Halogen Bulb JR7.2V10WF Replacement bulb for VL-10Li.Im sure you know that one of the most important key elements to getting beautifully clear and artistic photos is firstly knowing and having a sense of the artistic. Next Ill tell you what you need in order to take these skills so you can refine your digital photography. The secret really is, combining your natural artistic flare with some precise technical knowledgeexplained in laymens terms. No baffling or confusion here, ever. So Im going to start you off with some good, solid tips about shutter speed, aperture, exposure, how blur can work well (not the accidental type!) and what camera you can use to get goods results in your digital photography.
Shutter speed is one of the first things in digital photography that you must know if you want to excel your skills and get beautiful digital photos. Your shutter speed controls the amount of light coming in to the digital sensor. The speed at with you get your light exposure can really make or break your digital photography.
Your shutter speeds are defined or measured as F stops. You will see this written as either f stop or hyphenated as f-stop. Either way it means the same. The shutter speed exposure of your camera is The speed of the rotation of the shutter inside the lens, measured in rotations per second. Okay, thats very nice but what does that mean in your digital photography?
In basic terms to help you understand, shutter speed controls light exposure. It means that whatever F stop you have your digital camera on will control the amount of light coming in to the camera and make your pictures brighter or darker. Shutter speeds can impact the clarity of a moving object for example. You can create shutter speeds that are fast or shutter speed that gives a freeze on the motion of the object such as a moving car.
For example a good freeze motion shot where something looks suspended in time, may be at a shutter speed of 1/2000. That means the shutter has opened and closed so fast that you cant replicate it in sound or description. The shutter has clicked in 2000th of a second. Thats how a lot of sports photography is done. Many subjects that move around and when you want to create this effect with can look really good with a fast shutter speed.
Shutter speeds of babies and kids for example have to be taken pretty fast.unless theyre asleep of course. You need a pretty high shutter speed of babies and kids because in photographic terms they move around so fast! Ive never been more tired after a day of shooting photos of kids and babies. You have to be on your toes because a potentially great photo is gone in an instant of a second, so you have to watch them like a hawk.
On the other hand you can get blurry images using shutter speed effects manipulation. Shutter speeds and blur can work quite nicely together. For example if you want to create that artistic blue look, not the accidental smudge look then some gentle blur in your photos can look beautiful. This involves some adjusting of the shutter speed to get the right look for your shot.
Take for example two different situations. One is of children playing or running. If you wanted to suspend the motion then you would perhaps set the shutter speed to an f stop of 1/500 or 1/1000 for example. (What you set the shutter speed at depends on how much light you have to work with.)
The next example is of creating the nice artistic blur. You may take the same photo of the kids running, but set the shutter speed exposure to something around the 1/250 for example. This range of f stops may create a really nice, soft blur with these shutter speed effects.
Shutter speed and aperture in your digital photography must work together closely to create the right blend of effect in your photo. So just try it. Play around with moving objects on different shutter speeds and youll see what I mean about the different types of effects you can get.
So what digital cameras can you do this with?
Slrs. Its a little hard to do this with an ordinary point-and shoot- digital camera because you cant control the shutter speed independently. On a prosumer camera its better because you can change the exposure value, but still, you cant change the shutter speed alone. However if you do have one changing the exposure value or e/v as we call it is better than nothing. You can still experiment pretty well if you have one of these digital cameras. However a single lens reflex digital camera is the ideal. It allows you to control the shutter speed alone, independently, without affecting the adjustment of the aperture.
To summarise, you can get beautifully artistic shots by having a sense of what works intuitively, then couple that with a good sense of photographic technical knowledge and you are well on your way! So start with playing around with the shutter speeds first and then move on to aperture, then try both. Youll see some pretty interesting stuff I can assure you.
Happy shooting!
Amy Renfrey
Amy Renfrey is the author of two major successful ebooks Digital Photography Success and Advanced Digital Photography. She is a photographer and also teaches digital photography. Her educational ebooks takes the most complex photography terms and turns them into easy to understand language so that anyone, at any level of photography, can easily move to a semi-professional level of skill in just a very short time. Shes photographed many things from famous musicians (Drummers for Prince and Anastasia) to weddings and portraits of babies. Amy also teaches photography online to her students which can be found at http://www.DigitalPhotographySuccess.com
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