Basic fundamental concepts of photography

Photographer :-  Puvvu konvict.

Experience      :-  About 4,000 Hours.

Cameras used :-  Canon, Nikon.

Hai, Guys. 

I'm gonna tell you the most basic fundamental concepts of photography, and that will help you to start as a beginner. In this post i will clearly demonstrate the main things to keep in mind, and i am assured that this will undoubtedly help you to elevate your photography skills, Okay, Let's get started.

First when you turn on your camera you will see something like this below screen.

I would like to start with the Image quality.

Image Quality

We generally capture pictures but as a beginner by which quality of image you want to get or for what purpose your picture is for is the important thing, so when you open up the menu you'll find image quality menu.

And when you get into that, it will show you different types of image qualities inside it with it respective resolutions and size, just like below ↓

Okay, Let me tell you clearly.

1. Large

2. Medium

3. Small

4. RAW + Large

5. RAW

My suggestion is as a beginner is to go with RAW if you have larger memory card you can use the combination of RAW + Large 

Advantage of Raw

As a beginner it's common to make mistakes in the field with the manual modes that you need to setup all the things well like exposure, white balance and picture style, any of those combinations. if you use Raw we can easily fix those minor mistakes so far the beginners Raw or Raw + Large is the best and keep it as your standard setting.

White Balance

White balance is very important thing. white balance have different kinds of parameters, that we can find in the white balance menu, to tell you simply about white balance is a key parameter, and it decides what kind of colors you want in an image and the white balance is telling the camera which type of color we want to grab into the image depending upon the lighting situations, either that may be an outdoor or indoor location, white balance is expressed with kelvin (K) let's checkout some of white balance settings with their K values. when you open white balance and you've a direct access button for the white balance depending upon your camera model you will see a screen like this. look down below ↓

Here you can see the different types of white balance settings,

AWB (Auto white balance) :- It's a parameter that camera decides the K values for your image depending upon the lighting situations of their location. let's see the K values for each setting.

Daylight                      →     Approx 5200 K

Shade                         →     Approx 7000 K

Cloudy                       →     Approx  6000 K

Tungsten light          →     Approx  3200 K

White fluorescent   →     Approx 4000 K

Flash-Outdoors        →     Approx 5400 K

Custom

Depending upon your camera model the custom white balance option is there, in this case you need to put the K value for your scene which means you should decide what kind of colors you want in your picture, simply get into the custom mode and give the appropriate K value for your scene, 

For example : Different kelvin values produce different types of colors i will tell you 2 types of colors that which bring according to the K value,

K Value of below 5,000 K will give you the bluish colors (cool) in your picture, just like below.

K Value of above 6,000 K will give you the yellowish (warm) colors in your picture, just like below.

And next i'm gonna tell the "Exposure Triangle" 

Exposure triangle parameter varies with ISO, Aperture, Shutter speed.

Whatever that the camera brand is there's 3 types of shooting modes comes into the exposure triangle they are

TV Mode (Shutter priority mode) And YES mode for Nikon

First let's get to know what about shutter speed, it is the time period to open and closing of shutter to enter light and to hit the sensor. in this period of shutter opening and closing the sensor capture the picture of your given time. if you keep your shutter speed low it will give you motion blur and shake in your images, if you keep your shutter speed high it freezes the action of the aimed subject because the shutter opening and closing time is very fast, so this how to tolerate the shutter speed.

For example

To describe you visually to understand.

Here you see what i capture with low shutter speed image of a model riding a bike below.

Did you observe what happened in this picture when i captured with low shutter speed total scene is blur, this is because the opening and closing of shutter is a bit took long time to capture the subject. and see another image below.

I hope you understand what shutter speed does to your images, in this particular image comparing to the low shutter speed image, here it is sharply focused and freezed the action because the bike is moving (Approx speed of 40 Kmph) this is because the opening and closing the shutter time is too fast.

AV Mode (Aperture priority mode) And A Mode for Nikon

Aperture is the opening of your lense, it is a term that allows the amount of light entering in your camera, there's a blades inside of your lense,  and this is how you control the amount of light to enter into the camera and also to define the depth of field of your picture.

Here the small number of aperture usually a large opening, as well as the large number of aperture a small opening,  see the below image to figure out ↓

For example

To describe you visually to understand.

Here what i captured with low number of aperture image below.

Here the depth of field is very shallow and a small area of the scene is sharply focused. this is because of large opening of your lense to let the huge amount of light to enter into the camera. and similarly see the image which i captured with high number of aperture image of 4 people are staring at something below.

Here you observe the depth of field is large and large portion of the scene is sharply focused, this is because the opening of lense is smaller than previous and the amount of light entered into the camera is low, just compare these two images and this is exactly what aperture does to your pictures.

Keep in mind that 

     Low number aperture → Small area sharp focus

     High number aperture→ Large area sharp focus

ISO 

When you open ISO menu, or direct access button to ISO you'll see a screen something like this below.

ISO is nothing but the sensitivity of the sensor, it's all about how quickly the sensor reacts to the light, that's ISO and you must use it with proper number because if you shoot a scene with high iso the image will be very noisy, for example look at the image below.

Did you see what happens when you shoot with high ISO, the image will be looks like this, and if i shooted the same scene with low ISO you see what it does with image which i've captured below.

Look at the difference what happened here when i shooted with low number of ISO, this is how the iso works with our images, so i always prefer a low number of ISO to get the better images bumping up the ISO too much doesn't gives you good images.

Modes of your camera (In detail)

We have various modes in camera let me explain you clearly.

Complete auto mode

In this mode the camera decides all the 3 exposure triangle parameters, but the camera doesn't know what your going to shoot and it really don't know what kind of pictures your going to frame and it takes the values of aperture, iso and the shutter speed by it's own depending upon the lighting situations over there to give you a good image that probably may not be what you want or what kind of picture your expecting for, if there's low light camera will automatically pull up the flash, this mode is not preferable.

P Mode (programme mode)

In this mode the camera decides the shutter speed and aperture for the given iso (if you half press the shutter release button it will show you the relative values). Here again you don't have control on those 2 parameters. if you increase the iso the shutter speed and the aperture also changes by itself.

TV Mode (shutter priority mode)

In this mode you have to give the shutter speed for the given iso and then the camera will give you the particular aperture value (if you half press the shutter release button it will show you corresponding aperture). Here you remember one thing that if the aperture is blinking that means the aperture is not enough for the given shutter speed and the iso. this mode is mainly used for the sports and the subjects which are moving and to freeze the actions.

AV Mode (aperture priority mode)

In this mode you will decide the aperture for the given iso and the camera will give you responding shutter speed for your scene (if you half press the shutter release button it will show you the value). this mode is mainly used in the importance of depth of field. this is basically used in macro and portrait  photography.

M Mode (manual mode)

This is complete manual mode and it's very advanced mode for the beginners it is not recommended because you have to decide all the 3 exposure parameters based on the metering and other complex things. it's somewhat difficult to evaluate all the things and you have to put the every value manually. beginners better to go with the aperture priority mode or shutter speed priority mode and the programme mode also works good.

Portrait Mode

In this case, when you turn to portrait mode you will notice in the screen that iso is auto and it contains some of default settings and this is only works on the depth of field.

Landscape Mode

In this mode the iso is auto and this mode is particularly used for the larger depth of field and it comes with single shot mode.

Close-up Mode

This mode is also similar to portrait mode it tries to give you a shallow depth of field to highlight the subject and it defocus all the elements in scene except the subject which we are aimed at.

Sports Mode

This mode is especially for the action photography as you can visualize and it more to do with action that you want to freeze the desired moment, in this mode the camera will works on high shutter speed.

Night portrait

In this case of night photography camera will work on longer exposure to get the maximum best picture at the night time which is in the very low lighting situations.

THESE ARE THE BASIC MODES IN THE CAMERA TO GET GOOD PICTURES

Once you understand the combination of shutter speed, aperture and iso, then play with these 3 parameters as a photographer you decide what kind of settings you want, because you only know well about what kind of picture you want, and what kind of weather around you and evaluate the lighting conditions for the subject what your going to shoot.

               If any action is happening or any motion is present in your target, decide that do you want to freeze it or would you like to get a motion blur then it's better to go with shutter speed priority mode and give what kind of shutter speed you want as you think. weather you're shooting a macro, close-up, portrait or landscape anything static still where the shutter speed is not much concern and it is more of depth of field. what you want go with aperture priority mode and decide what kind of aperture you want. but keep in mind that what iso your using because iso is very important if you use high iso the image will be noisy and it doesn't looks good. so these are the basic things which you've to keep in mind. the next is.

Focusing Modes

Here you look at the focusing modes menu below.

One Shot

For Nikon it is AF (auto focus single). The one shot mode is used for the static subjects, so here what happens is when you half press the shutter release button you will hear a beep sound (you need to turn it on in the settings). once you hear the beep sound it means the camera is locked focus on that subject which you are aimed at by this feature you can lock the focus sharply on the subject and then you can compose the framing to get a desired angle of picture.

I took a picture of flowers in one shot mode that you can see it below

AI Focus

For Nikon it is AFA (auto focus auto). this mode is full of auto and you do not have control on but the camera takes place and defines focusing area depending on the scene and lighting situations so it is not recommended, because the camera don't know what is the subject we are aiming at, it will take what is clear to the exposure parameters. so avoid it.

AI Servo

For Nikon it is AFC (auto focus continuous).here what happens is you can keep the focusing point on subject we can keep moving the camera along with targeted subject, this is used for the action photography or in some of the particular situations where the subject is unstable and moving.

For example just look at this image below.

Here i tried to capture that bird and it's reflection in water with AI Servo (continuous focusing) because the bird is walking side to side over there by this mode i captured the bird and it's reflection a bit clearly and ha i used some of complex metering modes to take it that which we learn next to it. so this is how AI Focus works.

These are the focusing modes of camera 

Focusing Points

When you open-up your focusing points menu you will see something like this below.

Here you need to choose what kind of focusing points you want to put on frame, look at those all focusing points and my recommendation is do not enable all the focusing points. because here what happens is the focusing points are responsible for getting the subject into the focus.

            And now if you enable all the focusing points, then the camera decides where and how to focus or what subject it has to focus in this case if there's 2-3 subjects in your scene the camera will focus on the more reflected subject which is may not what you want so that's not a good option. 

For example:

look at this particular picture which i captured by enabling all the focusing points below.

Here you see what happens if you enable all the focusing points, in this particular image the model riding a bike is my subject but the camera focused on the flowers and trees beyond the subject which i really don't want to, this is because the camera took the focus on more reflected area in the scene just observe the model riding a bike is not much reflective than the flowers and trees so that why the camera focused on those things. In this kind of particular situations what you have to do is avoid enabling all the focusing points. so move around and you decide the focusing points depending upon your composition of the scene. for my concern the center focusing point is very powerful to grab the best results it focus the subject very fastly. 

For example

Here you see the same image the model with bike coming to us below

Did you observed this particular image, here the model with bike is sharply focused because i enabled only the center focusing point and i aimed my subject exactly with that center focusing point and obviously i got a clean focused image. this is how the focusing points works. 

Okay the next is metering

METERING

It is the most complex part of photography. Metering is quite interesting and that is heart of photography. based on which the exposure triangle parameters are decided. 

you go with any camera that may be Canon, Nikon any camera model but the concept is again same for metering.

            There are various metering modes in depending upon your camera. okay let's look at this metering options below.

Okay, let's get to know about those metering options, first what is metering?

For example : If i am shooting with aperture priority mode, i set some value of aperture for about 200 - 400 iso and if i half press the shutter release button i get a particular number of shutter speed, so that value of shutter speed is decided by what kind of metering mode you are in now. in simple terms for you all to understand easily the metering is nothing but it's more to do with the amount of light which is reflected from the subject so the camera calculates how much light is reflected from the subject and to give you very basic exposure where it's not very dark and not very bright, so that is metering. Let's get to know about various types of metering options.

Spot Metering

In spot metering what the camera does is when it comes to your focusing point you see this centered  when you look the subject from view finder whatever the center focusing point is aiming at camera calculates the amount of light over there and how much light is getting reflected from that subject and then it will give you a decent exposure not very bright and not very dark, the medium exposure what we call based on that amount of light being reflected from that center focusing point, of course there are options where you can move the focusing point. in simple terms of spot metering where ever the center focusing point is looking at camera sees how much light is reflected and then based lighting situations that it is going to give you a particular shutter speed now if you look at that image it will give you a decent medium of exposure now this is where your exposure compensation comes into picture.

Evaluative Metering

In Nikon it's Matrix metering or even Multi segment metering. And here in this case what happens is it doesn't take it from the center at all just like spot metering, here it is the evaluative or matrix which means multi segment the camera basically takes the average of the whole scene, so it divides the entire segments  and then calculates how much light is coming into the camera from the whole scene not at a particular point. so it will calculate the light from the entire scene and then it takes the average and then it will give you a medium exposure to bring up the good quality of pictures. and same again the exposure compensation to make it darker or brighter that is evaluative metering is.

Partial Metering

This is very similar to the spot metering, where again from the center focusing point, what we have so typically is spot metering that center focusing point is an area of around some percent of area it spread to give you a good focusing. compared to the entire frame where as partial metering it takes a value  about 12 - 13 percent of that focusing point at the center that is about partial metering.

Center weighted average Metering 

Here what it makes in this metering, it gives more emphasize to the center portion of the image how much light is reflected from the center portion of the image and then it gives you a particular shutter speed to bring up medium exposure.

So this is what metering does to your photographs

The overall complexity of metering is quite high  so what i would recommend you as a beginner is to go with evaluative metering, here what you have to do is as a photographer look through the view finder (look at the below image).

See the tonality so one of the key things is about tonality what you have to look at.

The tonality is nothing but darkness or brightness. from the metering point of view as a photographer don't look at colors look at it from tonality is it dark or is it bright. Okay here at this point i would like to tell you a simple trick that is.

                  So when it comes to evaluative metering or matrix metering what kind of exposure compensation to use? If you shooting something very dark and if the overall average tonality of the whole scene is dark then you have to under expose, it is a little bit confusing where if the tonality is already dark why should i under expose, simple because it's not post processing, here we just telling the camera that what kind of lighting situations you are going to shoot. so here we shooting dark tonality to get the medium exposure, so that's why you have to under expose. if you are shooting something bright make sure you basically over expose. Here you can see the exposure compensation setting below.

This is by how much trial and error by experimenting over a period of time your going to hear it so as i said my recommendation it comes to metering is to use evaluative metering or matrix metering (for Nikon) based on the tonality go ahead and under expose and over expose, observe the changes.

So why wait, take your camera get into the field and use all these options experiment yourself by tweaking everything and then you understand exactly. and do not experiment on all the metering options, stick to one particular metering option understand it in depth and then continue to the next one, just take your camera (tripod is best) and shoot the same scene with exposure compensation, doesn't matter whatever you are in AV Mode or TV Mode, so obviously the camera will give you corresponding value.

                  As a beginner the best way to learn these things are experimenting and do not experiment on different scenes this is another important point you just experiment on the same scene with different values and make a note on it. and there's a good thing with your camera is the "Exif" information is available. come back and copy to you PC and then keep looking at each image and analyse what is that you have done. That is how you can be a good photographer, the whole concept of metering and you decide depending upon your lighting conditions what kind of metering and what kind of exposure compensation you want to use and that's the best way to learn the things.

         Information what i explained you through this post is very basic fundamental concepts of photography that what i learnt in the field by myself .

But these are the core things you need to know as a beginner.   in photography there are a lot of advanced things to learn. but it is enough for the beginners to start as a photographer.

GOOD LUCK GUY'S

Puvvukonvict Photography..............................

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