What They Don' Tell You, Starting Out

Yet over the last few weeks I have realised there are things that the professionals are not coughing up. Things which I am figuring out and which could be of great help to other beginners maybe one step behind me.

The professionals are not holding out on us newbies intentionally, far from it. Instead they are as human as us and so make assumptions as well as forget what it was like starting out. Being in the stratosphere they cannot always look back and realise that they too were unsure as to what shutter speed is borderline holdable or that at first Sunny16 sounded more like a sun screen than a light zone system.

Also remember a good professional is also still learning, always, always learning. To this end their current learning focus at the time of writing an introductory article or book may blind them slightly to things that a beginner would find to be an obvious neccesity to explain in the opening stages. Why didn't Dan Heller ever tell me that if I want a subject to be saturated and accurate at the sacrifice of some of the background that I should meter on the subject and not an inbetween area? Probably because at the time he wrote one of his tutorials he was focusing on landscape shots which need an averaged metering. He did nothing wrong except being a human, which I hope most of us are.

At my stage I should not be worrying too much about negative space, filter stacking or shape balancing. These things just add confusion and undermine the learning of the basics. I want to get the basics right so that I can then really start exploring in a confident and directed manner. All too often I blindly point, bracket and pretend I am being creative, meanwhile the result could be totally different to what I expect, or spot on. Yet I would not actually know why.

Naturally with the method I am taking this article will be updated regularly and will be made up of distinct sections to which facts and experiences are added. I may even take the plunge and upload failed shots and explain what I expected and offer my best explanation of why it did not work. Hopefully the shots should improve with time.

Also please note this is more technical than artistic. Basic compositional ideas will be included but anything bordering on or right inside the "creative, explorative, adventorous" area will not be included as it is far too subjective to be of much worth to us beginners.

I do 35mm. Have never tried any other format, larger or smaller. So all that I am learning and talking about applies to 35mm photography. Some may map over to larger formats, but I would find another source if that is your interest.

One final note: I will get things wrong. Sometimes horribly so. This is part of learning and in fact one of the reasons beginners are so shy in telling their first experiences. We fear being laughed out of the forum for having made a naive metering comment, so we don't comment. Instead of laughing at me and writing me off, have a good laugh and then tell me were I went wrong. I can then learn and update the article and we all win. Plus there will be things I will advise for beginners which will not apply to professionals, things which are good to start out doing but then as you progress you drop. Thanks.

Don't Regret

• If that beautiful shot looks great but seems impossible (read Your Eye vs. Your Camera) take it anyway and bracket it. You will regret missing a shot far more than having "wasted" a few frames. Film is cheap, gorgeous scenes are not.
• Be confident and bold
• Listen to the pro's but don't take it as gospel, we all have our unique styles
• Film is never wasted, not even if you drop it in the fire or leave it on the dashboard because every single frame will teach you something (24 melted frames will teach you not to play with film near a fire 24 times)
• Pro's take 15 rolls of film a day at least. They consider 2 good (not great, just good) shots from each roll to be a good haul. Don't ever think that every shot a pro takes comes out perfect.
• Have fun

Your Eye vs. Your Camera

• Your eyes have a brain which processes and compensates, your camera does not
• Your eyes have a far greater light range than film does, period
• Highly contrasting areas in your photo can fool your cameras metering
• Your brain makes the moon look bigger and darker than it is. Film just records what is there and the moon is a very distant, sunlit object
• Your eyes use rods and cones, film uses chemicals. Hence colours can come out differently, especially lights
• The end of your lens picks things up your eye never would, like lens flares. Glass vs. tissue!
• Long exposures can bring out elements in a photo that your eye only dimly sees
• With your eyes you are only ever focusing on one thing and you cannot look at peripheral objects without automatically re-focusing on them
• A photograph though can contain focused subjects and unfocused elements, so make sure to look around the scene you are going to shoot and figure out how the peripheral elements will affect the focused subject
• Your brain automatically corrects for perspective, especially with tall buildings. Your camera does not, so be sure you want distorted perspective or correct for it by adjusting your angle or focal length. You can get perspective "corrected" lenses however

Most tutorials teach you lens, aperture, shutter speed, composition and lighting first.

To be frank this is wrong. The first thing you should learn is the difference between what you see, and what your camera sees. It is vast! Learn this now and you will take better photos.

I have been finding out the hard way how different they are.

Lenses

• Buy a medium quality flexible zoom lens rather than a high quality inflexible prime lens
• My Canon EF 28mm-90mm 1:4-5.6 II is serving me very well
• Ensure the lens has a manual focus option
• Get a filter to protect your lens, ideally a UV filter as it will not affect your shots like a polariser or ND filter would
• Don't stress about not having three different lenses or a cupboard full like the professionals
• Keep your lens clean with a blower or a lens cleaning clothe
• When you buy a zoom lens the aperture f/stop label (e.g. 1:4-5.6) on the lens is not a range. Rather it denotes the lowest f/stop (aperture) value at each end of the focal length of the lens. i.e. At 28mm the lowest f/stop is 1:4 at 90mm the lowest f/stop is 5.6
• 1:4 is the same as 4.0
• Better quality, more expensive, lenses have a smaller/lower f/stop. e.g. 2.8 or 3.5
• A prime lens will naturally only have one lowest f/stop value

• Zoom: A zoom lens is not the same thing as a telephoto lens. Zoom effectively means an adjustable focal length. With a zoom you can stand in one spot and get closer to or farther away from your subject without moving your feet. With a zoom you can take a photo of your friend a few feet away and then with the same lens zoom in on a Fish eagle a good 100 metres away. Naturally the amount of zoom depends on what it says on the lens. I have a 28mm-90mm zoom and it covers most of my current shooting situations. Another popular zoom is a 70mm-135mm.
• Prime: A prime is a single length lens. 17mm, 35mm, 50mm, 80mm, 90mm, 135mm, 200mm, 300mm, 500mm are the ones I have heard of. i.e. A prime lens is one that you cannot adjust the focal length of. Because of this they can be cheaper and yet offer better quality, at that length, than a comparitive zoom lens. If all you want to do is take macro photos of flowers then get a small prime, e.g. a 17mm. Or if all you want are long range shots of duck billed platypuses then get a prime 300mm telephoto.

(Many thanks to Chris Robinson for overhauling, correcting and re-writing the following paragraphs. I had macro confused with wide-angle and got it all horribly wrong at first. Note to beginners: Wide-angle and macro are not the same thing.)

What are wide-angle and telephoto lenses you ask? Well wide-angle and telephoto are more a label for the extreme ends of the focal length range. Wide-angle being the small end (17mm, 25mm, 35mm) and telephoto being the large end (200mm, 300mm, 500mm etc.) In between is the 50mm standard lens, and the medium telephoto rage (85mm, 105mm) which are most useful for portrait work.

You can get a prime lenses in the sizes mentioned in the last paragraph, so you can have a telephoto prime lens with a focal length of 300mm for example. Common zoom lenses being made today are the wide-angle zoom (17mm-35mm), the wide-angle to medium telephoto zoom (35mm - 105mm) and the telephoto zoom (100mm - 300mm)

There are a few special definitions for some of these focal lengths especially when considered in a prime lens. The 50mm "standard" lens is the prime lens that was supplied with all 35mm SLR cameras as standard. This is because it approximates the pespective and the magnification that we see with our naked eye. If you put a standard lens on your camera or set your zoom lens to 50mm and hold it to your eye, you'll notice that when you move the camera away the pespective and magnification of what you see with the naked eye won't change much.

The 17mm lens and smaller is a wide-angle lens that is normally referred to as "extreme wide-angle" or "fish-eye" lens. This is because of the extreme distortion that you get with such a wide angle lens. One reason that extreme wide angle lenses are so expensive is the designers go to great lengths to design them with the minium disitortion characteristics. The term fisheye came from the era when a typical 17mm lens distorted the view so badly that only a circular image of almost 180 degree view was possible. The photographer had to be careful not to get his own feet in the photograph!

Over 300mm focal length the lens can be considered a "super telephoto" lens. This distinction is made because a lens of this focal length becomes extremely difficult to use except on a rigid tripod. These lenses are extremely heavy due to the necessary diameter of the objective lenses and the long barrel length. There have been attempts to make more managable and useful super telephoto lens using the same technology as that used in reflecting telescopes but these have the major drawbacks of being extremely expensive, suffer from many distortion effects from the mirror, and tend to have dim spot in the centre of the field of view.

Be warned though, even a prime telephoto will cost you a pretty penny.

Most photographers will tell you that a quality lens is crucial to getting superb photographs. A fantastically cheap 28mm-90mm zoom lens may sound enticing but the quality will invariably not be that good. However I cannot afford high quality lenses of any type or length and so a medium quality 28mm-90mm is what I chose, a Canon EF 28mm-90mm 1:4-5.6 II to be exact.

So far, so good, the lens has been perfect for my needs and my untrained eye does not notice any abberations. So if you are like me, then that lens (or a make which fits your camera but has similar properties) is a good choice.

Quickly: "28mm-90mm" is the focal length range of the lens. This is a zoom lens as you can see. 28mm is the bottom end providing wide, panoramic shots. 90mm allows me to close in enough onto most subjects. "EF" is the "mounting" as I think of it. EF can be used on most Canon cameras. "1:4-5.6" denotes the lowest f/stop (aperture) value at each end of the focal length of the lens. i.e. At 28mm the lowest f/stop is 1:4 (this equals 4.0 on the camera display) and at 90mm the lowest f/stop is 5.6. A bettter quality lens would have smaller f/stop values (e.g. 2.8 or 3.5), allowing for more varied lighting and speed situations. Generally this aperture part is what costs the money as the lower f/stops are harder to manufacturer (remember a low f/stop means a more open aperture, letting in more light.) "II" as far as I know is simply a model, like you get a Pentium II one year and then the next a Pentium III etc. This lens is also an AF (auto focus) lens. This means that my Canon EOS 300v which has AF capabilities can control the focusing of the lens itself, meaning that you do not have to focus. The lens can be switched to MF (manual focus) which is very important, especially in night shots or featureless subjects where the AF fails. And yes, I have been made to use MF a few times, so try and make sure your lens has it too. It also puts a bigger smile on your face when you know you focused the photo and not the focusing chips.

Frankly flexibility is my primary concern, I want to do all types of photography. So I had to sacrifice some of the value of the lens from quality towards flexibility. As a beginner I recommend you go for flexibility. It is no good buying a high quality prime lens of 50mm and then becoming frustrated because you are missing shots, even though the shots suitable for a 50mm are coming out very well. Also with flexibility I believe you learn more. With that prime 50mm you will learn only how to take 50mm photographs and you will be excluding other situations.

You could spend a great deal of money on a high quality flexible lens and still get back bad pictures (over exposed, blurred, bad composition etc. etc. all the things that do not cost much money at all.) As a beginner thinking of the $1000 you spent on the lens and seeing the poor results would probably be more detrimental to your photographic future than it would be to a professional.

Lastly, no matter how professional you may start out to be there will always be situations which call for snap shots. Your family will demand it and as a beginner it is good to get support from all angles, not having the flexibility to take medium quality shots will make your family and friends wonder just what you are actually doing. Just try explaining to your mom that "my prime 50mm lens cannot do that shot mom, it is a brilliant quality lens, but this is the wrong situation for it."

But then I am a practical guy with non-exacting standards and you may be the opposite, in which case do what makes you happy.

Apart from the lens cover (do not loose, keep handy, put it back on quickly) I do not have any add ons. There are however three filters that I am interested in. A UV filter (more for protection apparently), a polariser (enhances the blue in skies and filters out reflections from glass windows) and a neutral density filter (I will attempt explaining this once I have one.) The UV filter a friend recommended I get straight away. Invariably you will end up dinging your lens, into a doorknob, a rock or a platypus and as my friend puts it "rather break the filter than the lens." That is effectively the sum total of my reasoning for getting a UV filter, it also happens to be the cheapest. Originally I was under the assumption that a UV filter does not reduce the amount of light coming into the lens, but this is incorrect. Apparently, thanks to an email from Patrick Sinke (thanks!), even a UV filter stops the light down by 1/2 to 1stop of light, so compensate accordingly. Also a UV filter cuts down on glare and haze.

Make wise, I cannot comment but for now price is the deciding factor.

For cleaning lenses I have a generic blower which gets off the easy particles. For tougher particles a lens cleaning clothe works well, virtually the same as what I use to clean my eye glasses.

Film

• There are two basic types of film. Negative and slide
• Don't think you cannot put slide film in your entry level camera, you can
• Buy some slide film, you may never go back or you may runaway screaming in horror, so give it a try
• Buy a wide speed range of films (ISO 50 and below, up to ISO 600 and above, average out on ISO 100 or ISO 200 though)
• ISO and ASA are the same scale, same thing
• Have both professional and consumer grade film handy, but more consumer grade for learning purposes
• ISO 200 is not good for concert night photography
• Keep at least 4 rolls of film with you
• Use your film, don't conserve it (but never end up with no rolls of film and the Ultimate Photograph in front of you)
• Fuji Superia ISO 200 is good consumer grade film
• Fuji Velvia/Sencia ISO 100 is good professional slide film

Processing Film

• Use a pro lab, avoid consumer 1 hour photo labs
• Find a good lab, get friendly with the owner/employees and stick with it
• Speak to the person responsible for development, ensure they are a photographer too (but be candid about it)
• If Have Money Then Buy Photo Scanner
• Protect your negatives/slides after development, they are all you have!
• Tell the lab what situations the roll-to-process contains. If varied (day and night shots), then make sure they know!
• Label the roll canister before development and ensure the lab keeps the canister with the roll
• Develop and rather have it saved to CD. Get prints only when you have a good shot
• Avoid consumer 1 hour photo labs... repeat ten times

Aperture & DOF

• Aperture is the size of the hole inside your lens. This hole can be made bigger or smaller
• DOF is Depth Of Field
• DOF is the range of "in focus" elements in the scene
• Aperture controls DOF
• High aperture, small DOF
• Low aperture, large DOF
• To blur the background and make the focused subject stand out, use a high aperture
• Landscapes need good DOF so use a low aperture
• A small aperture lets in less light which means your shutter speed will need to be stopped down (slowed) for proper exposure
• A large aperture lets in more light which means your shutter speed will need to be stopped up (increased)
• Aperture is measured with f/stop, this is an inverse scale.
• A large f/stop is actually a small aperture, and a small f/stop is a large aperture
• f8, f5.6, f1.4 and f22 are all f/stop measurements of the aperture. f22 is a large f/stop and so means small aperture. f1.4 is a small f/stop and so means a large aperture
• The available aperture range is determined by your lens. A good quality lens will have a larger range
• Manually controlling aperture IMO gives more satisfaction. It is tougher to understand but gives you more creative control and you can use it to make subjects stand out or blend in

Shutter Speed

• Don't fool yourself thinking you can hold the camera steady at low speeds, use a tripod
• The speed at which you can handhold your camera depends on the focal length of your lens (thanks for the tip Chris Robinson)
• A nifty rule of thumb is this: Handhold down to half the focal length of your lens. So if the focal length is 50mm then you can technically handhold at 1/30 (half of 50mm is 25 and the next shutter stop up is 1/30.) Optimally though you then want to stop up another shutter speed to ensure no blur ensues, so in this case 1/60. 90mm focal length? Then 1/60, stop up, 1/90
• The larger the focal length, the steadier you need to be
• Saying all this though, if you can, use a tripod!
• Fast moving subject? Fast shutter speed, very fast, rather too fast than too slow (unless you are going for an in-motion effect)
• Do not overdo in-motion blurred effects with slow shutter speed
• Fast film may seem nice as you can then have faster shutter speeds, but fast film can be grainy and not as rich as slower film
• Rather manually set aperture and let the camera set shutter speeds than set shutter speeds and let the camera set the aperture. I find one can do more playing with aperture than shutter speed, this is my preference though

Light & Your Flash

• Avoid using just your built in flash at night on people, get the subject to a better naturally lit area
• Be aware of singular light sources which can cause bad and good shadows. Bad if from the top on a persons face (eye socket shadows), good especially in a forest with striking long tree shadows
• Your flash is far more useful during the day when used as a fill flash
• Use fill flash techniques. Don't think your fill flash will over-lighten areas on a bright sunny day, it won't because the sun is damned bright and the flash will not make much difference on already well lit areas
• The magic hours are just that, magic. Dawn and sundown will bring your photos to life
• Dawn and sundown however provide different lighting, especially in the way colours come out
• Dawn is bluer and crisper, the day is still young and the air cleaner
• Sundown is redder and softer, the day is old and the air filled with dust
• Light beams (from a spotlight or through a church window) need to be quite powerful to come out on your photo. Dust rich beams are best and the angle is important
• Try and get a professional add-on flash, like a speedlite. Then when possible bounce the light off of cielings and walls to create a diffused non-singular light source
• Use warming, cooling or other coloured filters on your flash to prevent the harsh un-natural effects of your flash
• Your flash is keyed to provide light like the noon day sun. Harsh but clean, so be careful
• Professionals can take noon day photos and produce good results, how they do this I am still learning and once achieved I believe is a mark of a good photographer
• Reflectors are cheaper than extra remote flashes and can produce good results. A reflector is any light piece of paper/board which reflects light. Position the reflector on the other side of your subject to the sun

Composition

• Heed the rule of thirds, but do not be a slave to it
• If you are unsure of how much to include, include more rather than less, you can crop later
• Simplicity is very important, try and convey one message and not more
• Try different angles of the same scene
• Walk around, think then shoot. Don't just shoot

The Camera

• The camera body is the least important element in a good photograph
• Don't skimp too much though as cheaper cameras will have limitations that you may run into (e.g. my Canon EOS 300v does not have a spot meter)
• Get a comfortable camera. You can have a steady hand but if your camera is unwieldy or you cannot get a good grip then your steady hand won't help much. The EOS 300v fits my hands well and is light, which I like

A Tripod

• A tripod is useful for more than just steadying long shutter speed shots
• Use your tripod as much as possible, even with fast shutter speed shots
• Using your tripod will sharpen your shots
• It helps in planning, composing and waiting for those magic moments
• Get a good, easily adjustable tripod
• Make sure your tripod has a quick release head
• A tripod works well on steps or slopped surfaces, but make sure the legs can adjust independantly for this

You may think that it is pointless getting a tripod when you are just a beginner. Think again.

I have found countless uses for my tripod, even in the mid day sun where I have been using shutter speeds of 1/1000. Actually I have found the benifits of composing, planning and shooting with a tripod to be as good as those provided for slow shutter speed shooting.

Mountains are a good example. It was a crystal clear day and the sky was blue as can be, I did not even wish for a polariser for once. I wanted to get in a range of mountains but also have some detail rather than the usual one-grand-but-detailess-mountain type shot. So I planned on zooming in on sections of the range, taking about 4 shots to shoot the entire width of it. I could then stitch that together into one big panoramic shot eventually. Without a tripod I would have been very lucky to have been able to rotate on the spot getting in 4 shots all with the subject at the same level and distance.

With the tripod though I could rely on it to remember the composition and all I had to do was swivel the head for each shot.

It is also very useful for shots that keep you looking over your camera to compose properly. The camera on the tripod remains rock steady and pointed at your subject, while you are free to stand up and wander around looking for maybe a better angle or a different subject. If nothing new comes up, then you can just step back to your tripod and take the shot you originally planned.

Sometimes you walk past a scene and kick yourself because it is gorgeous but the light is just not right at that time of day. You just know that if you come back at sunset or sunrise that the scene will come to life and be a good shot.

Bring your tripod! Plan and setup your shot during the day, composing exactly what you envision. Spend a good hour wandering around looking for other angles. Each time you find a good angle, setup the tripod and mark down the position of the legs on the ground (chalk if you can, or a pebble or three you will recognize.)

Now you can leave and spend the remaining hours doing other things. Then when the time is right, you come back and can very quickly place your tripod and take the shot all without having to waste those precious sunset minutes figuring out what will work best.

Low Light Conditions

• ISO 200 film is not suitable for night photography when you cannot use slow shutter speeds (e.g. at a concert)
• Get a tripod, don't fool yourself into thinking you can handhold well enough, not even Dirty Harry has a steady enough hand
• Bracket, bracket, bracket (this means taking three photos of the same scene. One with the selected aperture and shutter speed, one with a aperture and shutter speed one stop lower than selected, and another one stop higher than selected. My Canon EOS 300v does this automatically if asked)
• Get a remote release to stop any camera shake.
• Don't have a remote release? I don't, but the timer option on most cameras will do just the same thing. Don't just use it to take self portraits.
• The timer trick works very well with bracketing and auto-advance (the camera feeds the film automatically and takes as many frames as you specify)

Archiving & Storage

• Label your negatives
• Protect your negatives
• Do not stack prints
• I label with year, month, location, title. e.g. 200301 Cape Town Sunset
• Decide on a labelling format and storage structure, and stick to it
• CDs are good for storage, but do not totally rely on them as your negatives are more important
• You can loose prints, but do not loose negatives

This is a subject which I feel gets very little attention from experienced photographers. Dan Heller has a good article on storage, but unfortuanatley he mainly shoots slides and offers no advice for negative film. Storing your negatives is quite different from storing slide film.

As a beginner you may say you do not have much film to store and a plastic packet will suffice for now. IMO this is wrong and you should, like anything, start out right and avoid future problems. If you don't then you will find yourself with hundreds of strips of negatives and a burgeoning problem on your hands.

It can be quite infuriating going back to your first shots and not being able to tell when or even where the shot was taken. Where, you can normally figure out, but you may loose some important contextual detail if you do not label properly. When is harder, especially with scenes that do not stick in your memory, like landscape shots or macro photography. Events, family celebrations, concerts etc. are easier to place naturally.

Equally important are the technical details. I do not go so far as to record every frames shutter, aperture and focal length setting, you do not learn very much from doing that. What I do though is label the roll with the film speed (negatives do not show the film speed) and what lens(es) I used. It is not meant to be perfectly accurate, but rather as a general record which will help you monitor your progress and look back on what works and what does not (e.g. ISO 200 is not good for night photography which I know from a label on some negatives of night scenes which came out poorly.)

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