Photography for the Blogger
by: David Fisher/Tibbon
Twitter: @Tibbon
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Who is this guy?
• Engineer: Taylor Barefoot Productions 2003-2005
• Music Business Management: Berklee College of Music 2006
• Portrait Innovations, 2006-2007
• Jazkarta, 2007-2008, @natea’s company
• GamerDNA, 2008-Present
Twitter: @Tibbon
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Eyes
Twitter: @Tibbon
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Seeing
And the most important
skill in photography is
Twitter: @Tibbon
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Compression
Camera Depth of Field
Lens SLR Blur
JPEG RAW
Program Mode
Rule of Thirds
Lighting
Point & Shoot ASA
Flash
Coatings
Diffusion
Grey Card ISO Aperture Filter
Zone System
Autofocus Chemicals
Rangefinder
Shutter Speed
Film
Digital
Twitter: @Tibbon
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Why?
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Why do we take
photos?

Communicate
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Light
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What do we capture?
Light.
Everything is a function of light coming into the camera. This is why photos in the dark don’t work well. Without light there is no photo

Subject
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What are we taking the photo
of?

How?
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Light enters
camera through
lens
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Sensor (digital)/Film
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4 Important Settings
• Aperture
• Shutter
• Focus
• ISO/Sensitivity/Film Choice
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Exposure
= Amount of light hitting sensor
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Shutter Speed
= Time shutter allows light to
sensor
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Faster Shutter Speed
Less light hits sensor
Requires more light
Sharper image
Less Blur
Freezes motion
Example, 1/2000th second
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Slower Shutter Speed
More light hits sensor
Better for dark/night
Less sharp image
More blur
Can convey motion
Example, 1/30th Second
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Aperture
=
Size of Lens Opening
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Large Opening (f/1.2)
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Small Opening (f/8)
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Aperture
• Aperture is expressed in f-stops.
• Smaller number = more open = more light hits sensor (f/1.2). Narrow
Depth of Field (DoF)
• Larger number = more closed = less light hits sensor (f/8). Deep DoF.
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Narrow DoF: f/1.6
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Wide DoF: f/8
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Using Aperture
• If little light, use largest aperture possible (ex: f/2.8)
• If lots of light, you have choices. Aperture can be used to cut down on
light.
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ISO/Sensitivity
• Sensitivity of film/sensor to light
• Lower numbers (ISO/100) need more light.
• Lower numbers have less grain, higher image quality
• Higher numbers (ISO/3200) need less light.
• Higher numbers have more grain, lower image quality
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Grainy Photo: ISO1600 26

Low Grain: ISO100
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Review
Need More Need Less
Light? Light?
Slow shutter Speed up
speed shutter speed
Open Aperture Close Aperture
(smaller (higher
numbers) numbers)
Higher ISO Lower ISO
(1600) (100)
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But wait!
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How does this affect me? How does this work with my camera? I have program modes and a point and shoot. What Aperture and
shutter aren’t skills.

Problem Solving
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They give us the vocabulary for problem solving skills.

Easy
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Taking photos is EASY. We can all take photos. But how do we take good photos? You’re going to have problems at some point
taking photos and you have to have the problem solving skills to get around them.

Complex Situations
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Bloggers encounter complex situations often in photography.

Simply & Analyze
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These terms allow us to analyize and simply photographic situations.

Meters
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A few final things. Most modern cameras have meters. These tell us how much light is coming into the lens, essentially help try
to tell us how much light we need coming into the camera. This helps tell you how to set the aperture, shutter and iso settings
that we just talked about.

Programs
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Which brings us to Program modes. Cameras today are smart and often contain powerful computers that can help guess settings
for us. In many settings these modes can do fine jobs at producing average photos.

4 Mode Settings
• Program (automatic)
• Shutter Priority
• Aperture Priority
• Manual
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Problem?
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So whats the problem? Why can’t we just use program mode and pull the trigger?

What is important?
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What is important in the photo? This seems like a basic thing, but let’s consider some photos.

Choice
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That is your choice. Let’s look at some photos that illustrate this.

Aperture setting
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I personally use Aperture priority settings 95% of the time.

Not enough light?
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What happens is there simply isn’t enough light to make it happen with these settings?

Flash!
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Then flash can be the answer

Lighting is complex
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Lighting is a complex topic, so I won’t go too much into it asides to say that using it too much can look bad, create harsh
portraits. OFF-camera light looks the best.

strobist.blogspot.com
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This blog will help lead you through all things flash related and tries to not break the bank.

Buying a Camera
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Most salespeople are poorly
informed
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How many Megapixels?
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Looks good to me!
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2.74MP
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Megapixels DONT matter
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Don’t ask them general questions!
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What do you want to do?
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• People
• Sports
• Video
• Professional
• Landscapes
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Weight
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SLRs are heavy
& BIG
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Megapixels don’t matter.
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Lens
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One of the most important aspects however is the LENS. Good lenses aren’t cheap. If you go with an SLR expect to spend about
as much on decent lenses as you do on the camera body.

Egronomics
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If you don’t like the way a camera feels, then you aren’t going to use it much. For professionals these often become make or
break features. Do you like the way it feels in your hand? Can you figure out the menus easily? Are things marked well? Does the
button placement make sense for you?

Ken Rockwell
www.kenrockwell.com
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Q&A
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Flickr.com
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Smugmug.com
(referral tibbon@gmail.com)
$5 off
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B&H Photo (bhphoto.com)
Twitter: @Tibbon
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