Here’s the situation – you’ve just got a new camera but are too worried to leave the comfort of the automatic mode. Many professional photographers say that it’s all about the creativity; the camera doesn’t matter – they never say how that you actually need to know how to use your camera in the first place though. You may know a keen photographer who bombards you with technical jargon- F-Stop this, Bit depth that – the truth is that it really isn’t that difficult to get a hold of what this all means. All you need is a base level of knowledge and then you’ll find that everything else just falls into place, then you can be the one boring others with the minimal chromatic aberration that your new 35mm prime lens has…

Why learn from me? My creative ability may be questionable but I do know far too much about cameras, how everything works, what settings to use when and I’m hopefully not too boring. Questions can be sent on the contact section of this website.

How a camera works

First lesson – right now I’m assuming that you have very little knowledge on cameras, you know that there’s aperture and shutter speed settings on your camera but don’t really know what they do. I believe that the first step in learning how to use your camera is to understand how your camera, technically, works.

A Drawing:

Light is sent through the lens of your camera, a shutter raises and the light is then sent into the sensor which converts this into an electrical signal. This signal is sent into the camera’s processor, then an image pops up on your screen. All of the main controls of a camera are to do with changing the light that your sensor receives. The main two are:

Aperture – changing the size of the hole in the lens to allow more/ less light in: can be as low as F1.2 and as high as F32.

Shutter speed – the length of time that the shutter is open for, from 1/8000 of a second to infinitely long.

By Nicholas Joinson.