code clicks ‘n’ caffeine

Since I was a little kid I have loved taking photographs, Dad’s Ricoh was the first film camera I laid my hands on. Those days an SLR was only seen with photographers and people didnt really care about its capabilities. Automatic cameras was the buzzword then.

Today the scene is a little changed, photography is very cheap these days with everything moving from analog to digital. A one time investment in a Digital Camera, Rechargeble batteries, Memory Cards and the ability to view on computer has brought down the cost for Film rolls, Developing and Printing to absolute Zero. And as they are becoming cheaper and smaller they are penetrating more pockets and travel kits. Shooting in digital also opens tons of post-processing abilities which add a whole new dimension to photography.

In couple of months, we will see mobile phones with 5 Mega Pixel resolution cameras which will be enough to capture pictures with okay quality and size to get nice printouts. Anyways majority of the junta is moving from developed printout’s to just keeping and sharing eCopies.

But, having a digital camera does’nt always implies taking good pictures. And likewise just taking photographs doesnt mean one knows photography.

In the age when everything is getting automated and where one gets rewarded to do that, we have tons of digital cameras in the market which will automatically judge the base settings for taking a picture (like Exposure, Focus, Shutter Speed, White Balance and Color Temperature). Almost all pocket sized cameras have an Auto mode which just does that, and very basic ones dont even care to mention it like all mobile phone cameras.

But as we all know a computer is not that great as we think it to be, it can only do things which humans train it to. Similarly the processor in the Digcams isnt perfect and cannot be compared to a human vision, plus it has to work within the limitations of the Lens, the Image Sensor and the Shutter (max & min speed).

To be a true photogrpaher and not just a clicker, one needs to understand all these basic settings and play with them to get the correct picture. I somehow went through all of this and always wanted to post all of my learnings from personal experiences, articles on the net, learning from others OR photography books. In short, I plan to document everything I know, have learnt or will learn in future about photography.

I will keep this post short and can be taken as a preface for the upcoming posts, although i will try to share some tips for folks who just started with DigCams and dont want to (or cant play with) hell lot of settings possible.

The Most (with a capital M) important factors which play a significant part to make an Image a Picture are …

1. Moment
2. Emotion
3. A Beautiful Scene
4. Light
5. Exposure
6. Focus
7. and finally “The PHOTOGRAPHER”, he is the one who can play with all of the above factors and apply his/her own creativity to get a shot which can capture eyes.

In most of the entry level cameras it will not be possible to adjust settings and in those cases you just have to learn or use your knowledge. Try to apply these Rule of Thumbs and get a picture as good as possible. 

1. Take time while composing a shot, Rule of Thirds (or on wikipedia) can help a lot or you can crop the image to get the desired frame. A good tutorial to learn compose a shot better.
2. Change the light on the subject if possible,
3. Change the angle you are shooting from
4. Move your subject if possible to get good amount of light (avoid shadows),
5. Get closer to get a clear & focussed shot
6. Understand the Green AutoFocus rectangle on your viewfinder/LCD and use it effectively to focus your subject.
7. Wait for the perfect light. If you cannot alter the light/subject then you will have to wait for the perfect time. This is true when shooting landscapes. Sunrise and Sunset times can give you perfect light most of the times.

What people ususally love is not something which they see in their day-to-day life OR what is real, but something which is not ususally seen. This is the reason why we have such a high demand of outdoor locations in Bollywood movies OR why we all loved movies like Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Narnia or other Animated movies. They simply create an effect or render a scene in such a way that it grasps the viewer and creates a dramatic effect, although it might not be even 1% real.

I consider taking images which just look like they are in reality as Documenting, which can be called a small subset of Photography.

The added benefit with DigCams is that you can see the image instantly and check if the composition, brightness, focus is correct or what you desired otherwise take another shot. In a process you can take multiple images and finally end up with a good picture, so dont just take one picture of a scene, take as many as possible.

Keep watching this space for the series of upcoming posts where i will try to cover other major important things like Composition, Lens, Exposure, Focus and Focal Length, Shutter, Camera Sensor, Image resolution, Post Processing, DSLR’s … etcetera etcetera.

P.S – Some of my shots on flickr – http://flickr.com/photos/sanyam/show/