Learning SLR Basics

Do you always wonder- what these photographers do by rotating some rings on their dumb cameras, on the other hand you have a portable and smart one? and also why do these poor chaps need to put so much of effort when you can take brilliant snaps with your ´point and shoot´ camera? If answer is ¨yes¨, then, this is the right place for you. Am I a professional taking tutorials here? nopes! Actually, I am also trying to learn the very basics and while doing that I came across some very good resources on the net. I would like to share my understanding and my confusions. Please make a note that here we are only dealing with basic theory behind SLR photography. Here we GO-

Terms you need to know- Focal length, Depth of field, Aperture, Shutter speed , Zoom lens, Wide-angle lens, Telephoto lens, In Focus/Out of focus, Perspective distortion, Exposure, Composition, Angle of View

We shall refer to these terms very often. Don´t worry if you don´t know any of these terms, it is your chance to learn and correct wrong definition residing in your brain in the name of ´common sense´. Some of these concepts may seem very counter-intuitive. At least I felt so. To begin with you can start reading from Nikon´s- Who´s afraid of SLR cameras?

Understanding Shutter Speed and Aperture

Once we are clear with the definition of Shutter Speed and Aperture (as mentioned in above links). Very basic thing to understand here is- how shutter speed and aperture are related. To know more on shutter speed see this link. Wikipedia entry on shutter speed gives some nice example on what effects we can create using variation in shutter speed.

Now, you should be able to answer following questions-

• Why do we need higher shutter speed to capture fast moving object?
• What is motion blur and how it comes into the picture (literally :))?
• Will you prefer high shutter speed while capturing a dark scene? If yes, why?
• If you want to keep shutter speed high, how can you manage to get same intensity image?

Understanding Depth of Field

Basics
Depth of field Tutorial
Understanding Depth of Field

This link gives an excellent illustration of Depth of Field.

If you want to look at it from mathematical perspective then see this link- Depth of field and diffraction. Interesting effects can be achieved using shallow depth of field (small depth of field). Have a look here.

Now, you should be able to answer following questions-

• What is Depth of field (DOF)?
• What is circle of confusion?
• How DOF is related to aperture of the lens?
• Why do we mean, when we say a particular subject is out of focus?

Understanding Zoom, Angle of View and Focus

Try to understand how angle of view is related to focal length of lens using wikipedia entry for angle of view and also see the definition for wide angle and Telephoto lens. We should be very clear on- what zooming actually means. Above mentioned link, very clearly demonstrate the relationship between focal length of lens with angle of view. This link will help you to strengthen you concepts on Angle of View. Nikon tutorial explains focus pretty well.

Now, you should be able to answer following questions-

• What parameter of lens you change when you zoom in or zoom out using zoom lens?
• How digital zoom is different from optical zoom?
• How perspective distortion is caused?
• What is dolly zoom? (search and find out yourself, it is a very interesting phenomenon. If you are able to appreciate it, that means your basic concepts are pretty clear)
• How zooming in is different from moving towards subject?
• What (which parameter) do you change when you try to focus on a subject?

Some Suggestions on Composition

Composition is all about choosing right subject and right angle of perspective. We only tried to understand the technical aspect of photography. Few good links on composition-

Basics
Some tips and tricks by Kodak

Finally, make sure that you understand-

• Why in some photographs, few things are out of focus and in others everything is in focus?
• Why do we need special lenses for taking extreme closeups?
• Why do we need different cameras for capturing, high motion objects?
• What effects you can create using depth of field?
• What effect focal length has on depth of field?
• How are shutter speed and aperture related?
• What are macro lenses, wide angle and telephoto lenses?

I sincerely hope, it was a useful. I just tried to give pointers to understand basics of SLR photography. So please give me your feed back, to make this page better and more useful. Compiling this was definitely useful for me, for my own understanding.

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• GNARLS BARKLEY