Chapter 1
Fundamentals
In the quest for better photography, where do you start? I'm on my quest and have been for years. How about you? Have you figured all of it out yet?
Broad subject, no doubt, but, I'm going to get into some fundamentals with this missive and hopefully provide a tiny bit of insight to those beginners struggling with their quest for better photographs.
I'll start with simple things. If you are further along with your ability and or equipment I apologize, but I meet a lot of people interested in being a better photographer and they don't even understand the basic stuff. So, as with anything in life, I'm going to start with...
Basic Stuff
Your camera. Lets face it. Not everybody can afford $10,000 worth of camera equipment. Most folks I bump in to can't even afford a camera system that costs more than $1,000.
If you want to move beyond getting a lucky snapshot, and/or want to actually have the potential to get really fantastic images, you'll have to move beyond a point & shoot camera. Oh, yeah, there are some very good photographic artists out there who use point & shoots and/or other obscure camera systems, but these are niche players and they are looking for a specific feel to their images. It's been my experience that the folks who aren't willing or able to commit to a decent camera, aren't really committed to improving their photography. If that statement applies to you, fine. I can understand and no harm, no foul. But, when one of these people come to me for advice on improving their photography, and they show me their 4 year old digital point & shoot, the first thing I tell them is get a better camera and then come see me. Lose the romantic notion that a better camera makes you a better photographer or that a really expensive looking camera makes you a better photographer. A better camera allows you to do more things and provides you with the potential to improve and learn the things you need to learn.
So, what is a better camera? If your camera doesn't have the ability control exposure settings manually, you need a better camera. If your camera doesn't have the ability to deliver a RAW image file, you need a better camera.
At a minimum, one needs a camera with a feature set similar to a Canon SX20. I'm talking about features, not brand here. Manual aperture, shutter speed, ISO. Tv (shutter priority) mode, Av (Aperture priority) mode. Some cameras, including expensive DSLR's have automatic modes as well, such as Portrait, or Landscape, or Macro, or Night modes. We in the business jokingly call these “wife modes”, meaning that we switch the camera to one of these modes when we hand the camera to the wife. I know, it's mildly sexist or condescending, but it's true. Those modes are for people who don't know anything about operating a camera and aren't exactly prone to want to learn. ISO capability up to 1600. Choose any brand of camera you like, but if you aren't getting a camera with all of this camera's capabilities, you're wasting your time. My personal recommendation is move on up to at least an entry level DSLR with a couple of quality lenses.
Lenses are more important than the camera body in my opinion. If you have decided what you're willing to spend, take a look at lenses first and then choose your body. A good lens will make more difference in the quality of your image than the camera body. You'll still have to master your compositional skills, and no camera can teach you how to do it nor make you a better photographer. As a matter of fact, it's possible that too much camera can make you a worse photographer. I've seen dozens of folks who have the money to spend and pick up a top tier DSLR and a slew of lenses and don't even bother to learn how to use them. You'll need to estimate your propensity to grasp the complexities of properly utilizing the equipment you purchase and make an honest decision on what level of complexity that you may actually find beneficial. Or, conversely, spend what you like and hope it's enough. If you have the will and mental ability to learn your system to it's fullest, then I'd start with that knowledge and move forward accordingly.
Learn your camera, inside and out. Understand everything it does, every menu item, every configuration setting. Learn it to the point that you don't need to guess or compromise. Learn it to the point that everything about it becomes second nature. Failure to master the equipment is the most significant impediment to bettering your photography. When your skills rise to the point that you know what the image is going to look like before you take it, you certainly don't want to ruin a photographic opportunity by not knowing how to make the camera behave the way you wish.
Post Processing.
If you intend to become serious about your photography, you are best advised to become serious about your post processing software and your ability to use that software. You'll need some basic stuff here, and too basic is not enough. I'll try to lay it out a little more succinctly.
Software not intended for serious photographers, includes but is not limited to the following.
iPhoto – Apple/Mac basic photo software, included with any new Mac laptop/computer running OSX or higher. Sorry, iPhoto is nothing more than a glorified photo viewer and provides you with virtually nothing substantial in the way of serious photo editing capability.
Windows Photo Editor/Imaging – Worse than iPhoto. Don't even consider it as a serious tool.
If you're absolutely determined to not invest in serious photo editing software, you may want to consider Google's Picasa. It's a free download from Google's web site and it will provide you with a simple set of photo enhancement tools. It's also now available for the Mac platform as well. At the very least, start here and work your way up. Considering the fact that Picasa is free, it's definitely worth downloading and using, even if just as a photo organizer and viewer.
If you're serious about your photography, you'll be making your photographs in RAW format. The only reason you should be shooting jpg files would be that you are required to shoot jpg files. Required means that you have no choice. If you have a choice, never shoot jpg. Why? Jpg is a lower quality image format and your computer can make a better jpg file than your camera can. Plain and simple. One of the reasons I see for people not getting better quality images is because they simply refuse to use RAW as their image format. I've seen folks who've invested thousands of dollars in their photographic equipment and have totally wasted their money by shooting in jpg format, simply because it's too complicated or too bothersome to learn how to edit a RAW file. I won't go any further into the reasons why jpg is not good enough as a master image file, you can find the arguments all over the internet. Stupid is as stupid does.
Since you should be setting your camera to generate RAW image files, you'll want software that can process those RAW files and convert them to jpg files or any other format for that matter. Here is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to generating usable and printable images from your camera and you have a number of options at this level.
The first thing to know about editing RAW files on your computer is which type of computer you have and the brand/model of camera you have. RAW files are proprietary formatted files and are typically unique to your particular camera model and/or brand. Most cameras that can shoot a RAW file will come with software that will allow you to edit and/or convert that cameras RAW files. The quality of this software will vary from brand to brand, but in my experience the RAW file editing software included with the camera is generally cumbersome and non-intuitive. Working professionals who have to process a large number of RAW files on a regular basis soon abandon this software for better solutions. If you plan on keeping your images, you need software that provided more than simple RAW conversion. You need a complete cataloging solution as well as image adjustment solution. The best two software packages on the market for this solution are...
Apple Aperture and Adobe Lightroom. Both provide outstanding and intuitive user interfaces, with excellent cataloging capacity and top notch photo enhancement/editing capacity. My preference is Adobe Lightroom. Reason, I use both Mac and Windows PC's and Lightroom is cross platform compatible. Aperture is very good software though, and if all you ever intend to use is a Mac platform, you may find it to be better for your needs. Adobe Lightroom is currently a little more expensive than Aperture. Money may be a deciding factor, otherwise both packages provide about the same general level of editing capability.
Full Capability Photo Editing Software. I'm not going to get into the wide array of different software packages, many of which providing different ways of sharing and using cookie-cutter enhancements. I'm only going to focus on software that can be used to great effect when manipulating and editing individual photographic image files. In my opinion, your photographic kit is not complete unless you can import and control the image from top to bottom and then export that image into the format you need, rather or not that includes the internet, prints, or computer viewing. There are only a few basic software packages I can recommend.
Adobe Photoshop Elements. Mac & PC, can be found for less than $100. Good basic and inexpensive photographic editing software. Good amateur level software, provides a lot of photo editing capability for a very reasonable price. Scaled down version of Photoshop CS3/4 and much less expensive.
Corel Paintshop Pro. Windows PC only, no Mac version. Roughly the same general functionality of Photoshop Elements, can normally be found for less than $100. I use this software on my Windows laptop PC, but I don't rely on it as my serious or professional photo editing solution.
Adobe Photoshop CS3/4. Mac and Windows. This is the standard software used by photographic professionals. It's expensive, close to $600. It's powerful, so powerful in fact you'll spend years just mastering the capabilities of this software. If you can afford it, get it.
There are tons of other special niche products, most of which will work hand in hand with Photoshop CS3/4. Photo sharpening tools, noise reduction tools, enlarging tools, special film grain effects, HDR image creations, panoramic image creations and the list goes on and on. If you have the money, go for it. Most of these applications are fairly expensive for what they provide and in my opinion the majority of photographers don't really need all this stuff until and unless they've found a special niche with their work that requires special software to accomplish. None of it makes you a better photographer. It's mostly toys which provide a very marginal extended capability from what the other basic photo editors I've already mentioned provide.
Tools you'll want to have.
Tripod. A decent tripod, not a $50 aluminum discount tripod from Best Buy. Something sturdy, with interchangeable heads and/or detachable camera boot plate. Retractable and portable, light weight and of solid build. Expect to pay a minimum of $250 for a tripod. Some of the better tripods can cost as much as a DSLR body. Don't chimp out here, you'll be wasting your money.
Remote Shutter Release. Normally available from the camera manufacturer, they can run anywhere from $30 to $300, depending on the camera model and complexity of the actual product. The sharpest images will be images taken while the camera is motionless. Mounting your camera on a tripod and firing the shutter with a remote release is the best way to insure you aren't vibrating the camera when you take a picture.
Filters. At a minimum, I'd recommend you add a few specific lens filters to your kit. Starting with a circular polarizer filter and graduated neutral density filters. Some folks also believe in using a basic UV filter on their lenses. The UV filters do have some benefit in that they can protect your lens elements and may provide a tiny bit of color enhancement in certain environmental conditions. The trick to filters is to buy large diameter filters and use them on all of your lenses by making use of step-rings. Find out which of your lenses has the largest diameter front element, and this may typically be 77mm. The larger diameter filters cost more than the smaller filters, but you only have to buy one set of filters. Step-rings are cheap, so adapting the large filters to smaller lenses is ultimately less expensive than purchasing multiple filters for different size lens diameters. If you cruise the internet discussion about the difference in quality from one brand to another, you'll find as many different opinions as you will people. My own opinion is that you don't have to invest a fortune in the highest quality top brand filters to get satisfactory results. Filters are consumables in my opinion, and as such are prone to being damaged or misplaced. I don't like having to spend $300 on a replacement filter that provides me with a very marginal optical improvement over a $50 filter. Of course, if you feel that only the best will do, spend all you like. You'll still eventually end up damaging or losing it if you actually use it. That's the nature of the beast.
Other things.
Extra Battery. If you don't have an extra battery, you're eventually going to be stuck in a situation where you want to use your camera and can't. Plain and simple. Batteries fail, always have a charged spare with you.
Memory Chip. Having a spare flash chip with you is a must. Chips fail, chips get full. If you don't carry a spare chip with you, eventually you will want to take a picture and can't.
Small flashlight. You can't see in the dark. If you're out taking photographs when you're supposed to be (early morning, late afternoon, or even at night), you'll eventually be in the dark. Invest $10 in a small flashlight and keep it in your kit along with extra batteries.
Camera Bag. All this stuff has to fit into something you can carry. I recommend you shop around after you've assembled your basic kit. Nothing worse than buying a bag and then getting more stuff than it will hold. Maybe even a couple of bags, to keep your kit better organized or for different purposes. I can't count the number of camera bags and cases I have. I can assemble a kit for any circumstance, be it overseas travel, a day trip to the mountains, a full blown wedding shoot or just visiting the grandkids for the birthday party. I'd shy away from anything that identifies your bag as being full of photographic equipment (and this may be hard to do), as all you'll end up doing is advertising to potential thieves that you have a bag full of expensive photographic equipment. I'd recommend something lightweight and weather-proof with a shoulder strap and lockable. Always keep in mind that when you are out in public with anything that looks to be of value, somebody is watching you and trying to figure out how to steal from you. Sad but true. I've found that a simple $25 small duffle bag from Target does the trick more often than not. I was once in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and was carrying a small duffle bag which contained about $15,000 worth of camera gear and a laptop bag which held a $900 laptop PC. I was scoped out and a thief made their pick. They stole my laptop and left the duffle bag alone. The laptop case was identifiable, the duffle bag looked like it was full of dirty underwear. Lesson learned.
So, there you have it. Basic stuff. Having all the basic stuff won't make you a better photographer, but it will allow you to grow and improve your photography. You have to learn the fundamentals of composition and the dynamics of light & exposure. We'll focus on those issues in a future essay.