Photography

From Pigbert Wiki

Primary Controls

The key of better picture is to let more light in. There are two ways of doing so. One is to have a bigger lens, the other is to have a longer shutter time (smaller shutter speed). So here comes the trade-off between the Av and speed.

In the camera dial, there are normally four modes regarding this trade-off control:

• P Program mode offers partial control over shutter speed and aperture.
• M Manual mode controls shutter speed and aperture independently.
• A Aperture Priority mode allows aperture control yet automatically calculates shutter speed.
• S Speed Priority mode allows shutter speed control yet automatically calculates aperture value.

Aperture Priority Av/A

• Allows the user to control the aperture, the shutter is calculated automatically by the camera to ensure proper exposure.
• The Av of my camera is 2.8(zoomed out)--4.9(zoomed in) (Av is lost on zoom in, because it somehow requires a smaller lens)
• The main impact that aperture had on images was with regards to Depth of Field (DOF)
• Normally you would want to let as more light in as possible, therefore a smaller Av is always preferred. But under the special situation that you want to take a depth photo under plenty of light, you may want to trade some aperture for depth.

Speed Priority Tv/S

• Allows the user to control the shutter speed, the aperture is calculated automatically by the camera to ensure proper exposure.
• Slow speed allows more light to come into the lens, but ofter causes blurry pictures. User the mode only if you have a tripod, and
  • you are under an appalling light condition and need more light in, or
  • you deliberate want a blurry picture to show how fast things are going (e.g. photoing a racing car)

Sensitivity / Iso speed

If you need more light, and take the photo fast, then you need to adjust the iso higher. This will make the photo more grainy. So you are trading the grainess with the speed.

Secondary Controls

Exposure

It's like the level in photoshop. It is used to avoid over-exposed or under-exposed photos.

Auto Bracket

Flash

The flash control is in form of a vector from -2 .. 2. It means how long after the flash goes off would you want to the picture to be taken.

Photoshop Controls

white balance

Say you are taking a picture in a room under yellow light, your photo is going to turn out yellowish. To cope with that, you could adjust your white balance to the blue side to balance out the yellow light so that the background would look more white.

Pre-fixed Automatic Modes

scenery

For taking pictures of distant and vast landscapes. Auto focus priority is set to infinity.