Behind the Lens Training | Basic Photography Starter Guide

Before we start

This guide is about giving you a few simple things to remember so you can get a decent photo when you're standing there with the camera in your hand. Photography can get technical very quickly. This guide isn't about making you memorise terms, formulas or photography theory.

Each section has a Technical box. That's where you'll find the proper photographic terms, definitions and formulas. You do not need to understand the Technical box to use the rest of the lesson. Read it if you want to understand what is actually happening, or skip it completely if you don't.

Outside those boxes, the explanations are memory aids rather than textbook definitions and are deliberately kept simple. The aim isn't to help you pass a photography test — it's to help you remember what to do when you're holding the camera and just want to take a decent photo.

Shutter Speed

INCOMPLETE

The simple, non-technical Shutter Speed lesson will go here.

Aperture / f-stop

Technical

The aperture is the opening in the lens that limits the cone of light passing through the optical system.

The f-number, commonly called the f-stop, is the ratio between the focal length of the lens and the diameter of its entrance pupil:

N = f / D

N = f-number
f = focal length
D = entrance pupil diameter

A smaller f-number represents a larger relative aperture. A larger f-number represents a smaller relative aperture.

f/1 → f/1.4 → f/2 → f/2.8 → f/4 → f/5.6 → f/8 → f/11 → f/16 → f/22

Each full stop halves or doubles the area of the aperture and therefore changes the amount of light by a factor of two.

Aperture also affects depth of field, although focal length, subject distance, viewing size and other factors also affect apparent depth of field.

INCOMPLETE

Low number → low-light situation → low/shallow depth of field
High number → high-light situation → high/greater depth of field

The repeated low / low / low and high / high / high is deliberate. The idea is to make it easy to remember in the field without having to stop and think through the technical explanation.

ISO

Technical

Digital

ISO is the camera's exposure-index setting. Increasing ISO does not make the sensor physically more sensitive to light or cause it to collect more light.

Instead, the camera changes how the signal from the sensor is amplified and/or processed so an image made with less light is rendered brighter.

Higher ISO settings generally produce more visible noise and can reduce dynamic range, although this varies between cameras.

ISO 100 → 200 → 400 → 800 → 1600

A doubling of ISO represents one stop.

Film

With film, ISO describes the light sensitivity of the film itself. A higher ISO film requires less light to produce an exposure than a lower ISO film.

Film speed also affects the appearance of grain:

Low ISO → finer / less visible grain
High ISO → coarser / more visible grain

For example, ISO 100 film will generally produce a finer-grained image than ISO 800 film of a similar type.

Unlike digital ISO, film speed is normally fixed by the film loaded in the camera. Film can be deliberately exposed at a different rating and compensated for during development, known as pushing or pulling.

Older photographers may also recognise ASA, the film-speed system commonly used before ISO became standard.

INCOMPLETE

The simple ISO lesson will go here.

Metering & Exposure

Technical

Exposure is determined by the amount of light reaching the recording medium during the exposure. The main camera controls affecting it are aperture, exposure time and ISO setting.

A camera's light meter estimates the exposure required to render the metered scene according to its calibration.

Evaluative / Matrix / Multi-segment metering analyses much of the frame.

Centre-weighted metering gives greater importance to the centre area.

Spot metering measures a small selected part of the scene.

A meter does not know what the subject is supposed to look like. A very bright or very dark subject can therefore produce a reading that needs manual adjustment or exposure compensation.

Exposure compensation is normally expressed in stops or EV, such as +1 EV or −1 EV.

Setup

Set your camera to Matrix metering. Depending on the camera brand, this may also be called Evaluative, Multi, or Multi-segment metering.

If your camera allows you to assign a function button, set one to Spot metering.

Start with Matrix metering

Get the overall exposure around the camera's suggested middle/zero point.

Use Spot metering as a check on the important part of the image

Compare the important area with the overall Matrix reading. If they are different, give more weight to the Spot reading on the part of the photograph that matters most.

Learn what very bright and very dark subjects do to the meter

This is where you will gradually learn how far you can move away from the overall Matrix reading and still keep the result you want.

Slightly more advanced

Once you get comfortable with metering, you may prefer to work mainly in Spot metering and move around the frame to check the brightest and darkest areas. I normally work this way and keep Matrix metering on a function button as a quick overall check.

Focus

Technical

Focus occurs when light from a particular subject distance is brought to its sharpest image at the sensor or film plane.

Modern cameras normally use autofocus (AF) systems to determine focus automatically. Depending on the camera, autofocus may use phase detection, contrast detection or a combination of methods.

Single AF focuses once and holds that focus.

Continuous AF continually adjusts focus as the subject distance changes.

Manual focus allows the photographer to adjust focus directly.

The selected focus point or focus area tells the autofocus system which part of the frame should receive priority.

Depth of field can make objects in front of and behind the exact focus distance appear acceptably sharp, but only one subject distance is precisely in focus.

INCOMPLETE

The simple Focus lesson will go here.

Lighting & Flash

Technical

The appearance of a photograph is affected by the direction, intensity, colour, apparent size and distance of the light source.

A small apparent light source generally produces harder shadows. A large apparent light source produces softer transitions between light and shadow.

Flash provides an additional controlled source of light and may be used as the main light or as fill flash, where ambient light exposes the scene and flash adds light to the subject.

Ambient exposure is affected by aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

Flash exposure is affected mainly by flash output, aperture, ISO and the distance between the flash and subject.

At normal flash-sync speeds, shutter speed has little or no effect on the amount of flash recorded because the flash itself is usually much shorter than the time the shutter is open. For example, the shutter may be open for 1/125 s while the flash lasts only a tiny fraction of that time.

Changing the shutter speed can therefore change the brightness of the ambient background while leaving the flash-lit subject largely unchanged.

With a focal-plane shutter, there is a maximum flash synchronisation speed. Above this speed, the second shutter curtain begins closing before the first has completely uncovered the sensor or film. A normal single flash burst would then illuminate only part of the frame, producing a dark band.

Some cameras and flashes use high-speed sync, where the flash produces a rapid series of pulses or a longer light output while the shutter slit travels across the sensor.

INCOMPLETE

Photographers are really light chasers.

The first thing is to look at where the light is coming from.

As a basic beginner approach, avoid shooting a person straight into strong sunlight from behind them. Experienced photographers do this deliberately, but until you know how to control it you can easily end up with a dark face and an overexposed background.

This section will concentrate on when to use flash rather than how to use flash equipment in detail.

When photographing a scene with a person in it, I almost always use flash. Balance the scene first, then balance the person with the flash. It depends on the situation, which is why that is almost always rather than always.

Basic Framing

Technical

Composition is the arrangement of visual elements within the boundaries of the photograph.

The golden ratio, represented by the Greek letter phi (φ), is approximately:

φ ≈ 1.618

A frame divided using the golden ratio produces divisions at approximately 61.8% and 38.2%, rather than equal thirds.

The golden spiral is constructed from this proportion and has long been used as a guide for arranging visual elements through a frame.

The rule of thirds uses a simpler 3 × 3 grid, dividing the image equally into thirds horizontally and vertically. This creates four intersections that can be used as convenient guides for subject placement.

The rule of thirds is not mathematically the same as the golden ratio, but it gives a similar off-centre compositional approach and is much easier to judge quickly through a camera viewfinder or screen.

For this guide we use the rule of thirds because it is simple, easy to see and easy to remember while taking a photo.

INCOMPLETE

The lesson will explain the Fibonacci / golden spiral, then move to the much easier rule of thirds for a beginner to use in the field.

One of the most common beginner mistakes is putting the top of a person's head in the centre of the photograph. The full-size framing example will show the subject positioned correctly on the thirds so the idea can be understood visually.

Focal Length & Zoom

Technical

Focal length is expressed in millimetres and, together with sensor or film size, determines the camera's angle of view.

A shorter focal length gives a wider angle of view. A longer focal length gives a narrower angle of view.

A zoom lens can change focal length through a range, such as 24–70 mm. A prime lens has a fixed focal length.

When the photographer changes shooting distance to keep the subject the same size in the frame, focal length has a very noticeable effect on the apparent relationship between foreground and background.

With a wide-angle lens, the photographer normally moves closer to the subject. Nearby objects appear relatively larger and the background appears smaller and farther away.

With a longer focal length, the photographer normally moves farther away to maintain the same framing. The apparent size difference between foreground and background becomes smaller, making the background appear larger and closer to the subject. This is commonly called perspective compression.

Technically, the change in perspective is caused by the change in camera position, not by focal length itself.

INCOMPLETE

Wide angle: the background appears farther away.

Longer focal length: the background appears pulled or compressed closer to the subject.

White Balance

Technical

Different light sources have different spectral characteristics and can produce different colour appearances.

White balance adjusts the camera's colour processing so that neutral objects are reproduced as neutral under different lighting conditions.

Colour temperature is measured in kelvin (K). Lower colour-temperature values generally describe warmer-looking light, while higher values describe cooler-looking daylight conditions.

Typical camera settings include daylight, shade, cloudy, tungsten/incandescent, fluorescent, flash and automatic white balance.

When shooting RAW, white balance can normally be changed later with substantially more freedom than when shooting JPEG, because the original sensor data has not had a permanent white-balance rendering applied in the same way.

INCOMPLETE

The simple White Balance lesson will go here.

Quick Shooting Examples

INCOMPLETE

Quick Shooting Examples will go here.

Cheat Card

The card is designed as a quick reminder when you're actually out taking photos. It isn't meant to explain the theory — that's what the lessons are for.

The front shows the basic choices for shutter speed, aperture and ISO. The back gives you a full-size basic framing example using the rule of thirds.

INCOMPLETE — rough card design for now

Rough front of the Behind the Lens photography cheat card

$Rough back of the Behind the Lens photography cheat card showing rule of thirds framing$

Make your cheat card

The finished front and back will be joined side by side as one image, so you will only need to print it once.

Right-click the image and choose Save image as…
Print it at 100% / Actual size.
Cut around the outside of the joined card.
Apply clear packing tape over the printed image, making sure the tape extends past the outside edges.
Fold the card in half between the two images, with the printed sides facing out.
Press the overlapping packing tape together around the edges.
Trim the excess tape, leaving a small clear border around the card to protect and seal it.

The finished card can then live in your wallet, purse or camera bag.

If you learnt something useful today and feel like it, you can buy me a coffee.