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DSLR

Digital Single Lens Reflex

Sensor

Sensor Sizes

Lenses

The best part of owning a DSLR is interchangeable Lenses

Types of lenses

• 8mm - 24mm : Ultra wide angle (fisheye)
• 24mm - 35mm : Wide angle
• 35mm - 85mm : Standard
• 35mm - 85mm : Standard
• 85mm - 135mm : Short telephoto
• 135mm - 300mm : Medium telephoto
• 300mm+ : Super telephoto

Is 18-55mm really 18-55 on my camera?

It depends on your sensor size

If your shooting with a Crop-Sensor you have to multiply the crop factor of your sensor to your focal length

18-55 becomes 28-88mm lens

50mm becomes a 80mm lens

Camera focusing system

Before we go into how to control how much of the image should be in focus?

Focus Points

Focus Points

Half Click to Focus

Full Click to Shoot

On half click the focus and all the other settings in the camera gets locked for the picture.

Now to Pan the shot to Frame your picture.

Auto Focus Area Modes

Lets you choose which Auto-focus Points to use for focusing

Select Single Point Auto-Focus

Now only that one Focus Point will work.

You can even change those points around

Focus Type

Canon : AI-Servo, AI-Focus, One-Shot

Nikon : AF-F, AF-C, AF-A

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed, also known as “exposure time”, stands for the length of time a camera shutter is open to expose light into the camera sensor.

The shutter is usually denoted as 1/20, 1/400, 1"5, 1"

1/400 represents 1/400th of a second

1" represents a second

1"5 represents a second and 1/5th of a second

If the shutter speed is fast, it can help to freeze action completely, as seen in the below photo of the Birds Flying. 1/500, f9.0, ISO 400, 50mm

If the shutter speed is slow, it can create an effect called motion blur, where moving objects appear blurred along the direction of the motion.

The Faster your shutter speed the lesser the light that your going to get on your sensor.

If the place is not well lit you might only get a dark image.

Aperture

The F-stops and The Bokeh Time

Simply put, aperture is a hole within a lens, through which light travels into the camera body.

In photography, aperture is expressed in f-numbers (for example f/5.6). These f-numbers that are known as f-stops are a way of describing the size of the aperture, or how open or closed the aperture is.

A smaller f-stop means a larger aperture, while a larger f-stop means a smaller aperture. Most people find this awkward, since we are used to having larger numbers represent larger values, but not in this case. For example, f/1.4 is larger than f/2.0 and much larger than f/8.0.

So the faster your aperture. The more light comes in to the sensor. F1.4

Slower your aperture. The less light comes in to the sensor. F16

Depth of Field

One important thing to remember here, the size of the aperture has a direct impact on the depth of field

which is the area of the image that appears sharp.

A large f-number such as f/32, (which means a smaller aperture) will bring all foreground and background objects in focus,

while a small f-number such as f/1.4 will isolate the foreground from the background by making the foreground objects sharp and the background blurry.

ISO

In very basic terms, ISO is the level of sensitivity of your camera to available light.

The lower the ISO number, the less sensitive it is to the light,
while a higher ISO number increases the sensitivity of your camera.

The difference is clear - the image on the right hand side at ISO 3200 has a lot more noise in it, than the one on the left at ISO 200.

The Exposure triangle

Cross Section of a DSLR

Cross Section of a DSLR While Shooting

Rule of thirds

The Rule of Thirds one of the first things that budding digital photographers learn about in classes on photography and rightly so as it is the basis for well balanced and interesting shots.

I will say right up front however that rules are meant to be broken and ignoring this one doesn't mean your images are necessarily unbalanced or uninteresting. However a wise person once told me that if you intend to break a rule you should always learn it first to make sure your breaking of it is all the more effective!

The basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine breaking an image down into thirds (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have 9 parts.

With this grid in mind the 'rule of thirds' now identifies four important parts of the image that you should consider placing points of interest in as you frame your image.

Not only this - but it also gives you four 'lines' that are also useful positions for elements in your photo.

The theory is that if you place points of interest in the intersections or along the lines that your photo becomes more balanced and will enable a viewer of the image to interact with it more naturally.

Studies have shown that when viewing images that people's eyes usually go to one of the intersection points most naturally rather than the center of the shot - using the rule of thirds works with this natural way of viewing an image rather than working against it.