Digital Camera Guide – How to Use Your Camera

Photography

Info media photography : When it comes to photography, knowing how to use your camera is one of the most important aspects of the craft. This digital camera guide will give you the basics of how to use your camera and help you better understand the basic terminology needed.

Before we start, if you would like to follow a complete digital camera guide that covers beginning and advanced camera operating functions be sure to check out this resource.

Where We Begin…Your Camera

Whether you have a simple automatic camera built for the average photo taker looking to point and shoot or a bells and whistle advanced Digital SLR, the first place to begin is with what you have. If you haven’t already, be sure to take a look at your manual and try to get the most knowledge you can out of it. These manuals will often cover everything you need to know about how to use your camera. Of course, it can get confusing if you don’t understand basic camera terminology.

The first three terms you need to know in photography are:

1. Shutter Speed
2. Aperture
3. ISO

These three terms all describe different things in every camera that are used to control the way and amount of light is let into the camera to create an image. Photography is all about light and slight changes in how the light is dealt with have big influences on how the image ends up looking.

Aperture

The aperture of our camera is this “iris-like” device that opens and closes. It controls how much light is let in through a tiny hole.  The larger the hole, the more light let in. This is measured in F-Stops where f5.6 is a large opening whereas f16 is a small opening. You want a larger opening for darker settings and a smaller opening for very bright scenes.

Shutter Speed

While the aperture controls the size of the hole that light enters from, the shutter speed controls how long the light is let in. A small shutter speed of 1/500 will let very little light in whereas a longer shutter speed of 1/5 will let in much more light. It is measured in seconds . You want to use quick shutter speeds for scenes with lots of light and slower shutter speeds for very dark scenes.

ISO

The ISO controls the sensitivity of your “film”. For digital cameras, although it does not control film anymore, it controls the sensitivity of your camera sensor. A higher ISO number will make your image expose faster and require less light than a smaller ISO. The drawback of using a larger ISO is that the higher ISO’s usually result in a detraction in image quality and grain.

Putting these Digital Photography Tips Together

Now that you know the three important terms in photography your next step is to learn how all three of these interact with each other and how to select the right settings for each! Creative use of these settings can result in many interestingphotography tips and tricks.

Many cameras have modes where you control one of these and the camera will automatically choose appropriate settings for the rest. Two examples are shutter priority and aperture priority where in each you control either the shutter speed or the aperture.

The last important camera function to mention is focus. Many cameras have automatic focus which is usually very poor and results in blurry photos often. The solution is to understand how to use automatic focusing as well as using focus metering to properly manual focus.

For more photography tips be sure to check out Digital Photo Secrets, a complete guide on photography.