Learning About Different Modes on DSLR

        You must have noticed some knob on DSLRs  mostly on the top side of it. On that knob you will see some alphabets such as P, A, S, M and other icons and symbols. Out of these- P, A , S and M are standard modes, rest of the modes can differ from manufacturer to manufacturer. So we will be focusing only on these 4 standard modes. They stand for-

• P - Program Auto
• A - Aperture mode
• S - Shutter mode
• M - Manual

        All these modes revolve around shutter speed and aperture, to learn more about shutter and aperture, click here.      

1. Program Auto:

        In this mode, everything is set to auto. The shutter speed and the aperture is set by the camera automatically according to the light available. You can select this mode if you are a beginner and don't know how to adjust aperture and shutter speed or maybe you are just not sure about what values of shutter speed and aperture you need to set.

2. Aperture Mode:

       In aperture mode everything is automatically set such as shutter speed by the camera, but the aperture is to be set by the user. You can use this mode when you just want to set the aperture according to your preference and the rest of the parameters you want to be set automatically.

3. Shutter Mode:

        Shutter mode is used when you just want to set the shutter speed manually while the aperture is set automatically by the camera. This mode, for example can be used while taking a sports photograph where you know that the athlete will be moving fast and you need a still photo and hence you need to set the shutter speed to the maximum possible.

4. Manual

        In manual mode, everything can be set be set by the user right from shutter speed to aperture, ISO, white balance, etc. Manual mode is used to have photographs exactly as intended as you can tweak each and every settings in camera. Read more about manual mode here.

        These were the standard modes of the modern DSLR camera. To read more about manual check out next article. Let me know in the comments what you think about this article, and as always thanks for reading.

4 Common Mistakes People Do While Clicking a Photograph

Everyone, in their lifetime has clicked a photograph and as soon as we take a photo we like to check out how the photo has been turned out. Sometimes we like the image that we’ve clicked, sometimes we don’t. Most often people don’t like the photo in the first go so they click various multiple photos and finally select the favorite one.

 What if I tell one can simply click a photo as desired without so many attempts?

Well this can be achieved by avoiding these 4 common mistakes.

1. Having unnecessary negative space:

So this mistake is often seen in lot of photos and now that you know of this you will be able to notice this mistake more often. “Negative Space” is a space in a photograph that surrounds your main subject. In the image below you can see the blurred train serves as a negative space, which adds a beautiful artistic feel.

            But, people generally keep the unnecessary negative space in an image. Which distracts the attention from the main object and thus the image feels dull. For example, in the image below the main subject is the lady, but the other objects which are considered to be negative space diverts the attention away from main subject and thus resulting in a dull image.

        

2. Not using the grid lines:

        The grid lines are the lines that are digitally drawn over your screen which can help you with keeping the subject in a certain part of the frame of the image. It also helps you in getting straight images. Well, a 3x3 grid line looks like this-

        This divides the frame horizontally in parts and vertically 3 parts, hence giving user an option to place the subject in any part of the frame. There are other grid lines also available in the camera settings such as 4x4, Golden Ratio,etc. Let us compare the frames with and without grid lines-

Here's an example: 

Frame using Grid Lines

Frame without Grid Lines

        As you can see, the image with the grid lines looks more pleasing than the image without the grid lines. Also, in the first image you can see the horizon is placed exactly on the first horizontal grid line as it helps you give the perspective for correctly framing the image. In the image without grid line one cannot get the idea, if the image is we are getting is straight or not and in most cases the resulting image is slant and unpleasing like we see in that image.

        Hence, not using grid lines is another common mistake people do while clicking a photograph and therefore one should start using grid lines for obtaining more aesthetically pleasing images.

3. Using flashlight at wrong situations:

        Flashlight can be useful at times but if used in wrong situations it can ruin the image drastically. To avoid this one must consider the situation in which the photograph is being clicked. Many a times what happens the user is using the auto mode in the camera to shoot an image. So, if the flashlight is used during the ample light, the algorithms thinks that if the flashlight is on, then there must be dark, hence it bumps up ISO, lowers shutter speed and also increases aperture. Hence, resulting in an over exposed image which is of no good. Here's an example of how an over exposed image looks like-

          This image was taken with flashlight ON in an adequately lit surroundings on a bright day. Therefore, flashlight  should only be used when needed, in conditions such as low light where there is a lack of light and an artificial light is needed.

4. Incorrect positioning:

        Light sources such as Sun, lamps, street lights, etc are natural lights and they should be used efficiently in photography. During the day, the Sun proves to be natural source of light in the outdoor surroundings. But people does not make efficient use of it. You may have seen photos of people with the sun in background. This makes more light to enter and fall on sensor, hence the auto mode sets the low ISO and tweaks other parameters and hence completely blowing out the main subject. This happens due to incorrect positioning. For example: 

        This photo above have completely washed out primary subject just because of wrong positioning. If the boy was standing facing the sun, instead of standing right in front of it, the image would have been much better. Same goes with the  natural lights such as street lamps, LED lamps in rooms, etc. Proper positioning of the subject and the photographer with respect to light source can result in much more preferable image.

          Well these were the top 4 mistakes most people do while clicking a photograph. This article was written considering the user has been using the auto mode in camera. There are other different mistakes while people use manual mode which I will talk about in another article. To read the next article about different shooting modes of DSLR click here.

       And always, thanks for reading the article and let me know in the comments what you think about this article so that we all can discuss photography.

3 Important Parameters of Photography

    In previous article where we discussed about the basics of photography, you may have come across these three terms- shutter speed, aperture and ISO. Well, these three terms are the three main parameters of the photography. These three parameters can be found in the details attached of every photograph. Whenever you take a photograph, just check the details of that photograph, you'll see these three terms in the details. For example go to your camera roll in gallery of your mobile and open any photo's details. You will find something like this-

    Here you can see the some numbers in front of these parameters. I will explain that later, but first to know what these parameters are, we have to know about hardware of the camera. No matter which camera, every camera has same type of architecture, which is- lens>shutter>sensor.

    So lens is the main thing on which the light falls and passes through the shutter. The shutter looks likes this in DSLR camera-

    These are mechanical parts and they open and close. The light passes through this and falls on the sensor inside which takes all the data and is processed further. So now that you know these basic hardware and architecture of camera, we can now learn and understand these parameters.

1. Shutter Speed

    Shutter speed is the speed at which the shutter opens and closes after we press the button to click the photo. We have different shutter speeds in the settings menu to select from. Shutter speeds are displayed as 1/20, 1/100, 1/4000, 5",  15", etc. These numbers depict speed per second, for example the shutter speed 1/20 is basically the shutter opens and closes in 1/20th of a second. That means it will stay open for 1/20th of a second and light and can only pass through that period of time. Also 15" means the shutter stays open for  15" after pressing the click button.

    So, faster the shutter closes, lesser light gets passed through and hence resulting in a darker image, but also is useful in capturing moving object and still produce a still photo. Hence some shutter speed relations that will help you while clicking photographs-

• Faster shutter speed = darker photos, but gives still photos
• Slow shutter speed = brighter photos, but some disturbance can give you a shaky photo.

For example- Fast shutter speeds- 1/200, 1/500, 1/2500, etc.

Slow shutter speed- 1/10, 1/5, 5",  etc.

2. Aperture

    The mechanical part inside the lens that has the ability to expand and contract is where the aperture is based on. It can expand and contract to various sizes. These are know as F-stops. It looks like this-

    F-stops has some values just as shutter speed. They are f/1.4, f/2.0, f/2.8 and so on. Here, smaller the F-stop number is, wider the aperture is open. And wider the aperture is open, the more blur the background gets. So, just like shutter speed we have aperture relations that will help you while clicking photographs.

• Smaller aperture value = wider opened aperture
• Wider aperture = brighter image and more blur background
• Narrower aperture = darker images, less blur background. (This setting helps while clicking a close-up of extremely bright object such as light bulb )

3. ISO

    ISO is an universal standard which decides the brightness of an image. ISO has values such as 50, 100, 200, 1600, etc. Higher value of ISO gives you a brighter image but also gives grains which degrades the quality of the photo and vice versa. Don't forget that ISO is an universal standard, which means ISO 50 on Nikon camera is as same as on Canon camera. Hence, ISO can be used on any camera without expecting different results. Relation in terms of ISO-

• Higher ISO = brighter image but grainy image.
• Lower ISO = darker image but less grainy and high quality.

    This is it from this article where I tried to explain the three important parameters of photography. In the upcoming articles I will tell how to use for taking a good photograph. But for taking a good photograph you must avoid doing some mistakes. To learn more about these mistakes, click here. 

    And let me know what you feel about this article, also don't forget to comment/discuss photography in comment section.

Getting Started With Photography

Hello everyone, this is the first article of the blog and I want to start things off by informing a little bit about this blog. As the name suggests we will discuss photography, just any topic related to the subject of the title. I will be posting articles related to photography and we all can discuss about it in the comments section. So let us begin this article with basics of photography.

What is the meaning of word “Photograph”?

Well, the word “photo” is a Greek word which translates to light. So there you have it, light – it is where everything revolves around in a photograph. Perfect light equals perfect photograph.

Now that you know that let us talk about various types of devices with which you can click a photograph. They include-

1. DSLR Camera

2. Regular Point-and-shoot Camera

3. Smartphone

Let us know about them in deatil.

     1. DSLR Camera 

      DSLR which stands for Digital – Single Lens Reflex are those cameras which the professionals use. These cameras have interchangeable lenses of different focal lengths and other specifications. These cameras provides several slots for many advanced photography equipments as well as advanced settings for changing the values of aperture, shutter speed and aperture, which you can read more about here.

2. Point-and-shoot Camera

          Regular Point-and-shoot cameras are generally handy cameras with a permanent lens which cannot be interchanged. These cameras, as the name suggest are mostly used for pointing and shooting the image without tweaking much settings. These cameras don’t provide advanced settings, but they do provide some basic settings.

                 3. Smartphones

           

          Smartphones nowadays have improved so much in the camera department that people sometimes choose them over some DSLR cameras. The main quality of the smartphone cameras is that the camera software and image processing algorithms give some amazing photos in the auto mode and the user don’t even have to change any settings. Many smartphones don’t provide the option of advanced settings, but on the other hand some smartphones provide advanced DSLR-like settings menu to enhance the photographs.

           

        All these cameras have different values and range of shutter speed, aperture and ISO. These three parameters are the most important parameters in photography. They make up a photograph and it is very important to know their importance as they are used to construct a photograph. I will continue the basics of photography in next which is about these parameters, you can read it here.

          This is it for this article. Let me know in the comments below what you think about this article and keep reading. Thank you.