How to take a photo.



Today, everyone has a camera. It might be a camera phone, point and shoot pocket camera, or a DSLR. I bet you have at least one of them.
Digital images are easier and faster than film to make, edit, and share.

The basic principals still apply just like they did a hundred plus years ago.

Photography is all about capturing the light.

Here is a basic overview

Photography is also full of rules. There are two main things when taking a photograph.
Composition: The artistic part where you arrange your picture in the viewfinder to produce a hopefully pleasing composition.
Exposure: This is the mechanical part where you expose the light through the lens to your camera and if you are lucky, capture the image.

If you are using an 'auto-everything' camera, your only control is the composition photos. I can't tell you how to take a great picture, it comes down to your ability to "see" the picture. There are rules and techniques you can use to improve your shots.

There are 2 basic ways to arrange your composition.
Physically move objects and or tell people to move.
Move your feet. The most effective way to arrange your composition is to change your viewpoint.

You do not want to end up with photographs that have areas of wasted space around the edge and people with things growing out of their heads. Make sure your subject fills the frame. The best way to do this is to move your feet closer.
Before you press that shutter, look round the frame and behind your subject. Make sure that you don't have space full of nothing interesting.
The most popular rule in photography is the Rule Of Thirds. Image lines are drawn dividing the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. Place important elements of your composition where these lines intersect. Using the Rule of Thirds helps produce nicely balanced images.
Exposure is how much light reached the digital sensor or film. The tricky part is knowing how much light you need and how to control the amount of light.
Using the light meter, built into the camera, and the aperture and shutter controls on your camera. You control the exposure by allowing light to pass through the aperture for a given amount of time(shutter speed).

Of the various controls on your camera the aperture and shutter controls are the ones which will give control over the finished photo. It is important to understand what they are for and how they affect each other. The shutter controls movement, which can be subject movement or camera shake, and the aperture controls how much of the image will be in sharp focus. The area of sharpness is known as the depth of field.

The aperture is just a hole and the size can be varied to allow more or less light to pass through. The size of apertures are in f-numbers.
An aperture range
f 1.4; f 2; f 2.8; f 4; f5.6; f 8; f 11; f 16; f 22; f 32
A shutter speed range
1sec; 1/2sec; 1/4sec; 1/8th; 1/ 15th; 1/30th; 1/60th; 1/125th;
1/250th; 1/500th; 1/1000th; 1/2000th
Shutter speeds are expressed in seconds or fractions of a second.

Minimum recommended shutter speeds for hand held photography.
24mm 1/30th
28mm 1/30th
50mm 1/60th
70mm 1/60th
90mm 1/125th
135mm 1/125th
200mm 1/250th
300mm 1/250th

The use of aperture and shutter is juggling one with the other. If you want a lot of depth of field you will have to select a small aperture. Then you will have to select a shutter speed that will
give you the correct exposure, and be fast enough to freeze movement and be fast enough to prevent camera shake.

If your light meter tells you to set your camera to f-8 at 1/125th of a second. You can decide that you want to change it.
Here are a range of shutter and aperture combinations which will all result in the same exposure.
f-32 1/8th of a second
f-22 1/15th of a second
f-16 1/30th of a second
f-11 1/60th of a second
f-8 1/125th of a second
f-5.6 1/250th of a second
f-4 1/500th of a second
f-2.8 1/1000th of a second
f-2 1/2000th of a second

If you want to capture fast movement you will have to select a fast shutter speed. Then you will have to select an aperture which will give you the correct exposure and be small enough provide sufficient depth of field.

One other important part of exposure is ISO or used to be the film speed.
With today’s digital sensors, ISO is basically adjusting the sensors sensitivity to light.
You want to keep this as low as possible to reduce noise in the photo.
It is your third item to balance in the exposure of your image.

Now that you are completely confused. You could take a photography course or read lots of online tutorials. Most importantly, get out there and shoot. Practice, practice, practice.
If you have a camera that has manual settings, use them. Practice with them. See how hey change the look of your photo. Anyone can take a photo. Knowing how to shoot can make your good image become a great image.

Happy shooting.



Note: Before you show anyone hundreds of photos or a 2 hour slide show, edit your images. Delete all the doubles, duds, and the out of focus. Only show people the good stuff. Pro's shoot a lot of duds too; they just don't show them to anyone.



While not a complete list, here are some of the top sites for images:

Share Smart Phone Photos Online:

Free images:

Free Online Image Editing:

Pro Photo Editing:

Image Editing:

Online Image Sharing:

Buy Prints And Gifts Online:



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