a larger one.

Umbrellas – Starting around $10 and going way up from there depending on brand/size/type

These are one of the most common and most basic light modifiers, they are simple and they work well.

They come in a few different flavours: Reflective, Shoot-thru, and Reversible

• Reflective umbrellas are normally white on the inside and black on the other side, you shoot the flash into them and use the reflected light.

• Shoot-thru is just how it sounds, you shoot the light through the umbrella.

• Reversible umbrellas are basically a hybrid, they have a covering that can be removed so they can work as reflective or shoot-thru

Softboxes – Starting around $100 and going way up from there depending on brand/size/type

These are similar to umbrellas but give a slightly more even light, in addition they are more directional so you have finer control to avoid spill. If you're shooting with speedlights (ie flashes that are designed to mount onto your camera's hot shoe) your best bet for a softbox would be the 28” Apollo from B&H for $114USD. If you plan on getting one there are two items that B&H sells, for reasons unknown to me one item is cheaper AND it comes with an umbrella swivel for mounting your flash. Look for B&H item #WEASLK

Grids, Snoots, and Gridded Snoots ;)

These modifiers are used for restricting light, they're used various circumstances like back/edge lighting where you want to light up just the back of a person's hair without having the flash produce glare in your lens from spill. Other uses are for lighting backdrops behind a subject to create a spherical gradient. Basically any time you want to light a specific area without having light spill into other regions you'll be reaching for one of these. If you're the crafty type these can be easily made from commonly available items (hint use this as an excuse to go to your local pub to find black straws).

Stoffen aka Omnibounce

Stoffen is actually a company but just like “Kleenex” its become synonymous with this light modifier. For a simple piece of plastic the actual Stoffen Omnibounce is ridiculously over priced, you can find knockoffs that will do just as well or you can find ways to make your own by searching online. If you do buy a knockoff make sure you get the proper one for your flash as they are shaped differently depending on the brand and model.

These are used to simulate a “bare bulb” flash, they produce close to a 360°x360° light source. It is best used in smaller rooms where it bounces around off walls and ceilings to illuminate the whole room. Often you'll see paparazzi and journalists using them in completely the wrong way ;) They'll use them outside where there is nothing to bounce the light off of, in this instance they are just wasting 2-3 stops of light and overworking their flashes.

5)Resources for learning to light better

Having all of this gear means nothing if you don't know what to do with it, in this section I'll outline some great on-line resources for learning how to light.

• www.strobist.com

  A blog created by former newspaper photographer David Hobby, a few years ago he quit his day job to try his hand at blogging and now has one of the most visited websites for photographers on the internet. To say this site is a goldmine of knowledge is an understatement, David has been kind enough to create FREE course material. TheI suggest starting with his Lighting 101 series and going from there. The lighting 101 material starts off essentially where this guide does, with the equipment you'll need. From there it goes on to cover lighting basics onward to more advanced techniques. Thousands of people have got their start in lighting by visiting this blog.

Strobist DVD Semimar: If you can afford it (or if you can find someone willing to lend you a copy) this 8 DVD set covers all of the Lighting 101 information. If you find the online written material hard to follow then this DVD will help a lot by showing you visually.

Strobist on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/) With nearly 70,000 members the strobist group on flickr is a very active cult community of fellow lighting enthusiasts. The group showcases other strobists work, mostly as they progess through the various assignments on the

strobist material, all shots posted are required to include information (settings) on how they took the shots so its a great place to learn and be inspired. There is also a discussion portion where topics range from troubleshooting equipment to “how would you edit this photo” to building your own DIY gear. Everyone is eager to help and seem nice enough (unlike a lot of other online forums) so if you get stuck along the way to learning how to light like a pro you should stop by here and get some help.

• Onelight DVD Seminar (www.onelightworkshop.com) by Zach Arias

  Inline with the strobist “movement” Zach has put together a 2 disc seminar that follows him through various types of location shoots while explaining lighting concepts. He got his start shooting bands in Atlanta and one day decided to quit his job at Kinkos to got at it full force, the gamble paid off in spades. This seminar doesn't “hold your hand” as much as the Strobist dvds but it has a higher energy to it and he does shoots that are more exciting. Definitely worth a watch if you can afford it or can borrow a copy from someone who has it.

  Zach also has an online blog that is worth checking out at www.zarias.com

• www.diyphotography.net

  This is a neat little website (or blog rather??) that collects tidbits of great info from around the net. Normally geared towards making your own gear on the cheap this site is worth checking out periodically to see whats new in the DIY world.

Digital Adventures In Infrared

Test image taken with my Canon G10 using an 850nm IR filter, coloured in PS during post.

Infrared photography has always intrigued me, there is something about white trees and dark skies that brings a surreal nature to the images. With the dawn of digital cameras came the apparent dusk of IR photography, IR blocking filters that are installed on the sensors almost rule out IR photography entirely. There are still a few methods left and that is what this post is about.

The IR blocking filters, sometimes referred to as "hot mirrors" apparently are not all created equal. Here is a website that lists various camera's sensitivity to the infrared spectrum, unfortunately it appears to be a little dated but you can see the variance between cameras.

One quick way to see how sensitive your camera is to IR is to point your TV remote at the lens and see if you can see the IR LED light up when you press buttons on your remote. This is only the first step however, even if you see some light it still may not be sensitive enough but its a good start!

Assuming your camera has some sensitivity to the IR spectrum you can try what I did, purchase an IR pass filter for your camera. This filter blocks the visible spectrum and lets the IR light in. Filters are available in various wavelengths, in my case I used an 850nm IR pass filter.

Since we're blocking out quite a bit of the spectrum with the IR pass filter and since our internal filter is blocking a lot of the IR our exposure times will suffer. The image at the top of this article took 4 seconds at F2.8 with an ISO of 200 in the midday sun. Other cameras and filter combinations may yield different results but you should bank on having to bring a tripod, hand holding is simply not an option.

Another, more dramatic option, exists to enable your camera to take IR photos. There are companies which will take your camera and remove the IR filter or hot mirror from the digital sensor. This method has its pros and cons, it will reduce your exposure times greatly but can also limit your camera to only being able to take IR photos. It has also been noted that most cameras will have problems with their auto focus mechanisms due to the change in thickness of the filter over the sensor. Personally I'm not that big an enthusiast that I'll be sending in my 5DMKII any time soon.

IR image faked in Photoshop

If you don't like either of these options you can always try to fake it using an image editing program like Photoshop or Gimp etc. While the results vary as much as the methods and the fact that it can be very time intensive it can yield some interesting images and give you another avenue if other options are not possible.

My Gear
I've been buying more and more stuff from this great Hong Kong based site, the other day I read an article that claimed people had success using IR filters on their G10 by use of a special adapter. I quickly checked out my Hong Kong connection and sure enough I found a 58mm filter adapter for $8 and a cheap IR filter for $19. So for approx $30 I was willing to take a gamble and it appears to have paid off!

Good luck!

Photography 101 - An introduction to light

Everything you need to know about shutter speeds, aperture, and ISO.

*All images contained in this document are either being used under a creative commons license or are the author's own work.

(Link to pdf version of this document)

Preface:

Before we start lets look at the word “Photograph”. The word was originally coined by Sir John Herschel and won out over “photogene” and “heliograph”. All of three words have Greek origins meaning light, photo or phos and helios. Immediately you should see how relevant understanding light is since it’s built into the word photography. We’re graphing light here!

The goal of this article is to explain a little about how light works and how the various features of your camera control it to produce an image. Ideally you'll need a camera that lets you control these settings but even if your camera doesn't allow you to just understanding how these work will still help you greatly.

The three main controls you have over light are the time or the duration your film is exposed to light, the amount of light by changing the size of the hole, and the film’s sensitivity to light. Shutter speed. Aperture size. ISO. 1-2-3.

Shutter speed, aperture, and ISO all play different parts in contributing to your overall exposure as well as having special properties of their own. We’ll look at them individually and then see how they work together.

Chapter 1: ISO with relation to exposure

ISO (formally ASA)

Regardless of what is inside your camera you’re still trying to capture light, film and digital sensors both accomplish this. With film it is tiny crystals that are sensitive to light (silver halide salts bonded with gelatin), digital sensors have similar things called “photosites” and these too are sensitive to light.

Either way you need a certain amount of light to make an image show up, the amount of light depends on how sensitive the film is to light. This is where the ISO number comes in. The ISO rating for film, carried over to the digital realm, is a means of expressing the sensitivity to light. The higher the number the more sensitive to light the film is. For example a film with ISO 400 will need half as much light as ISO200 would need to get the same exposure. You’ll also notice that ISO tends to work in multiples starting at ISO 50, then 100, 200, 400, 800 and so on.

Imagine if you will a tap that will represent shutter and aperture, and a glass that when full is the proper exposure. The water itself is light. ISO would represent the size of the glass that needs filling. The more sensitive to light the higher the ISO and the less light is needed resulting in a smaller glass to fill.

There is a trade off however between ISO and image quality, if there wasn’t then we’d always want the high ISO and never use the lower one. In order to make the film more sensitive to light the crystals that are used are much larger (more room for the photons to hit), it is similar in digital sensors but more complicated to explain. By using larger crystals the resulting image will appear coarser or grainier and the same effect occurs with digital. The higher the ISO the coarser your image will look, once you understand the rest about shutter speed and aperture you’ll be able to determine what ISO you’ll need for whatever shooting conditions you are in.

Low ISO sharp image ----High ISO grainy image

You’ll almost always want to keep the ISO as low as you can to get the sharpest photo. That being said, sometimes using a higher ISO can make the image “grittier” and add to the feeling of the image. For example if you’re taking a portrait of a woman and want to imply smoothness and femininity you’d probably want to shoot as low an ISO as possible. If you’re shooting the weather beaten face of a prairie farmer who is tough and hearty you might accentuate those qualities by using an higher ISO for more grain.

Chapter 2: Shutter Speed and Aperture regarding exposure.

Both of these controls work hand in hand, it is hard to explain one without explaining the other. To help explain these we’ll go back to water as an analogy for light.

Imagine again an empty glass representing an unexposed frame, when it filled to the brim means a proper exposure. The time that the shutter is held open is represented by how long we leave the tap on, the size of the tap is representing the aperture.

To show you the two extremes we could fill the glass up very quickly or very slowly. If we had a tap that was very small we’d have to leave it on for a long time to fill the glass up, or we could have a really big tap and only turn it on for a short period of time.

If we use a big tap and leave it on too long the water will spill over the edge of the cups, or in other words a large aperture and long shutter speed will result in an over exposure. Conversely a small tap not left on long enough won’t fill the cup, a fast shutter speed and a small aperture will result in underexposure.

As was stated previously this example shows the extremes, either control can be varied to compensate for the other. Often you'll need to vary your aperture to allow you to shoot at a safe shutter speed to avoid blurry photos. Generally 1/60^th is considered safe to shoot hand held, slower and you should use a tripod.

Here are some examples, if we were taking a picture of something that is happening quickly we’d want to use a fast shutter speed, or in the case of the water analogy a quick on/off of the tap. Because we’re only turning the tap on for a short duration we’ll have to increase the tap size or “aperture” if we still want to fill the glass.

Let’s break away for a second to explain a little more about aperture. The size of the aperture is measured in F-Stops. It’s a little counter-intuitive because the larger the F number the smaller hole or aperture. It might help to think of it as how much light the aperture “stops”, the higher number means its stopping more light. These numbers are setup in fixed increments and depending on your lens you may not have exactly the same numbers.

With regards to getting the proper exposure (ie filling the glass exactly to the top) both of these controls are proportional to each other.

If we took a photo with a shutter speed of 1/1000^th of a second at F8 the exposure would be the same as taking a photo at 1/500^th of a second at F16. Since we doubled the time of the exposure (time the tap was on) we had to halve the size of the hole (size of the tap) in order to get the same amount of “water into the glass” or light into the camera. We'll explore the relationship more in chapter 4.

Chapter 3: The other properties of the 3 controls.

ISO

Ok so we've sort of already covered most of this one during the explanation of what ISO is. The special property of ISO, outside of how it affects exposure, is the fact that it will change how your image looks depending on the “grain size”. High ISO images will be coarser and grainier than low ISO images; you'll have to weigh the pros and cons when shooting. Some digital camera's noise is very much like that of film and can look nice in certain shots, other cameras the noise will just take away from the image completely. Some cameras handle noise better than others. A shot at ISO800 using one camera may look like it has less noise than an ISO200 shot from a different camera. Not all cameras are created equal, the point and shoot variety tend to suffer the most with high ISO noise and should normally be kept under ISO 400 if at all possible.

Shutter

How the shutter effects exposure is pretty straight forward, it is like a valve that turns on for specific duration of time letting light into the camera. The special property aside from exposure though is the ability to freeze or expand time. A fast enough shutter speed can stop a bullet in mid air or stop the beating wings of a humming bird. A slow shutter speed can drag out an instant and show motion. There are many ways to use this to your advantage to completely change the mood of a shot.

Left. By allowing the shutter to remain open for several seconds the headlights of a car can be seen continuing on as the vehicle moves past leaving a light trail.

Right. Using a very fast shutter speed of 1/8000^th you can make out the individual droplets of water formed by the jets in a water fountain.

Aperture

As we saw previously, aperture is basically the size of the end of our faucet or the opening to our camera. The bigger it is the more water flows out or the more light that gets let into the camera. Aperture has not one but two special properties, both have to do with what is called “depth of field” or “DOF”.

With a small aperture (high F#) you can have a very large DOF meaning that everything in the depth of field will be relatively in focus. A large aperture on the other hand will of course do the opposite, only a shallow distance will be in focus.

Left. This image is using a very small aperture so that the DOF is huge stretching all the way across the riverbank so that both the foreground and background are in focus.

Right. The opposite is true for a large aperture, the DOF is very shallow and only extends a few inches in front of and behind the flower.

Think of depth of field as a flat plane that has a thickness, as you close your aperture making it smaller the DOF gets deeper or thicker. Everything that is the same distance or “depth” from you will be in the same DOF.

Here's a little more information on the topic. If the opening or aperture is small then there is very little variance allowed in the path of light through the aperture. As seen in the image below if the line varied up or down it wouldn't make it through the hole, this results in a sharp image. With a hole small enough you wouldn't actually need a lens to focus, this is the principle behind pinhole cameras. Pinhole cameras have very high F#'s because the hole is so small, F stops of F150 and higher are common. In case you're wondering where the F# comes from it is the ratio of the focal length (distance from aperture to film surface) to the diameter of the aperture. So a 100mm lens set to F4 would have an aperture of 25mm (F#=ƒ/D). You don't need to know this but its interesting to understand the origins.

Tree in real life ------------- Tree as it appears in camera

Now if we open up the aperture as shown in the image below we will allow more variance in the path the light can take from a single point. This results in a blurry image.

The other special property of aperture is that the shape of the out of focus stuff can take on the shape of your aperture under certain circumstances.

In this photograph a person covered their lens with construction paper that had a star shaped hole on the front. They then made the image out of focus intentionally. In this instance the star shaped hole acted as an aperture and allowed the out of focus light to take on the shape.

Another place you'll notice this is if you take a picture of bright lights at night or even the sun, the glare will often form a 6 point star pattern. This is because a lot of apertures use a 6 blade configuration that form a hexagonal hole.

In case you're wondering if the “out of focus stuff” has a name it does, well sort of. Somewhere along the lines someone started calling it “Bokeh” pronounced Bo-Kuh. The word is derived from the Japanese noun “Boke” meaning blurry or fuzzy.

Chapter 4 – Putting it all together

By now you know that each of the 3 controls influence exposure, but with all the variables its a little hard to keep track of them. Lucky for us a few people have been nice enough to make this easier on us so we don't have to do the math in our heads. Michael from Imageguy has made a quick reference card to use if you need to adjust your settings while keeping the exposure the same. If I fail to explain it well here you can watch a video over at http://www.imageguy.com/exposureadjustment-chart/

They also have a dowloadable PDF of it there that is much more suitable for printing.

To use this chart you will have to already know what settings will get you a proper exposure. If you have a digital SLR all you have to do is set your camera to auto, take a photo of what you plan to shoot, and then review the image information. Let’s say for this example your camera determines that 1/60^th of a second at ISO200 with F8 is properly exposed. Unfortunately you want to take a photo of your kid playing baseball and you want to freeze time as he swings the bat. 1/60^th of a second just isn't quick enough to capture that. Don’t fret just put your camera into manual mode and we'll use the chart to figure out what we need to do to shoot it at a quicker speed of say 1/500th of a second.

Start by counting the dots between 1/60^th and 1/500^th of a second. There are 3 dots and we're moving up, this means that we'll have to compensate either our aperture or ISO settings by 3 stops or a combination of the two. Remember since we're compensating for 3 stops up we need to go the other way on the other settings to reduce by 3 stops.

We could either reduce our aperture by 3 stops to F2.8, or we could increase our ISO to 1600, or a combination of the two. Since we learnt earlier that it is always a good idea to keep the ISO a bit lower let’s only go one stop to 400, and then we'll drop the aperture to F4. As you see we move the opposite direction on the lines we're using to compensate.

Another example, say we're shooting a flower up close but we want to blur out the background by having a shallow DOF. Lets say we know that we're getting a proper exposure at 1/125s with ISO 400 at F16. Because the aperture is so small our depth of field would be huge causing the background to remain in focus.

What settings would we want to use if we knew increasing the aperture size to F2.8 would give us a nice blurry background?

Count the dots, we're reducing the aperture by 5 F stops if we're going to drop from F16 to F2.8 so therefore we need to increase the other settings by 5 stops total.

I'd say that for flowers we're again going to want to reduce film grain, also the fact that we're doing a close up of a flower means we want as much detail as possible. This means we should start by changing the ISO from 400 to 100 which gives us 2 stops. We still need another 3 stops so lets increase our shutter speed from 1/125^th to 1/1000^th .

You see how this is working? It’s really not that hard at all.

Ok so this is great if you know the proper exposure but say you found an old film camera in your grandpa's basement and it doesn't have a built in light meter to do the work for you. There is a trick called the “Sunny 16 Rule” that is very easy to remember. If it is sunny outside set your camera to F16 then set your shutter speed to 1/ your ISO. For example if you were shooting ISO 200 you'd set your shutter to 1/200. Now you know the proper exposure and can compensate from there by counting stops to get to any combination of settings you need.

Chapter 5 – For those of you with Point and Shoot cameras

Ever notice how all these cameras, even DSLRs, have “program” modes like “Sports” “Indoor” “Outdoor” “Portrait” “Kids & Pets” etc ? Well since your camera never knows what type of subject you're shooting (yet anyways) they build in presets to at least give you a little control.

This may not be exactly what your camera does since each manufacturer has slightly different methods but this should be close. These presets will often also change other settings such as the colour and amount of sharpening, however for the purposes of this document I'll only address what affects exposure.

Sports. This will often raise your ISO and Aperture size to allow for a faster shutter speed, thus allowing you to freeze the action.

Indoor. Will do the same as sports but adjust to a shutter speed that is safe enough for a hand held shot not to be blurry. If this still isn't possible it will turn on the flash.

Outdoor. This will often lower your ISO and increase the aperture, since its bright outside you don't need the extra light sensitivity.

Portrait. Depending on your camera it may lower ISO to give you a cleaner image. Most often it just reduces the in-camera sharpening of the image so that it is softer, this doesn't affect exposure though.

Landscape. Often this will try to set a smaller aperture to allow for a greater depth of field. This setting will also normally enhance green and blue colours for more vivid skies and trees, again this does not effect exposure.

Kids & Pets. Both of these subjects tend to move fast and unpredictably, like the sports setting it will open up your aperture and increase your ISO to allow for a quick shutter speed.

All cameras are different, take the time to fool around with yours and see what it is doing. Now that you understand how the shutter, aperture, and ISO work you should be able to figure out what your camera is doing when you put it in one of these auto modes just by looking at the image information after you take the picture.

That's it for this edition, now stop reading and get out there and start shooting!