Tell me about photography -

[Butta Face Lopez]

I didn't see a thread on this. Also I didn't look carefully.

I was just given a camera and I don't know a single thing about photography. It's some bundle from Amazon and it's a "Nikon D3200 24.2 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with 18-55mm and 55-200mm Non-VR DX Zoom Lenses." It has all kinds of words and glyphs I don't understand.

I'm not trying to be artistic or make money with this or anything, but I'm going on a trip and I'd like to document it. The trip will take me across the American Southwest and I'm very much into dramatic landscapes, so that's what I'm thinking I'll be taking a lot of pictures of.

Make me real good at taking pictures please.

 

[exball]

You aim the camera and press the button. It works for me.

 

[Chikinballs]

Set everything on automatic.

 

[Le Bateleur]

Knowing a little about just a handful of concepts is going to make using your camera many times more fun, and lead to far better results. Even if you do let the automatic settings handle everything, a grasp of the basics is going to help you.

Incidentally, sincere apologies if any of this is hugely obvious to you, I'm assuming no prior knowledge

First off, your lenses. The number in mm is the focal length. In very crude terms, it describes how "zoomed" a lens is, although it's more accurate to think in terms of angle of view. A low focal length like 18mm means a wide angle, great for taking landscape shots. A high focal length like 200mm means a much narrower angle, but also allows a closeup view of distant objects. Paparazzi photographers often use lenses in the 400-600mm range for long-distance creeping.

A focal length of around 50mm is roughly equivalent to a typical human field of vision; lenses that have a much lower focal length can give a "fish eye" effect if used on closer objects. Conversely, if you're shooting a portrait it tends to give a more flattering effect if you move the camera further away and use a higher focal length.

Play around with both your lenses, and find out which effects you can get from them. You'll come to know when to use which lens depending on what you want to achieve.

Next, focusing. Auto focus these days is fantastic, and if you do want some artistic focal effect then 9 times out of 10 it's far easier to apply it in Photoshop. It's a good idea, however, to familiarise yourself with the focal meter that your lens will have - normally it's some arrangement of circles and lines that will let you confirm that a shot is focused right. That way you'll be confident that the auto focus is doing its job.

More important is understanding the relationship between aperture, shutter speed and depth of field. In basic terms, light coming through the lens is allowed onto your camera's sensor through a hole of adjustable size called the aperture. The bigger this hole is, the shorter time the sensor needs to be exposed to light. However, using a smaller hole means that a bigger "slice" of the scene you are photographing will be in sharp focus. Understanding this technique will allow you to access a versatile and very cool effect which can be difficult and time-consuming to replicate in Photoshop.

Spoiler: depth of field comparison

Experiment with shutter speeds. This is another area where the automation does a superb job, but be aware that you can easily make the shutter speed a little bit faster or slower than default and still end up with a decent photo. Obviously if the shutter speed is far too low then you won't get any light to the sensor, and thus not have a photo. Conversely too long a shutter speed will just give you an image that's completely white.

There are scenes, though, where changing the shutter speed will allow different effects. Waterfalls are the classic example.

Spoiler: classic example

In summary, the automatic settings are fantastic, and ought to give you a usable photo under the majority of conditions. However, knowing what is being automated, and what making changes to each setting will do is both straightforward and rewarding.

 

[John Titor]

A 1/125 (of a second) shutter speed usually gives decent pictures. Anything slower (it's fractions, bare with me) you have to stabilize the camera or else you will get blur. You're going to be outdoors so keep the shutter speed fast to reduce glare.

Absinthe explained it better than I can anyway.

 

[Butta Face Lopez]

Hey thanks.

I've been watching videos about this stuff and they keep talking about ISO as well, but no one has really actually explained what that IS. They say a low ISO (100-200) is better for landscape shots.

I'm going to be driving from Chicago to LA for this trip so I'll be seeing lots of crazy landscapes, I imagine. The pictures I've been looking at make it look like it's impossible to take a "bad" picture there. Are these pictures (just GIS Grand Canyon to see what I mean) all heavily manipulated, or is it just that a place as magnificent as that makes everything look that way?

My knowledge is EXTREMELY basic and you guys have helped...would I be correct in saying that, say I serendipitously stumble across a majestic herd of wild horses, and before they come up to me and take me away to have white man helps Indians be better Indians adventures, a faster shutter speed would be the best? Like, faster shutter speed=better action shot?

 

[Le Bateleur]

ISO is a slightly weird one. The name and the numbers are a hangover from the days of 35mm film, when they described the chemical composition of a particular film. Lower ISO films took longer to react to light, but gave pictures that had a very smooth appearance. Higher ISO films had chemicals that reacted faster to light, but were physically more grainy.

With digital cameras, ISO describes basically the sensitivity settings on the light sensors. As with film, lower ISO means smoother pictures but slower shutter speeds. Higher ISO means quicker shutters but more graininess.

Landscape photography generally has no movement, and you're often using a tripod or a support, so there's no problem using lower ISO settings since you can keep the shutter open as long as necessary.

I have to say that, given a decent camera like yours, unless you're planning to print big, poster-sized enlargements of a particular shot there's not much discernible difference between 100, 200 and 400 ISO. If you end up pushing it as far as say 1600 or 3200 in low light conditions you may well encounter the grain.

Overall it's probably something that won't hurt if it's left on auto, but can be interesting to play with if you're spending time on a particular shot to see how it alters the end result.

You're correct in assuming that faster shutter speeds are better for action shots, as they allow you to "freeze" fast-moving subjects. In case of wild horses, go as fast as the available light will allow you.

I've never been to the parts of the US you'll be visiting, but it's definitely on my dream list. If you're someone who can appreciate the beauty in a landscape then I'm sure you're going to be able to capture that with your photos. Cameras nowadays are so good that actually knowing what a beautiful scene looks like is most of the work - actually photographing it is relatively straightforward.