What's on Camera

The first time you buy a camera, it is strongly advised that you read the manual book given. Otherwise you may not make full use of your camera. Whats written in the manual are made with purpose, and to make sure that you use your camera correctly thus avoiding any damage on it. If you refuse to read from the book, you may search the manual in the internet as many manufacturers have prepared it online.

Lets have a look on a very simple DSLR camera from Nikon, D3100.

Basically all cameras will have same look as this camera except for the professional one because they are getting a bit complicated. As you can see the name of the buttons above here, so they have a different functions. But I want to talk only about Shooting Mode Dial and Main Control Wheel buttons. 

Shooting Mode Dial

This is the view from above. M,A,S,P, they are buttons for Manual Mode, Aperture Mode, Shutter Speed Mode and Program respectively. I have talked about aperture and shutter speed in previous entry, so now it is important for you to know how to use them. When you choose  'A' you will only control  the aperture and the rest will be done by the camera automatically. Same thing goes to the 'S' button, meaning that you will only control the shutter speed. But what about M ? As it stands for Manual mode, you have to control all the settings from A to Z, and that includes controlling aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance and other things. It looks difficult but this is the strong reason why you buy a DSLR camera instead of compact camera. Not forget to mention, Program mode or 'P' is just like auto mode, where everything is automatically controlled by the camera.Main Control Wheel

The control wheel is used to adjust the setting on the camera. Let say you choose to use Aperture mode, so use the wheel to adjust how big the aperture you want. You can see in the image on left, where the yellow circle and the number 'F5.6' are showing current aperture size. In case you forgot what aperture refers to, click here.

When using shutter speed mode, the same thing happens where you adjust shutter speed using this wheel. As you can see below those numbers, there is an indicator which has positive and negative signs. While adjusting the Main Control Wheel, refer to the indicator to make sure that you make indicator goes around the point 0. (Positive = overexpose , Negative = underexpose)

For other buttons and their functions, please read the given manual booklet because i am not going to explain that as they are not as important as these two(Shooting Mode Dial and Main Control Wheel buttons) when shooting photos.

Choosing Camera and Accessories

Keep in mind, that buying a DSLR camera will not make you a good photographer if you don't know how to use it. But with it, you can be creative because it has so many features that we cannot find in compact camera. This has been discussed in the 1st entry if you still remember.

There are so many manufacturers in this industry, the famous one : 

• nikon
• canon
• olympus
• sony
• leica
• pentax
• panasonic

For beginner i would like to recommend Nikon because i am using it so i found it is very user-friendly, and simple. I have tried others like canon and pentax, and still found that Nikon is the best for me as a beginner. In addition it is affordable and most accessories and lenses manufactured by tamron, sigma, aputure and others can be attached.  

And for intermediate or above that, i am sure they can choose the right camera and its gears for themselves.

For beginner :   

(42000\)

(73000\)

(39000\)

For intermediate :

(197000円)

(100000円)

(235000円)

 

 

For Professional :

(410000円)

（644000円）

（590000円）

I have given out some examples of DSLR camera from Nikon so my advice, is buying a high-price camera could not make you a good photographer. Therefore it is important to choose camera based on your purposes and experiences as well.

There are lots of accessories for camera from many brands. But must someone remember there are some gears you will need, and some that you will never need at all. As I said, go shopping with your clear purpose and you will not spend on wasteful things.

Examples :  

• Speedlight (Flash)
• Lens filter
• Extension tubes
• Flash diffuser
• Tripod Stand
• Macro ring flash, etc.

Here is an example of professional photography set-up 

 

Camera - Learning Basics

Trust me, with or without camera you can still learn photography by watching tutorial video on Youtube, or magazine. It is true without camera you may feel some difficulty on how to know the buttons and their functions, but at first it is enough to know several terms related to camera, and their meaning as well.

• Aperture
• Shutter speed
• ISO sensitivity

APERTURE
This is one of the three important things that you are going to deal with camera. Aperture refers to the size of lens diaphragm and it controls the amount of light that will hit the sensor of your camera. 

As you can see in the image above,  going up from f/1.4 to f/16, the aperture size is getting smaller. Too small aperture will allow only small amount of light to hit the sensor, thus making the photo to become underexposed. And too large aperture also will make your photo overexposed, with the presence of the sunlight, of course.Therefore the optimum aperture size for this condition(diagram above) is from f/4 to f/5.6 where the amount of light is rightly balanced.


Besides, aperture will also affect the depth of field. Here is an example :

f5.6

f32

The larger the aperture size, the depth of field will become shallower, thus focusing only on a subject and the background will be blurred. (See photo on the left) 

When using smaller aperture, the depth of field we be deeper, and making the object competes with the background. 

Therefore smaller aperture(with deeper DoF) is usually being used when taking scenery or landscape photography where we want the foreground as well as background focused. 



SHUTTER SPEED
It refers to the exposure time or the duration of light reaching the sensor, or the amount of time that shutter is open. Basically, the longer you let the shutter open, the amount of light that will reach the sensor will increase. For example, in daylight time, we usually set the camera to very fast shutter speed, about 1/300 to 1/4000 sec in order to avoid overexposed photo.

Slow shutter speed
Shutter speed is considered to be "long" or "slow" when it is slower than 1/60th of a second. (Remember, this is marked as 60 on your camera dial or display.) This numbers comes from the fact that most people can only hold a standard lens (between 35mm and 70mm) steady for 1/60th of a second or less. This is different from the commonly used term "long exposure" which usually refers to shutter speeds of over 1 second.

Fast Shutter Speed
Fast shutter speeds are generally considered to be those shutter speeds faster than 1/500th of a second. These shutter speeds are used to freeze, or stop, motion for a clear image when shooting fast subjects.

Fast Shutter Speed

Slow Shutter Speed

ISO SENSITIVITY
ISO sensitivity is a measure of the camera’s ability to capture light. ISO sensitivity is raised by amplifying the signal. Doubling ISO sensitivity doubles the electrical signal, halving the amount of light that needs to fall on the image sensor to achieve optimal exposure.


When lighting is poor, you can use a flash to light portrait subjects. Flash units, however, have limited range. If you raise ISO sensitivity, you can optimally expose both the portrait subject and the background without using a flash at all.

without flash, with high ISO

with flash

Raising ISO sensitivity allows faster shutter speeds, reducing blur caused by subject or camera movement but raising ISO sensitivity can introduce a type of image artifact known as “noise” into your photographs, making them seem grainy. 

Check out my photostream here.

Introduction

Welcome to my blog, glad to have you reading my first entry. Generally I will talk about photography and camera, and things related to them. 

I would like to advise that before you buy camera, or if you want to make photography as your new hobby, make sure you know a little bit photography and the camera itself. 

Nowadays, when we talk about photography, people will automatically think about the DSLR  (digital single-lens reflex). They are  digital cameras that use a mechanical mirror system and pentaprism to direct light from the lens to an optical viewfinder on the back of the camera (Wikipedia).

DSLR 

Compact Camera

There are quite clear differences between these two types of camera. 

1. Viewfinder Mechanism - Unlike compact camera, with DSLR camera, what you see through the viewfinder is the same light that will reach your camera's sensor. With compact camera, the viewfinder mechanism just tries to estimate what light will reach the sensor, thus making it less accurate compared to DSLR camera.
2. Interchangeable Lens - Of course you want to change your lens depending on situation. For example, taking photos of birds or wild animal, you will need a zoom-lens. But when you want to take some scenery, usually you will use wide-lens. 
3. Camera Sensor Size - In general, compact cameras have much smaller sensors than DSLR cameras. This is a less commonly known difference between the, but is likely one that will make the most noticeable impact on image quality.

SLR Camera Advantages

Faster camera auto-focus.

Much less shutter lag (delay between pressing the shutter and starting the exposure).

Higher maximum frame rate.

RAW file format support (although most high-end compact cameras have this).

Ability to take exposures longer than 15-30 seconds (using manual or bulb mode).

Offers complete manual exposure control.

Ability to use an external flash unit (but many high-end compact cameras have this).

Manual zoom control (by twisting the lens as opposed to using an electronic button).

Greater range of ISO speed settings.

Example of long exposure. (about 20-30 seconds)

  

Example of photo taken using macro lens.

So that is why photographers prefer DSLR cameras instead of compact camera. Let me remind you again, you will need some practices and skills to get best results. It is not easy to master, but it is also not hard to learn it, anyway.

As I mentioned earlier, it is advised to know a little bit about the art of photography, and how to make full use of camera before you buy it, because it is not cheap$$$$. I will talk about basics of using cameras and tips on buying them, in the next entry.


Here are 10 inspirational photos taken randomly from POTY(Photographer of the Year) competition.

"A picture is a poem without words" - Horace