Transcript Digital Photography - Montgomery Township School District

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.
1/500
Digi1080p.com
1/60
1/8
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.