I have been mad keen on photography now for most of my life. as a kid we had a cheap analogue point and click camera that took a roll of film that had 24 exposures and no manual adjustments other than flash on/ off – so you had to be pretty sure of a shot when you were taking it. Then there was the weeks wait while the films were sent off for processing only to find that half of them were blurred or had fingers in the way! I still have a lot of those old photographs as prize possessions of youth and there are many memories contained within them.
As an adult I’ve been lucky enough to progress from analogue to digital and seen plenty of innovations and upgrades along the way. I’ve had Olympus (previous) and a few Nikon (current) cameras and am currently shooting with a D7200. I’m a gadget person so I’ve got allsorts of tools, add-ons, gizmo’s to help me get that perfect picture.
But what makes that perfect picture? I often look at others work and am amazed by the composition, subject matter, colours (or tones of a black and white image), technical ability and often wish that I was as accomplished as that person. But, if I’m being honest with myself, I might not be as accomplished or had pictures published or as recognised as others but some of my images (I think) are pretty good. I wonder how much of success is down to opportunity presenting itself (or being self-made)?
Looking back, if you are serious (or semi-serious) about your photography there are some basics that you need to get your head around to get you on the right road to success. Some of these might seem impossible to master or seem like a nonsense but give them a go, they might not be as tough as they appear at first.
Just for a while, forget all those text books on Amazon and all those other blogs that go into so much detail, forget YouTube for now, (sorry guys, you can still be there waiting but just hang on for a while). Let’s start with something straight-forwards.
Basics to start with are the exposure triangle, aperture, shutter speed and ISO.
All of these go together to form EXPOSURE – without the right exposure your image is going to be too bright and blown out with too much white or on the flip side it will be dark, dingy and with too much black and shadow. You’ve got to try and get the exposure (using the three things above) just right – or as right as you want them to be for the image you are trying to achieve.
Beginners start with their camera on auto mode – which I was stuck on for a long time where the camera makes all the critical decisions on these three for you. But beware! It’s not perfect and sometimes (often?) it just doesn’t do what you want it to do and the final image isn’t what you were trying to achieve. So, if a job needs doing, you have to do it yourself!
Getting off auto and onto manual mode can seem scary and an impossible barrier to achieving great shots. But, with practice you can get there. Heck, if I can do it then anyone can! Getting these three things right (or at least understanding them) will get you starting to use that mystical manual mode more and more…auto is always there as a safety net!
