Learning Photography
Photography is an amazingly fulfilling hobby, but it's also quite hard to start. Learning photography is something which never stops, but you won't take good photos until you get the basics under your belt.
This page is an introduction to digital photography. Consider it a one page overview - telling the story.
There'll be links to more detailed articles as we go through if you want to learn more (which I recommend).
Warning: This is a long page, but brimming with great information. Go and make a nice cup of tea (I'm English, is it obvious?), close the door and take your time.
Start Learning Photography
First things first, it's important to realise that photography is all about light. Photographers feed off light: they (we!) know how to use it to get the best image, when light is good or bad and various qualities it has.
When you're out with your camera, the settings you change on your camera alter the way it responds to light. There are many ways that it can do this. As you become a better photographer, you'll become more comfortable with each of them.
The digital camera
Let's start with an overview of how digital cameras work.
The reason you can see the world around you is because light, generated either the sun or artificially, bounces off an object and into your eyes. This is also how digital cameras work.
The light first passes through the lens, which focusses the light onto a digital sensor in the camera body. This information is then stored digitally on a memory card from whence you can put it onto your computer.
Along the way it passes through various parts which you can change. Two of these are the shutter and the aperture. The shutter opens up to let the light through, and the aperture changes in size to control how much light is let through.
Read more about the digital camera itself.
The amount of light which is let through is the cause of an effect known as exposure.
Exposure
Put simply, exposure determines how bright the final image will be as a measure of how much light is recorded by the digital sensor
Exposure is made up of three different influences:
- Shutter speed: the length of time the shutter is open, allowing light through to the sensor.
- Aperture size: the size of the aperture affects how much light gets through in the time during which the shutter is open.
- Film speed (ISO): an electronic processes which amplifies the signal. The higher the "ISO" the brighter the image will be.
I'd recommend reading the exposure guide and the related articles on these three factors contained therein for greater understanding of the details.
Exposure is the most fundamental thing to understand when learning photography, as almost every main control you have over the camera affects exposure. It also has the greatest effect on your final images.
Composition
Once you know roughly how to use your camera (read the exposure guide!), you can start to think about getting creative.
Composition is the placement of various elements of the scene on your image. You want to make your photos interesting, and there are various techniques you can consider to do this.
You can use various "rules" like the rule of thirds and others like it, but ultimately you should develop your own style. Don't disregard centuries of thought into composition, though! Only try to "break the rules" once you know when and why you should.
In general, compositional guidelines will make your photos more interesting and exciting.