How I got into photography? A simple question, but before we can get into that you will need a bit of background story.
Flash back to the year 2004. I was six years old in 2004 and that's where my roots began in photography. I remember seeing my mom using a polaroid camera, it was quite large and it was painted with a Taz finish. What I mean by Taz finish is in the cartoon; looney tunes there is a character named Taz, because he was a Tasmanian Devil. If you still don't know what I am talking about, a simple google search will clear that up. Now, back to the story. I was absolutely fascinated by this camera, the whole idea that you can take a picture and instantly print it was absolutely mind blowing. Granted I was 6 and still believed in santa and the easter bunny, however that whole concept is still pretty amazing to me. That's when my whole photography journey began.
Past forward a few years and I started getting cameras here and there, most being disposable cameras and one point and shoot camera by Nikon. I was pretty terrible to say the least. I had zero idea what Exposure, Aperture, ISO or White balance even was. I would just point the camera and shoot and see how it turned out. That is basically how my first couple of years went. That was until 2 years ago.
2 years ago is when I got my first DSLR Camera (Digital Single-Lens Reflex). That is when my photography and my passion for it completely flourished. The camera I received was the Cannon EOS Rebel t5. Starting out all I did was shoot in Auto; it was simple. I was just learning about all these new terms that I mentioned earlier and had no idea how to truly use them to make gorgeous photos. It took me about 6 months before I decided to dabble in the manual mode on my camera, although it was rather hard for awhile shooting in manual it was the best thing I could of done to become a better photographer. Using manual opened up so many new doors for creativity that Auto just couldn't do. The biggest one being better lighting, less blur, and better focus. Allow me to show you an example.
This was a picture I actually got in my backyard. I know it's crazy considering I live in a suburb and this looks like it was taken somewhere near the forest, but it wasn't. This is a prime example of what I mean by focus. Using Auto and allowing the focus to auto focus and snap the picture there is a good chance the cardinal would be blurred and the fence in focus, or the trees are in focus and the main idea of the fence and cardinal would be blurred. This is what I mean when I said the manual setting opened up so many creative doors for me. The settings I used to take this photograph goes as follows. 160mm, ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/320 seconds. There are probably a few of you out there that have no clue what that means, by all means that is fine and expected. I was in the same boat as you two years ago. Allow me to explain what all those terms mean. Starting off with 160mm. What 160mm means is that the lens I used I was zoomed in 160mm. All mm really is, is the distance. Now, ISO. Changing the ISO on your camera you're adjusting your cameras sensitivity to light. Typically you want to keep your camera's ISO on 100. However there will be times when 100 ISO is too dark and you need to bump up your ISO which is what happened in this image with my ISO being 200. However keep in mind raising your ISO pass 200 will start to cause grain in your photos, if you are using a lower end DSLR. By grain I mean a fuzziness look will appear in your photos. In short, ISO is how sensitive your camera is to light. Next up we have f/5.6 in my case. Now what f/5.6 stands for is Aperture. Aperture is how much DOF (depth of field) will be in your picture, if you look behind the cardinal you see the trees are blurred. This is because of the DOF. If my F stop (f/5.6) was lower it be more blurred and you wouldn't see the trees. If the f stop was higher you would see the entire background behind the cardinal. The DOF works by allowing a certain amount of light into the lens making a blurred background or a completely non-blurred background depending on the f stop. Lastly we have (1/320) seconds. This is a really simple concept. (1/320) was just the shutter speed. The shutter speed at higher speeds will freeze the object and create no blurred photos, lowering the shutter speed and holding the camera handheld your hands will cause the camera to shake resulting in a blurry picture. If you desperately need to use slower shutter speeds then by all means use a tripod to get a crisp, clean, beautiful photo and not end up with a blurry mess of a photo.
Lastly, I want to show you a picture that really puts all these elements together, it was taken near night time so a lot of the problematic things I spoke about came into play here.
As you can see here it was a rather dark photo and I tried to do my best by keeping the ISO low. I was able to keep my ISO at 400 without grain becoming a problem, because I didn't mind if the trees were dark. My main focus was the sunset itself. The darkness of the branches made a natural frame so to speak for the sunset.
My story about how I got into photography was rather short and simple, but the process to becoming a good photographer took me months to master and I still consider myself a "amateur" photographer and I still think personally I have a lot to learn. If you are looking to get into photography and are purchasing a DSLR it is a huge learning curve, however don't get discouraged. It is a huge learning curve that will pay off in the end.
I would love to hear your stories about how you got into photography as well, if you wish please comment below and I will surely read them!
