 Brittney Alexander |
HELP!!! Hello, I am new to the whole photography scene. I am 13 years of age (but VERY mature!). I want to take B&W pictures. Once I have mastered the basic photographic skills, I can start to purchase the supplies for a darkroom. My father says that I can use his office to achieve the task. But, untill I have proven to him that I understand ALL of the terms, i.e. aperture, shutter speed, Zoom lens and tripod, med. and large formats. I may sound like a little kid or something, but please take me seriously! I have a very strong desire to do this. I want to have a hobby of my own. I have spent pratically my enitre Christmas vacation on researching photography. I now know all of the equipment I need for a darkroom(which is not useful untill I know all of the things about photography, i.e aperture ect.(all of the things listed above.) Well, where I am getting at is, if you can answer any of my questions like what are aperture, shutter speed, Zoom lens, tripod, med. and large formats, then PLEASE, PLEASE, help me out here. Once again, I may only be 13 but I am very serious about this. thank you for any input. --Brittney
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
I hope that your dad will also allow you to make your mistakes and learn to get better that everybody goes through. But I'll try to help you out. Aperture-that's the opening in the lens that determines the amount of light that gets thru to the film. The lens on the enlarger that you will get has one too. Think of it as a window. The bigger the window, the more light gets thru. It also effects depth of field, which is the area in the picture that appears to be in focus. The bigger the opening, the shallower the depth of field. And vice versa. Shutter speed-that's the amount of time that the shutter stays open to let light in thru the aperture. Example, you have film that's sensitive to light. To expose it to the right amount of light, you choose the right combination of aperture(size of opening) and the length of time the light should come in(shutter speed). So if you have a big opening that will let in a lot of light, you don't need to keep it open for a very long time(fast shutter speed). But if the opening is small, not that much light will get thru so you keep it open for a longer time(slower shutter speed) Another example would be like a pipe with water. Say you need to fill a gallon bucket. If you have a big pipe that flow a lot of water, you keep the pipe open for a short time. But if the pipe is small and water trickles out, you have to keep the pipe open longer to get the amount out that you need. Zoom lens-Lenses can be of one focal length(or fixed focal) or they can change focal lengths(zoom lenses). There are lenses called elements inside all lenses, it's just that with a zoom lens, the distanced that they are to each other can be changed so that it will give the same view as different fixed lenses. There are advantages and disadvantages that I can try to answer later if you want. Tripod-just a three legged thing to use to prevent a blurry picture because of a slow shutter speed, or maybe if you have to use a real big lens, or if can't hold the camera and take the picture at the same time for some reason. And just in case, it's called tripod because tri means three and pod means foot.(hope you don't think I'm talking down to you on that one) Med&large formats-that's the type of films that the negatives are bigger in size compared to 35mm film. With 35mm film, the image on the negative that you get is 35mm across. But with medium format, there are some that are 6x4.5, 6x7, 6x6, which is 6cm or 60mm across or 7cm or 70mm across. There's also 6x9 but I don't know if that's considered large format or not. Large formats can be even bigger, and they can be 8in. by 10in. These types of cameras use film as a sheet instead of rolls.Like sticking a sheet of paper in it. And you shoot one sheet at a time. And they're really expensive. But the bigger the negative, the sharper it is when you blow it up.
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Brittney Alexander |
Hello, Gregory, May I ask one more question? How do you know when to use what amount of aperture and shutter speed? I am sorry to inconvienence you, but thats the last question I will ask you (in case I am an annoyance to you)
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
The newer cameras that are out do a pretty good job of coming up with the correct exposure settings MOST of the time. There are situations where they can be fooled and give an exposure that's under or over exposed. But if you have an automatic, using aperture priority the camera can help you there. But I'll use an example to make things clear about it. The right combination depends on the amount of light that's available at the time. Say you were outside, clear day, bright sunshine around 10:00. For a given speed of film(for example a roll of fuji 100) and for a given shutter speed(Let's say 1/125th of a second) you would need a smaller aperture than you would at around 6:00 in the evening when the sun was going down and it's not as bright if everything else was the same(same type film at same shutter speed) Now if you were taking just a regular picture of a friend, and you had a camera that had auto exposure(which most do) you could probably use the camera to take a reading and come up with a correct exposure. On cameras, you activate their exposure meters by pressing the button to take a picture half way down. You camera takes a reading, and say it came up with f/8 at 1/125. That would be a shutter speed that you could take your friends picture and not have it be blurry from you trying to hold it still. But say because of the amount of light, when you look through the camera and activate the meter it says f/8 at 1/30, well that may not be a fast enough shutter speed to keep it from being blurred. You can take a picture, but it depends on how steady you can hold the camera. Then you would want to open up to at least f/5.6 or f/4 because since it was 1/30 at f/8, if you go to f/5.6 it will then be 1/60 speed, and f/4 would be 1/125. Because opening one whole f-stop will double the amount of light coming thru. So therefore it will allow you to use a shutter speed that's twice as fast. Now I'll tell you this thing called the f/16 rule. It's this thing that says if you are in clear day bright sunlight, the exposure at f/16 will be what ever the fill speed is made into a fraction. In other words, if your film speed was 100, then if you were outside middle of the day no clouds, if you set the aperture to f/16 then the correct shutter speed would be 1/100 or as close as you could get to it(which would be 1/125 for most cameras). If you had 200 speed film then at f/16 you would set the shutter speed at 1/200(or 1/250 if your camera didn't have 1/200) And it's really a pretty accurate rule. There's also a general that if the sun goes behind the clouds, then you opening up the exposure by 1-1&1/2 f-stops. Or for in the shade like when you want to get out of the sun and go to the side of your house that's opposite where the sun is. Then there are times when you will need to use a shutter speed/aperture combination that is dependent on what you are shooting. Like if something is moving fast, then you'll need to use an aperture that is big enough so that enough light gets thru so you can use a fast enough shutter speed(something like 1/500) to freeze the subject so it won't be blurry. Or because of depth of field that I mentioned before, you may want to use a small enough aperture that will make what you want to look in focus in the picture to actually look like it's in focus. So then you'll have to use the right combination of shutter speed that will stay open long enough to give the right exposure. That's when you may have to use a tripod. I hope I helped explain at least some things. But please don't think you are any kind of inconvienence. If you have any questions just ask. You can do it here or email. Taking pictures is something you learn. And you have to take my word for it that many things will become automatic for you. Everybody goes thru the trial and error. And when I said that there are times when the camera's meter can be fooled, if you stay at it you will get to the point where in the time it takes for you to see that whatever you're looking at would make a good picture, to when you get the camera up to your face to actually take the picture, you'll already know what to do.
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