Digital Photography Basics Light Metering White Balance RAW vs. JPEG Resolution & Megapixels Camera Settings

LIGHT METERING Every SLR camera has an internal light meter that measures how much light is going to enter the camera according to the manual settings. This helps you gauge if you are going to take a perfectly exposed photograph or not. A perfectly exposed negative will make a perfect photograph every time and make your time spent in the darkroom pleasurable rather than frustrating, so it is very important to always meter and then change your settings accordingly. A perfectly exposed photograph will have a metering of “0” zero. If the meter indicates it is above the 0, then too much light is entering the camera. Change the Shutter Speed or Aperture to counteract that and meter again to make sure it is right. If the meter indicates it is below the 0, then not enough light is entering the camera. Change the settings to counteract this and meter again to make sure it’s right. To read the meter, slightly depress the shutter button and look through the viewfinder. You will see a scale like the one in this picture or a slight variation of it. If you are photographing a scene where there are shadows and bright areas, read the meter in the sun and also in the shade and select a setting in between the two, or if worse comes to worst, meter towards the shady area. It is better to overexpose than to underexpose your negatives.

WHITE BALANCE Set your white balance for every digital photograph you shoot/every time you change scenery. ONLY for digital photography. …if it’s cloudy out, set your white balance to “cloudy” as shown in photo. White Balance helps you get correct and natural colors in your photographs. If your white balance is set incorrectly the colors in your photograph will be unrealistic.

Auto white balance is available and usually will work to your advantage, but it is highly suggested that you manually choose your own. This photograph was shot under incandescent lights – choosing that white balance created a realistic color tone in the photograph.

White Balance is measured in Kelvin. Look at the chart – Higher Kelvin temperatures are for “cooler” lights and Lower Kelvin temperatures are for “warmer” lights.

RAW vs. JPEG When you photograph, your image sensor converts the image information into a data file. You can adjust your camera to shoot JPEG or Raw Image Files. You can also adjust the quality of your Raw or JPEG files. You can even save each photograph as both a Raw and a JPEG file at the time of shooting. RAW FILES: After shooting you can open this photograph up on your computer and adjust your exposure time (shutter speed/aperture), white balance setting, contrast, saturation, sharpness and color tone WITHOUT using Adobe Photoshop. You can only open this file on a compatible computer system. (blabla.CR2) JPEG FILES: Image file that is unchangeable. You can open this file on any computer. (blabla.jpeg) OTHERS:.doc = word document,.psd = photoshop document

MEGAPIXELS Pixel Count. How many pixels does your camera have? 1 megapixel = 1 million pixels. It not only counts the amount of pixels in an image but represents the number of elements on a digital display. A digital image is made up of millions of pixels. A pixel is the smallest single component of a digital image. Pixels refer to many different topics: digital printed photographs, digital images on a camera, plasma and LCD T.V. screens, computer screens, etc. Zoom far into a digital image on your computer and see it get pixilated. The more megapixels your camera has, the larger your image is.

RESOLUTION The clarity of a photograph. The higher the resolution, the more image detail. Resolution and Pixels go hand in hand. Resolution is usually measured as the amount of pixels in height x the amount of pixels in width. (640 x 480) When you multiply the number of pixel columns with pixel rows you get a total number of pixels in an image – measured in Megapixels.

CAMERA SETTINGS Canon = P, TV, AV, M / Nikon = P, S, A, M P = Program. Completely Automatic Shooting TV/S = Time Value. You manually set your shutter speed and the camera automatically sets your aperture to be balanced properly. AV/A = Aperture Value. You manually set your aperture and the camera automatically sets your shutter speed to balance your light meter. M = Manual. Completely manually adjusted.

How does a shutter speed effect a photograph?

Here is an example of what different shutter speeds will do to this spinning pinwheel. All 3 of these pinwheels are in motion at the same speed. This is how shutter speed affects a photograph. 1/5001/601/8 Digi1080p.com

How does aperture effect a photograph?

Depth of Field

CAMERA SETTINGS You can adjust the Sharpness, Color Tone, Saturation and Contrast in your camera before you take the photograph. Contrast: The difference between the darkest shadow and brightest highlight. *What will contrast “say” about your subject? Saturation: How intense/bright a color is. Highly saturated is making your colors extremely bright. Desaturating will create a monochrome image. Color Tone: Adding more green or magenta to your image to counteract lighting issues and help with white balancing. Sharpness: Creating crisp, clear and sharp images via “optical illusion” by changing edge contrast and making pixels more defined.