MRW PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS: DSLR Basic's
March, 2009

In the very beginning I was extremely frustrated with photography. My heart and interest was there but lacked the technical knowhow to correctly set the camera up to take better pictures. Most of the pictures I would take would often look average at best. At one point I considered giving up on photography altogether. I'm glad that I didn't. Back in the film days photography was not as popular as it is today. Everybody has a camera of some sort. If you own a cell phone most likely have a built in camera. They all work under the same basic concepts. Fortunately for me I have had some awesome teacher's along the way to help me better understand how a camera works.

LIGHT: Is the most essential part of photography. When light hits a subject it is transmitted to the camera to form a "Latent" image on the CCD.

LENS: Your camera lens whether fixed or detachable is designed of a convex glass polished to refract the widening of light rays which move from every point of a subject, so that they converge to form a coherent points. Once the lens is focused on its subject the rays coincide with the focal plane with the position of the CCD.

FOCAL PLANE:  After the refracted light rays have traveled through the lens will pass through the camera focal-plane shutter to compose a upside down image. Light traveling from different distances from the camera needs varying degrees of refraction to focus at the focal plane. Assuming the lens is focused on its subject the picture will be focused at point of shutter release.   

SHUTTER:  Most DSLR's give the user the ability to control settings such as Aperture and Shutter. The Shutter settings control's the amount of light that is exposed to your cameras CCD. Adjusting the Shutter control to the next stop will either double or halve your exposure time.  How does this work? When you press the shutter release button on your DSLR causes the shutter blades which overlap to open and close. The amount that the blades open is dependent upon the F-Stop setting which controls how much light will be allowed to inter the lens. Your Shutter also affects objects in motion.

APERTURE: When adjusting the Aperture setting will change the size of the diaphragm from full aperture (wide open) to stopped down (minimally opened). This controls the brightness of light to the CCD. Moving to the next F-Stop either halves or doubles the aperture size.  Your aperture size also affects your depth of field