Photography Lessons

Thank you so much for doing this! I've been searching for a way to stop fumbling about with this newish hobby of mine and after reading the first lesson, I believe I've found it. Keep it coming!

im going to check these out!!!!! thanks...

BonnieD. wrote in post #11490431
Thank you so much for doing this! I've been searching for a way to stop fumbling about with this newish hobby of mine and after reading the first lesson, I believe I've found it. Keep it coming!

Your welcome. I really hope this series is a help. Let me know if you have any questions. I am usually quick to follow up on comments.

Hopefully some folks got new cameras for Christmas. Maybe my series of lessons will be useful.

Thank you so much for these... I'm wanting to go "back to basics" with my shooting for a bit and after skimming each lesson, these are perfect!

The illustrations are very useful and the "whys" invaluable. Simplicity rules, wish these lessons had been available when I was first learning.

Excellent work and you are very gracious to share it with everyone. Thank you!

Pat

This information is exactly what I have been searching for!! I will have to read a few times but the fact that it is all there in one place is awesome!
I plan on upgrading from my Canon Powershot sx200is (which still has full Manual functions), to a DSLR. I am considering the Canon 550d, with a 50mm f1.8 lens to start. Do you have any thoughts on this camera body? Or I could get the 450d which is the older version. Just doesnt have the HD video camera - not sure I need that anyway.

Thank you for the info!

plbb wrote in post #11517242
Thank you so much for these... I'm wanting to go "back to basics" with my shooting for a bit and after skimming each lesson, these are perfect!

The illustrations are very useful and the "whys" invaluable. Simplicity rules, wish these lessons had been available when I was first learning.

Excellent work and you are very gracious to share it with everyone. Thank you!

Pat

Thanks so much! I am glad you find these lessons helpful. My goal is to teach digital photography cohesively. At the end of the series the reader should have the ability to visualize the finished image before pressing the shutter button. That means you need to know camera basics and, you also need to know how to develop your photos in the digital darkroom. The next step is photoshop. I should be writing the first lesson soon.

You probably want to include a section for basic post processing for cleaning up photos.

Not necessarily something advanced as HDR, but adjusting white balance, cleaning up noise, cropping, correcting angles, etc.

You recommend RAW but don't then don't really include any examples of the expanded options that gives you.

Other than that, good work!

Hey Dave, good work you've been putting out there!

As I was going through your material on exposure it did strike me that ISO was not covered at all until Lesson 9 and in fact wasn't even mentioned until Lesson 7 as basically an aside observation when you were catching a scene with tricky lighting.

My thoughts are that a new photographer who is going through those lessons and then goes out to capter images in less than great light is going to be in for some disappointment until they finally arrive at lesson 9!

Now, I read Understanding Exposure (the Peterson book) several years ago -- he intoduced digital cameras but a big gap in his coverage of the digital technology was that he was approaching ISO from film usage, and was missing the power of using digital ISO as part of the dynamics of our exposure.

I understand he has a new revision out that does make progress in that area but I haven't read it.

What I'm suggesting is that you consider bringing the idea of ISO into your discussions prior to the chapter but integrated into your lessons on exposure basics. Getting your readers on a "friendly basis" with ISO usage will at least make them aware of the tool when they are out shooting so they can use it as needed and not be afraid of it (the way we were in the film days).

Not that you should change your discussion on exposure in relation to light gathering by the aperture and shutter speed -- those understandings are at the core of a good exposure for sure. But our DSLRs produce very high quality ISO amplifications that can make the difference between a great image and a lousy image, and to me it would help to at least introduce the basic idea early enough in the lessons so that people don't get frustrated when they go out and actually take some pic!

My thoughs, my opinion, thanks for listening and again thanks for the good job you're doing!

Darth Mo wrote in post #11538010
You probably want to include a section for basic post processing for cleaning up photos.

Not necessarily something advanced as HDR, but adjusting white balance, cleaning up noise, cropping, correcting angles, etc.

You recommend RAW but don't then don't really include any examples of the expanded options that gives you.

Other than that, good work!

He says in the lessons (and in the post above yours) that after the holidays he will put out new lessons covering Raw processing, Photoshop, etc.

Wow, good stuff for a beginner like me; looking forward to the post processing stuff!

Hi Dave! I am a complete newb to DSLRs and your lessons have taught me so much really! Just came back from HK and it's a shame I didn't read your tips before or I could have taken much better pictures!!

Keep up the lessons and good work, much appreciated!

Tony,

Big thanks for your advice! I totally agree that ISO is a big component in choosing exposure settings. Now that digital cameras are capable of decent quality high ISO photos it is important that the beginner photographer is aware of all his/her options. I might have to do a little rewrite of one of the earlier lessons.

ISO is kind of a tricky subject. I feel it needs a deep understanding. When I wrote this series the ISO discussion kept getting pushed back further and further. I wanted to explain exposure but I didn't want to write a quick and partially incorrect explanation of ISO just to squeeze it into an exposure lesson. With a little editing I might be able to slide the ISO lesson further up and cover it before the exposure lesson. Then I'll edit the exposure lesson to go deeper into ISO.

Writing a decent explanation of exposure is harder than it might seem. When looked at from the perspective of a complete beginner it is hard to find the correct starting point. You've got three variables: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Also the beginner needs to understand that when you press the shutter button you are letting in a very measured amount of light. Within this light exposure there are dark areas and light areas. This variation in tone is what makes the photo and through the Bayer Array also makes color. To understand one part you kind of have to understand all the parts. Once you get it, the whole subject of exposure seems basic. However, it's a tough nut to crack. When teaching most technical subjects you can build the parts into a working whole. With photography it's kind of like you need to know the parts and then through a bit of magic it all makes sense. Teaching photography is kind of like building a puzzle rather than a pyramid.

Anyhow, thanks again for the advice.

Hey Dave!

Yeah, it can get complicated, and the move from film to digital has made understanding ISO and how it fits a bit more complex, although in use it is a powerful step up from film capabilities.

It's interesting to try to discuss this with people with a strong film background because for one thing film graing was actually caused by higher ISO film physically and boy I avoided higher ISO film! It's very liberating to be able to go out and take on challenging light with a beginning ISO of, say, 1600!!!

If you want to read a very interesting discussion and discussions about all this, check out or HAMSTTR thread (a term POTN coined to try to further some undertanding on the ETTR idea):

https://photography-on-the.net …=744235&highlig​ht=hamsttr

I'd point you to the link in that post about the thread that "started it all" -- you may get some laughs as well as grimaces. The HAMSTTR sticky is one that I pretty frequently point people to.

Oh, and I have a suggestion for you ISO lesson, to help people to see how digital ISO works in action:

With the understanding that an ISO 1600 shot is, exposure-wise, an ISO 100 exposure that has been electronically amplified by 4 stops, nothing more nothin less, here is how your students can learn about both the nature of digital ISO and also explore the relative performance of their particular cameras as they raise their ISO by full "real" stops.

With their camera set to Raw (very important) and their exposure set to full Manual, they would take a scene without deep shadows or super bright highlights and set their ISO to 1600 and their shutter and aperture to expose the image in a way that clips neither the shadows nor the highlights, but does retain some shade (the image should be well exposed, but not overexposed.

Take the shot, and then without any change in the scene or its lighting at all, lower the ISO to ISO 100 -- four stops down, leaving the aperture and shutter speed as-is. In other words you are getting the exact same amount of light on the sensor, the ony difference is that in the ISO amplifier.

Bring them into your Raw processor and adjust the exposure by 4 stops and, if needed, any further adjustments needed to equalize the luminance histogram (some programs, like Lightroom, don't do Exposure in a linear way so would need a shadow Fill and/or Brightness boost to equalize the ISO 100 shot).

Turn off noise reduction and sharpening, then enjoy comparing the two images -- one boosted by the ISO amplifier, the other by software. They might be surprised and impressed that, for Canon cameras, the image noise (actually amplifier noise) actually goes down as you raise your ISO by real stops. You don't typically see it in an ISO 100 image because you are aiming at not underexposing, but it may be a surprise to people coming from the film world and the engrained assumption held over from those days that "raising the ISO causes more noise"

Wow.. thanks for the efforts.

I did a pretty big edit. Now, the ISO lesson comes before exposure lesson and I include ISO in the exposure discussion. The funny thing is I already had an ISO animation sitting on my hard drive. Before I wrote the original exposure lesson I thought I'd use it, but never did. I should have gone with my first instinct. Now, the ISO animation is there for you to see in all its glory.

Check out the newly updated series: free photography lessons for beginners