Introduction

These tutorials are aimed at the people who are new to photography – or maybe have a new camera. I hope to share my knowledge in an clear and concise manner to help you get the most out of your camera, and more importantly – to capture the moments of your life that will never happen again.

The content on this site is designed to be a course that gives a good solid foundation. From there, you can continue the learning process. I’ve been learning for over 35 years, and don’t plan to stop. So jump in and check it out.       

The Basics

A photo is nothing but the recording of a single moment in time. The moment can be as important as your child’s first steps, or as random as a sunset shot through your car window. Whether the photo is a Pulitzer prize winner or an out of focus image soon to be deleted – it is still a record of what you saw at a particular moment in your life.

A photo is also the end of a process. Its the combination of light, composition and technique that only you can merge to make that image. This course will show you how these three elements affect what you see after the shutter is closed.

Light doesn’t care what camera you have. Light doesn’t care if you have the most expensive lens in the world. Light doesn’t care if you have a Masters degree in Photography, or you’re an 8 year old kid with your first camera. The light will always be there, it’s up to you to choose what to do with it.

You camera doesn’t care about your experience either. It just hopes that you don’t drop it. The camera is just a tool, like a saw. You can a pick from number of different saws to cut wood, but in the end, the wood will get cut. the right saw might give your smoother cut, but it’s still just a tool. A good photographer will get great shots with a cheap camera, while a beginner will struggle with an expensive camera. It just comes down to learning to work with the tool and the materials that you are given.

Getting started

If you’re reading this, it’s because you have a camera and want to get better. These lessons will show you the background and theory and then you will put those techniques to use in projects. The projects are designed to get you to look at the options that you have as a photographer.

It’s my job to explain these topics in a clear, concise manner, and I’ll tell you right now that you won’t learn everything on this site. You will learn enough to get started and begin your growth as a photographer.

Questions?

If you get stuck on a topic or don’t understand what I’m talking about, please feel free to e-mail me. I don’t mind talking ‘cameras’ at all. Your e-mail will be a welcome break from the spam.

Introduction

What do I mean when I say that it’s “All about the light”? Simple – without light, you don’t have a photograph. But it also means that the the light is the most important part of creating an image. Light can vary from moment to moment. Think of a sunset and how it changes as the sun sets. This change will affect how you shoot it. It will force you to change your camera settings and will likely make you change your composition. Look at the light that comes in your window: this changes dramatically as the day grows longer.

Remember this when taking a photo, “It’s all about the light”. Don’t worry, I’ll mention a few more times along the way.

Elements of Light

Light has a few characteristics that combine to become what you see through your eye and through your camera. These interact to become a single source that your camera sees and you react to.

• Direction of light
• Intensity of light
• Color of light

Direction of Light

The direction of light determines your shadows, highlights and reflections. In some cases, you cannot control this. If the sun is in the sky, you can’t change it – but you can change your position and possibly your subject’s position. If you have a flash, you can move the flash to control the shadows. Direction of light will be a factor in how you compose your shot. Where do you want the shadows to fall? What part of the scene do you want lit? Will you expose the image to lighten the shadows because they are important? Will you underexpose to darken the shadows?

This photo of a dandelion is interesting because of the direction of the light.  I shot this with a flash that was set up off the camera and pointed towards the flower (and myself) from the back right.  If I had just kept the flash on the camera, this would be a very different photo.

It’s easy to forget about shadows. You might be so worried about making sure your subject is smiling and not notice the branch that is casting a shadow across her face. In a studio setting, you can control all of this and expose accordingly. You’ll have the time to plan and account for the direction of light. Outside, you might be more spontaneous – but still, it is worth double checking this element of your photo.

Intensity of Light

This is the most obvious property of light. How bright is it? How dark is it? (this is the ‘glass half full / half empty’ aspect of photography). The intensity of the light will directly affect how you will expose the photo. Think of how you will expose for a snowy landscape on a sunny day versus exposing for a sunset. Intensity of light can also vary – how much less light is there when the sun goes behind a cloud? How is it different when your subject is on the beach compared to in a forest? Indoors, the intensity can be controlled by a flash unit. But with automatic settings, this can change as well.

When shooting, keep in mind that the light can change in brightness. This will also affect your shadows. More importantly, a bright light can cause highlights that get over exposed – like a shiny nose or forehead.

Color of Light

Light is rarely the same color unless you control it. Outdoors, the color can change depending upon the cloud cover and the time of day. It can change if you are shooting a subject on the grass or under a tree or in the snow or on the beach. It will be similar enough that you don’t have to worry about it in many cases, but it’s still something to think about.

Once again, you can control the color of light with a flash unit. You can even contrast the color of incandescent light with the color of light from a flash. Outdoors, a flash can be used to brighten the scene and it will be very close to ‘standard’ daylight colors.

The light at the beginning and the end of the day is warm and in the example above, the setting sun has cast a warm glow across the landscape.

The color of your light depends highly upon the source. You can have light from the sun, fluorescent lights, incandescent bulbs, flash units – and they will all be different. The color of light may not affect your exposure or your composition, but it will greatly affect the look of your photo. In general, warm colors (red, orange, yellow) will convey a particular feeling, while cool colors (blues, purples) will convey something totally different.

White Balance

Modern digital cameras have a setting called “White Balance”. This is how the camera controls the color of light. Simpler cameras will have an Automatic adjustment that will set the camera according to what the sensor sees. More advanced cameras will let you choose the best setting based upon the light source. Some cameras will also let you create a custom setting for your particular situation.

Summary

The point of this tutorial is to make you aware of the light that will be hitting your subjects and backgrounds. It’s something that you need to remember and is the key to your photos. The light will affect your exposure and your composition. It can also be used to convey a tone of warmth or coolness to your image.

Using light and learning what to look for are concepts that you will learn as you advance as a photographer. Light is a tool almost as much as your camera is. Work with it. If there’s not ‘enough’ figure out to work within that situation. Digital cameras are great at capturing scenes in poorly lit conditions. Use this to your advantage.

But remember one thing: “It’s all about the light”.

Introduction

In the last tutorial, I said that “It was all about the light”. And while this is true, there are 2 other things that make a photo. One is the opening in the lens (aperture) and the other is the amount of time that the sensor or film is exposed to the light (shutter speed). These settings are sometimes made by the camera (Automatic shooting mode) and sometimes made by you. The goal here is to understand these settings so that you can control one or both of these settings when shooting.

These controls will affect the look of your photo. It’s where the creative aspect of the image comes from.

Apertures and F-stops

Every camera has an aperture. This is the opening that lets the light into the body. The aperture can be anything as simple as a pinhole in a cardboard box, or as complex as an automatic blade system that is in the modern lenses. But simple or complex, they do the same thing.

If you’ve been around cameras a bit, you’ll have noticed something called F-stops. For example, when somebody says that they shot the image at “F8″, it means that their aperture was set to an F-stop of 8. The great thing about this numbering system is that it is a constant number and based upon the length of the lens you are using. In general terms, this means that I can set any camera and lens to F8 and get the same amount of light hitting the sensor.

The aperture also controls what called the “Depth of Field” in an image. This is a photo term for the amount of focus that you have in an image. It is dependent upon the aperture and the distance from your sensor to the main point of focus (your subject). Less depth of field means that you will not have much of the foreground and background in focus. If you’ve ever seen a portrait and the background is all blurry – this due to the F-stop used while taking the photo. Another example is a landscape photo where everything looks sharp and in focus. The next tutorial will explain this more.

Depth of field is obvious in the above photo.  The foreground is out of focus, while the deer is (mostly) in focus, and the background is out of focus.  This was shot at an aperture of F2.8 towards the end of the day (note the warm light).

Shutter Speed

This is an easier concept to grasp. Shutter speed is simply the amount of time that the sensor is exposed to light and is controlled by the shutter being opened and then closed. This can range from 1/8000th of a second to 20 minutes or more.

Think of how you could use the shutter speed to your advantage. If you are shooting a photo of a race horse running to the finish line (and making you some money) – you can use a fast shutter speed to freeze the horse in time. Capture the hair flying, the jockey’s face and the tense muscles. Or you could put your camera on a tripod and leave the shutter open for 10 seconds to capture a city scape at night. This is all part of the creative process.

This photo of a horse was taken at 1/500th of a second.  In this example, I moved the camera in time to the horse running past (a technique called panning) so that the horse would be sharp and the background slightly blurred.  This gives the impression of movement.

Putting it all together

In these first few tutorials, I have introduced the 3 major components to taking a photo. You have the light that you are looking at, the aperture that controls how much of that light comes into the camera and the shutter speed that controls how long that light hits the sensor. If one of these elements changes, it can effect the other two.

If it is bright outside and you are letting in a lot of that light through your aperture, then it makes sense that your shutter speed will be quite fast. If you have dim light and not much of it is coming through your aperture, then it stands to reason that your shutter will be open longer.

Oh – one more thing

Back in the film days, we could choose between different films depending upon what situation we planned to shoot in. If I was going to shoot outside on a bright day, I would choose 100 ASA daylight film. If I was going to shoot a horse race in daylight, I would choose 400 ASA film. Why? Because 400 ASA film had more silver crystals in it and was more sensitive to light. But the trade-off was that the higher the number, the more ‘grain’ that was in the film. So when I was shooting film I could choose from 25 ASA (needed a lot of light, and gave very sharp images) up to 1600 ASA (needed much less light, but provided grainier images).

Cameras these days control this with their ISO settings. ISO and ASA are virtually the same thing. In simple cameras, the ISO can be set automatically so that you don’t have to worry about it. More advanced cameras have this option, as well as letting the photographer choose what setting they want. The best part? I can change this from image to image if I need to, instead of having to change film each time. New cameras rock!

This adds a fourth element to the picture taking process. You have the light, the aperture, the shutter speed – and now a setting to control how ‘sensitive’ your camera’s sensor is. Is this getting complicated yet? Hope not – because I need to tell you about just one more thing! (Sorry)

The last thing – I promise

Now that you have the four elements to your process, how about if I just add one more? This is “White Balance”. Did you notice in the last paragraph how I mentioned that I bought ‘daylight film’? This was film that was color balanced for shooting in daylight. I could also buy ‘tungsten film’ which was color balanced for shooting indoors with artificial light. Any other light sources would require a filter screwed into the end of my lens to get the correct color.

Digital cameras have this great setting called White Balance. It tells the camera what type of light you are shooting in. This can either be set on “Auto” or turned to settings like Daylight, Flash, Shade, and a few others. Some cameras allow you create your own custom white balance. Digital cameras rock!

Summary

I’ve introduced 5 factors that determine your final image:

• Light
• Aperture
• Shutter Speed
• ISO
• White Balance

It sounds like a lot to worry about. But the great thing is that you can set all or some of these settings on Auto or manual. For example, I can examine the light and the subject and then set my White Balance, ISO and Shutter Speed all on Auto, while I am only controlling the Aperture (F-stop) manually to control the depth of field.

The rest of the tutorials in this section will explain this in more depth, then provide some projects for you to use these concepts.

I know that it’s a lot to learn at first, but these are the basic building blocks upon which all of your photographic knowledge will rest upon. I’ll also say that there is a lot more to depth of field, and that people will write thick books about this topic. For now, this will get your started and ready to move onwards.

Introduction

The first few tutorials talked in general terms about what is needed to create a photograph. Remember that you have 5 basic components. This tutorial will just focus (pun intended) on aperture and depth of field. I can’t discuss one without mentioning the other – they are like Siamese twins.

Personally I feel that controlling the depth of field via the aperture is the most creative aspect of the five components. When I am shooting something that doesn’t involve movement, I will be using the the Aperture Priority setting on my camera. This allows me to concentrate on what the range of focus will be in the image. I will keep an eye on the other settings, but my attention will be on the aperture.

Move your mouse over this image to see an example:

The image with more depth of field was shot at f22,
while the image with minimal depth of field was shot at f3.2

In the example above everything is the same the F-stop. Notice the difference? Is there one that you like more than the other? To shoot this, I had the White Balance on Auto, the ISO set at 200 and the camera set to Aperture Priority (the camera selected the correct shutter speed). I used only the light in the room. Since I am quite close to the subject, the depth of field is very limited. This is due to physics or some other black art that I’m assuming you don’t really care about.

At this point you really just need to remember:

• The lower the F-stop – the lower depth of field you will get.
• The lower the F-stop – the more light that comes in.
• The lower the F-stop – the faster the shutter speed will need to be.

• The larger the F-stop – the larger depth of field you will get.
• The larger the F-stop – the less light that comes in.
• The larger the F-stop – the slower the shutter speed will need to be.

What you set your F-stop to can be limited by the amount of light that you are dealing with. In a low-light situation, you may have no choice but to open to the widest setting (lowest F-stop). This will limit your creative options. But thanks to your ISO setting, you can set a higher ISO to give you more range on your aperture. Instead of the circle of life, you’re dealing with the circle of light.

The example above showed what your depth of field looks like on a close subject. How about when you are outside? In a landscape photo, your subjects are further away and so your depth of field will increase.

<dof example of landscape coming soon>

In the above images, the settings are the same as the previous examples. The only thing that changed was the distance from the camera to the subject. Still the fact remains that by using 2 different settings, I took two very different photos.

This is where you start flexing your creative muscles. This is where you start making the choices that change your image from a snapshot to a photograph. This is where it starts to get fun.

A couple of things:

Depth of field is defined as the area in front of and behind your subject that is in acceptable focus. This range falls roughly 1/3 in front of your subject and 2/3 behind the subject.

On many lenses, there is a ‘sweet spot’ of an aperture that provides the sharpest possible image. This is a consideration when you require sharpness above all else. In most lenses, this is in the mid-range. You will have to read reviews of your specific lens to find out what this is.

Depth of field is determined by the focal length of your lens. A wide angle lens has more ‘apparent’ depth of field at a particular F-stop than a telephoto lens.

Some cameras have a “Depth of Field Preview Button” (check your camera’s manual if you are not sure). This button will set the camera to the aperture you will be shooting at (instead of at its widest aperture that is used for regular viewing). This allows to see exactly which objects will be in focus and which will not be. The viewfinder can get quite dark when using this.

Sometimes a shallow depth of field can be handy for shooting through wire fences.

Summary

Depth of Field is controlled by the F-stop (or aperture) used when the photo is taken. How this depth of field looks can be your choice. Since it doesn’t cost anything but time to view digital photos, practice this often. Digital cameras will also record what F-stop was used, so that you can check your results and remember them for future use.

Use the Aperture Priority setting when you are not concerned about movement in your image (we’ll talk about this opposite approach in the next chapter). Before jumping to the next tutorial, get out of your chair, grab your camera and take some photos.

Introduction

The previous tutorial explained what happens when you control the aperture. This tutorial explains what happens when you control the shutter speed. Of course there are times when you can control both, but we’ll save that for later.

Explaining shutter speed is easy. When you press ‘the button’ on your camera to take a photo, the shutter opens and lets the light in, then it closes. the amount of time that this takes is the “shutter speed”.

Just as controlling the F-stop is part of the creative process, so is controlling the shutter speed. Using the shutter speed in today’s cameras allows you a full range of effects from freezing a hummingbird in flight to blurring a flag in the wind and everything in between.

Slow Shutter Speeds

I’m going to define a slow shutter speed as anything slower than 1/lens length. Don’t worry, I’ll explain. In the ‘olden’ days before Image Stabilization and Vibration Reduction, a general rule was not to hand hold a camera at a shutter speed of the reciprocal of your lens length. This means that if I have a 200mm lens, I should use a tripod and any speed slower that 1/200th of a second. If I use a 28mm lens, I can hand hold down to 1/30th of a second.

This is still a good rule to follow. If you shoot at a slow shutter speed without a tripod, then look at your screen on the back of the camera to see if you got the shot (aka: Chimping) – you may not see the blur unless you magnify the view. If you don’t have a tripod, brace yourself by leaning against something solid.

Despite all of the precautions needed for a slow shutter speed exposure – they can be worth it.

This photo was taken with a 15 second exposure (on a tripod) and would have been impossible with a hand held fast shutter speed.

Camera shake

Modern cameras with built-in control for camera shake will usually allow up to 2 stops more than you could normally hand hold. Will this always work? No – but it helps. If you have a tripod available, use it. If you have a heavy lens, use a tripod.

Even with camera shake, there is some home.  The further you are from the subject, the less it will show.  In the above example, you can still read the larger text, but the small text is much harder.

You can fix a lot of things in Photoshop, but camera-shake blur is not one of them.

Fast Shutter Speeds

A fast shutter speed is loosely defined (by me) as a speed that will capture a fast moving subject. A fast shutter won’t require a tripod, but you can still use one for extra sharpness. Think of some of the times that you will need a fast shutter speed. I’ve used them in car racing events.

This was shot at 1/2000th of a second.

In this example, you can see the the car is moving fast, and I wanted to capture the splash as the cars raced down the dirt road. If I had shot this with a slow shutter speed, everything would be a blur. This is a great example of when to set your camera to Shutter Speed Priority (or Time Value on Canons). I don’t care what my depth of field looks like – I know that I am far enough away to get a decent amount.

One problem can crop up with freezing the action with a fast shutter speed. You can make the subject look so static, that there is no speed implied in the photo. Here are two photos of cars speeding around a course – which one looks like it’s moving?

These two photos were both shot at 1/1250th of a second and f7.1
In this case, it is the composition that makes the photos different.

Shutter Speeds and Distance to the subject

Speed appears relative. This is important to remember when shooting moving subjects. The closer you are to the subject, the faster it will appear. When you are driving down the highway, the signposts move by fast (extremely fast when you are close to them). The telephone poles move fast, but not as fast as the sign posts. Further back are the trees in the fields – the don’t move as fast as the telephone poles. And the hills in the background don’t move at all.

Even though you view these objects at the same speed, they will fly by at different speeds. Try taking a photo of a 75 mph sign on the freeway (please be a passenger for this one). It gets harder the closer you get. You’ll also need a very fast shutter speed, or it will just be a blur. Next take a photo of the horizon. Now you can take your time use a slower shutter speed if you like.

Ok, now reverse positions. Imagine that you are on the side of a racetrack and taking photos of the cars. They fly past and you have to be quick to catch them – you need a fast shutter speed, or they’ll just be a blur of color. Now move back to the grandstands. Ahhh – much easier! (but not as much fun).

Introduction:

Ok, you read a little bit about the basics of how light and exposure combine to create an image – now it’s time to pick the camera up and put the theory into practice. This tutorial will ask you to create a photo of a ‘still life’ subject. The Still Life has been a subject for artists over the past few centuries. The purpose of this exercise is to get you thinking about using your aperture and shutter speed to work with the light and create the best possible image.

What is a still life?

At its core, a still life is a subject that is not moving. But more than that, it’s a combination of objects (usually ones that can fit on a table top) that come together to create a pleasing design. See what Wikipedia has to say about it. An image full of “commonplace objects which may be either natural (food, flowers, plants, rocks, or shells) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, and so on)”.

Here is a photo that I shot for this tutorial:
This wasn’t shot in a fancy studio – I’ll show my set at the bottom of the page. For more on the process I used to create this image, visit this post on my Photo-blog.

Plan your scene

The first step is to find your subjects. This sounds easy enough, but try to find at least 4 or 5 objects that are related. One example would be a newspaper, coffee cup, reading glasses, spoon car keys. These could be used to tell a simple story about how you start your day. Maybe you could group some cooking utensils and vegetables, or gather some toys – the choice is yours.

Once you have found your objects, find your location. Where will you place them? What kind of lighting will you use? Your light source can be a flash, window light, a candle or artificial light. Once again, this is all your choice as photographer. Keep in mind that your location and your light will be connected.

Now that you have your objects and your location – how will you arrange the objects? What is the goal here? Are you telling a story? Do you want a nice composition? Will one object be the focal point? Do you want to just drop them in a jumble?

Now you have your inventory of objects and your objects – get them arranged and then we’ll talk about lighting.

Lighting your scene

Just as there are infinite ways to compose a scene, there are infinite ways to light it. Think of how you might want to light the scene to give a distinct look to it. Bright and cheerful? Dark and gloomy? Soft and inviting? Loud and vibrant?

What is your light source? If it’s a window, is the curtain drawn? Will you put a diffuser up to lessen the shadows? What direction does the window face? South for bright, hard light? North for softer, diffused light?

Are you using a flash? Will it be a direct on camera flash that will produce a bright, hard light with dark shadows? Will it be a diffused light to soften the shadows? Maybe the flash will be off camera and bounced off the ceiling to give a softer, top lit look?

Maybe it’s night time and you don’t have a flash, so you are relying on artificial light. Will you set the white balance to get natural colors? Maybe leave the white balance on Daylight and capture the green of the fluorescent light.

Once again, all of these choices are yours. I’m not going to give you a lesson on lighting just yet, I want you to think about your options and how they will affect the look and the feel of the final image. This is a introduction – so have fun with it, experiment with your lighting. Set up a scene on a table with a window nearby and photograph the same scene throughout the day.

Compose your scene

Now that your scene is lit – have a good look at it. View it from all angles. What stands out, what doesn’t get any attention? Is there anything missing? Is there anything that doesn’t belong? While you’re looking at the scene, start thinking about what you will focus on. Think about what is the brightest spot and which is the darkest. Are you tired of me asking all the questions when this is supposed to be a tutorial? During this phase, look at the scene both with and without your camera.

Shoot your scene

This is the easy part. The actual “photography” part. If you have planned your composition and lighting before hand, shooting the scene will be easier.

Remember the five factors of taking an image?

• Aperture
• Shutter Speed
• Light
• White Balance
• ISO

A still life doesn’t involve motion. This helps your decision as to how you will shoot it. You won’t care about shutter speed. If you have enough light or a tripod, set your ISO to its lowest setting for the best quality image. Your white balance should be set to the type of light you are using.

All that is left is aperture. This is what will give you control over the image. Remember the simple rule:

A lower f-stop will give you less depth of field.

Think about how much of the scene you want to have in focus. A little – just to keep one object in focus? A lot – to keep the whole scene in focus? This is your decision as an artist.

Thanks to digital technology, you can try different settings and it won’t cost you any money. You can also use the image files EXIF data to review what settings you used.

Start shooting and try some different exposures – move around to get new viewpoints – go crazy with it! You’ve set the scene up, so take advantage of it. BUT think about why you are changing your settings and what you see from a different viewpoint.

Summary

Once you have taken your photos and maybe adjusted them in your photo software, review them. Pick out your favourite 3 images. Then step away from it for a few hours. When you go back to those same 3 images – do you still like them? Do they remind you of why you chose those objects and arranged them the way you did? Show them to a friend or relative and get some feedback.

I hope that you learned in this project how preparation and thought can help you create a better image. I hope that you took the time to review your choices in composition and lighting.

Questions

What did you learn? Feel free to let me know what you did or didn’t learn.
How will you approach your next still life project?
Did you make the connection between depth of field and aperture?

Remember the still life example I posted at the start of the thread?  Here’s how it was set up (in all of it’s ‘glory’).

Introduction

You might be noticing a common theme if you’ve read through my other tutorials. But it really is ‘all about the light’.  This section will guide you to understanding and looking for and working with various light sources.

If you want the details of light theory and physics, you won’t find it here- I will try to give you the basics of light and how it pertains to photography.

The Light Spectrum

One frustrating thing about digital photography is that the current sensors do not capture every shade and hue of color that is possible. Most cameras do a great job, but sometimes you just can’t get the color ‘perfect’.

Light comes in all flavors – you are most familiar with ‘Visible Light’ – this is easy – it’s the light that you see. But just outside of this range is UV (ultra-violet) and IR (infra-red). See the chart below to get an idea how this works:

There are libraries full of books on just this subject, but I just wanted to show you that what you see is just a sampling of what light can do.

The next step to realize that the human eye is better at seeing colors than a digital camera sensor. So while you might see every color in a sunset your camera might not. If you have ever seen ‘banding’ in an photo you have taken, this is because your camera couldn’t capture all of the subtle details in the sky.

Note the harsh changes from the brightest parts of the sky to the darker parts.  This should look smoother, but was shot on an older camera (D70) in jpg mode.

Quick review – you can see more colors than your camera – that was easy! Now comes the more confusing part: not all cameras see the same colors.

If you compare two different cameras and take the exact same image with the same settings, you will likely see two different images. This has to do with 2 things: the different sensors, and the different internal image processing algorithms. This explains why some 12 megapixel cameras cost $100 and others cost $2000 (other factors apply).

If you already have your camera, I wouldn’t worry about it – in many cases, you’re just splitting hairs, but it’s safe to assume that the more expensive the camera, the better the sensor.

But then there’s one more level of confusion. The same camera can take different shots based on the “Color Space” that it is using. The chart below shows some of these differences:

What you see in this graph is that the visible light is cut down depending upon what color space you use – and then even more when you print the image.

Another quick review: The color that your camera records can vary based on its settings, which is also dependent upon the camera itself, and those colors can be different from what you see. Don’t worry – remember, modern cameras rock!

A similar situation occurred back in the days of film. Kodak film generally gave warmer colors, while Fuji film provided more greens. Guess which one I used for landscapes more often.

Anyways – you have a camera and you’re ready to start shooting. I just wanted to make you aware of some of the factors that affect light BEFORE you even press the shutter. The rest of this section will help you understand how different forms of light affect your image.

RGB vs CMYK

Cameras record in RGB (Red, Green, Blue) – using combinations of these three color and varying intensities, millions of colors can be created.  CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) is commonly used in printing.  I have more information on my Photoshop tutorial website – click here. This is good to know if you are sending out a photo to be printed – do you know what color space the printer will use?

Also, if you were paying attention to the graph above, you would see that there are even a few different RGB color spaces.  Your camera may not give you a choice about what color space you use, but if you have a choice, AdobeRGB will give you a little more color range.

RAW vs JPG

Another setting that determines color is shooting in what’s called RAW – this is the raw data that your camera records and then gives you full control over it later.  If you shoot JPG, your camera will make some internal adjustments after you shoot and then record the JPG to a memory card.  Shooting RAW will bypass this conversion and give you much more color and control.

For example, If I shoot in RAW and use the wrong White Balance setting, I can easily fix this in Photoshop by changing the White Balance when I open the file.  I can also open the image as a 16bit image (JPGs are 8 bit).  Oops!  See what happened there?  I just through out another term.  Color bit rate can vary depending upon the image type.  An 8 bit image will have a possible 16.8 million colors, while a 16 bit image will have a possible 281 trillion possible colors.  Wow!  What a difference! In actuality, this won’t make a difference in many images – but – it will make a huge difference in capturing those difficult colors in the sunsets.  Your computer screen is likely set to 32 bit (more than enough colors!)

I take photos of my friend’s paintings.  The colors are vivid and varied.  Think about how I have to shoot an image like this (Find out how I shoot artwork):

Summary

There is a lot to learn about color and light and if I confused you, sorry – don’t worry about it too much.  As a beginner, you already have a lot worry about.  I just want to let you know that there are many, many factors that go into creating an image.  If you shoot a scene and it comes out a lot different than you expected – it’s good to know that you have some options.

Questions

Do you want to learn more about the physics of light?  Wikipedia will get you going.
How does your camera record light?  Take a photo while you’re sitting at the computer – then view it and the actual scene at the same time.  How are they similar?  How different are they?
Start thinking about how much the color of light can change in your living room.  From morning until night, it will vary greatly – how would you adjust for this?

Introduction

As mentioned earlier, I could buy film that was ‘balanced’ for Daylight (shooting outdoors) or balanced for Tungsten Light (shooting indoors). This was a choice made to photographers so that they could get more accurate color depending upon where they were shooting. Another option was to screw a filter into the end of the lens that would change the light hit the film. So I would use a ‘light magenta’ (FL-D) filter to compensate for the green light of the fluorescent tubes when I was using daylight film.

Thankfully, those days are over. I now have a camera that can shoot in all kinds of light, and I only have to change one setting. This is awesome to anyone who used to shoot film! The setting that I make is called “White Balance” – and it does what the name implies. It will balance the color to provide white when it should be white (and not green, or blue or pink).

This tutorial will explain how to work with White Balance.

Auto White Balance (AWB)

Even the simplest digital camera will have an Auto White Balance setting – or just have it built in and not tell you. This is the setting that is the catch-all. It will do a good job most of the time. Sometimes, it will even do a great job. Sometimes, it will miss the mark entirely and then you have an off color image.

One thing that makes working with artificial lights is that your eye and brain have built in White Balance correction. If you are looking at a piece of white paper in the office, you’ll see that it looks pretty much white. Your camera will see it a totally different light.

Here’s three photos taken of a standard color card.  They were shot will all of the same settings, except that I changed the White Balance on them.

Auto	Daylight	Fluorescent

These were taken outside on a sunny in direct sunlight.  As you can see the Auto setting did a good job.  I was able to make the white look white and everything else looks like it should.  The Daylight image shows pretty much the same colors.  Either one would work fine in this example.  The third image is much different.  It looks like this because I set the camera to Fluorescent light, but it recorded daylight.  This will always give me a color cast that I don’t want.

If I shot in JPG, I would have to make some major adjustments to the Fluorescent image.  If I shot it RAW, I would be able to change the WB setting when I opened the file in Photoshop.

In the droplist, you can see how I just change the WB from “As Shot” to “Daylight” and my image will look much more natural.  It’s for this reason, and others that I’ll explain along the way, why I almost always shoot in RAW format.

Pre-set White Balance Settings

As you can see in this list, I have a few pre-set options that I can choose from.  If you are going to be shooting in JPG, I recommend that you use the closest setting to the actual light you are in.  This will get you as close as possible.  Each of these settings should be self-explanatory.

Sometimes you will be a situation where you get mixed lights.  You could be inside during the day in a room lit with fluorescent lights as well have daylight coming in through the windows.  Now what?  In most cases, you will want to use Auto and hope that the camera will figure it out for you.  It might not be perfect, but it will be close.

Always check your WB settings each time you pick up the camera for a new session of shooting.

Custom White Balance

A lot of newer DSLR’s will have a Custom WB setting.  This is a great option to use, it’s easy to use and it the most accurate way of getting a WB setting in your camera.  This approach allows you to take a WB reading which the camera will then use for the rest of your photos.

Check your camera’s manual to see if you have this option.  Here’s 2 shots taken seconds apart, one is using Auto WB, and other is with a Custom WB.

Auto WB	Custom WB

I opened these both in Photoshop and did a simple Curves correction to set the white point.  This has given me good color and exposure in one click.  If you look at the concrete that surrounds the card, there is a big difference.  The one on the right is very accurate, while the one on the left makes the concrete look warmer than it it.

I use a translucent white lens cover to take my readings, then start shooting.  This is the cheapest accessory you can get to help your daily photography.

White Balance Lens Cover	In Use

In general use, you just take a setting with the white balance cap over your lens and the camera will adjust the WB based upon the color that it reads coming through the cap.  You can find these on eBay for cheap – they’re well worth the money.

Summary

As you can see, cameras have advanced to the point where they can take good photos automatically.  It’s up to you as the photographer to take it to the next level and create great images.  White Balance is important in getting the colors correct – even with a perfect exposure, if your WB is off, your whole image is off.

You can also use the wrong WB on purpose to create an effect.  Try shooting a daylight scene with a Tungsten WB to create a cold feel to your image.  Or use daylight settings under Tungsten light to get a warm look.

Colors are subjective.  Your eye might not see the same as mine, or anyone else’s.  You might think that you have captured the correct colors when you’re actually quite far off.  Take time to learn about the various WB settings that your camera has and use them to your advantage.