Welcome to the first episode of JEBVision on Digital photography, I am your host Jacob Boenisch. Every Month we will be exploring some of the basic facits of digital photography to help arm the inspired amatuer with the tools and knowledge necessary to explore their passion of photography and in the end, create a beautiful image. This week we will be be going over the ground rules of digital photography by exploring these basic yet important topics:
1. The Camera
2. Computer Programs
3. Sharing your photos.
Now lets get started....
First let me preface something about this podcast.
One, I'm not a professional, I don't/ I dont have any predilections of being a professional and at this point photography is a passion. However, I am a trained and experienced member of the curious crowd and have dove head first into photography. There are a multitude of websites, books, and podcast that can help you understand digital photography I don't portend to be a better or more knowledgeable source of information than those who have discussed these topics before me. I just hope to provide a podcast that people will be interested in, want to follow, and also share with there friends. I hope to share with you what I have learned about digital photography and pass it on. From time to time I will site various sources from which I received my info and I will blog these resources so you can enjoy them at my Flickr Blog, just type in JebVision into the Flickr search bar...but more on computer programs later....
First the camera....
Ok.....
First off there are a lot of cameras on the market today.
I primarily use a Nikon D90....Now in the world of digital photography there is a lot of hubub generated around what kind of camera you shoot.....the major brands play part in this chest thumping match like sony, olympus, panasonic, etc..... but primarily it focuses down to two brands, nikon or canon.....just by mentioning that i shoot nikon, some folks are probably going to turn this podcast off....but in reality, I don't care what you shoot and most importantly the Friends and family with whom you share your photos don't care what you shoot. Those who do care about this topic are your fellow shooters, those Friends who share in your hobby.....if you haven't purchased a camera yet......I encourage you to talk to your Friends and ask them what camera to buy......if you are going to get a SLR or Single Lens Reflex camera like I shoot, I would choose the brand of the Friend who has the most lenses.........that way you can borrow them and not sink so much cash into these expensive pieces of "glass".
So.....
A digital camera is made up of a million different pieces but if I had to pick the two most important parts of a camera I would have to say that they are:
1. The sensor
2. The Lens
Now why is the sensor important........well this is technically the film.....I know some might be confused by this statement and say now Jake, "Isn't the memory card technically the film. That is the new medium for storing photos right......well, no. The sensor within your camera is the film, Here is why:
Back in the day, and I mean a little over a decade ago, the most popular cameras were film cameras. You remember, you would unbox a roll of film
pull it out.
wind the film into the camera,
shut the door
and start shooting.
Well what was happening is that your camera was letting light through its lens into a small opening into the dark box (now hang with me here) and projecting an image onto a light sensitive media which we called film.
nowadays, a camera work in much the same way except that the film has been replaced by a advanced piece of electronics called a sensor which converts the light and converts that information into ones and zeros.
This information then gets placed on to a disk, typically a SD card or a Compact Flash card, although I think sony and fuji have their own forms of memory.
Now in digital photography there are many types of sensors and they are sometimes referred to as CCD processors.
Wikipedia refers to these as:
A CCD or Charge-Coupled Device is an analog electronic device that can be used as the image sensor in place of film in an electronic camera or optical devices like microscopes or telescopes. http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/CCD
I've included the site in the show notes....
But the processor takes in light and processes it based on resolution, file type, ISO sensitivity, white balance, etc...
It's just important to know that larger and more expensive sensors are on your SLR's and this is not always the case of some mid range and pro point and shoots like the Canon G9 or G10, the cheaper point and shoots have smaller sensors. Theoretically, the larger the sensor, the larger the frame of the photo and the more data you get. These are good things accept the trade off is lugging around, well.....a bigger camera. I have both, I use a sony point and shoot and a Fuji point and shoot for my basic shots and my SLR when I get more serious about shooting.
Now, you might be asking yourself, hey jake what about this mega pixel thing. Well, when it comes to mega pixels, its an all out war......it seems they are cramming more and more mega pixels into these cameras all the time. Anything above five mega pixels is good enough for a photo that you will print into an eight and a half by eleven. The more mega pixels you have, two advantages become apparent:
1. you can create a larger print.
2. Inversely you can crop and zoom further into your photo without loosing detail.
Now there are some detractors out there, of which I am a part, that say you can only cram so many pixels onto a sensor before you actually need to increase the size of the sensor. Now imagine mega pixels as little dots that collect information or light, or whatever, you lay these dots over a square sensor. the more you cram in the more light info you get right? you would think so but by actually cramming so many mega pixels on a sensor without enlarging the processor, you are actually allowing less info to collect in each respective dot, making low-light pictures frustrating. imagine it this way.
You place coffee tens (like the Folgers type) that collect rain on a four by for four piece of cardboard, now you switch out the tins for small drinking glasses, you might actually collect more water in the glasses but each glass does not Carry as much water per volume as the bucket, the same can be said as it regards light and mega pixels in a camera. Now what does this really mater? It actually doesn't....just be aware, people are going to talk about this and its good that you read up on this topic. I subscribe to podcasts like This Week in Photography that helps me keep up to date with all the geeked out technology talk some photographers like to discuss. When your looking at a camera, don't worry so much about pixel count, be worried about how you shoot and creating an excellent image. Most cameras are acceptable for taking high quality photos. Heck even 50 dollar plastic cameras like the Holga (see my show notes) http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/CCD can take decent photos as long as the operator knows what he or she is doing.
Ok so were does this lead us, well, we need to talk about how we use our files and how we share our files with others and this leads us to discuss our next topic, computer programs and the basics of post processing software that is out there. Then after that we will discuss the various formats available to you to share your photos......
Ok so lets talk about the computer....
In reality....the computer is the new darkroom for digital photography. This is in reference to the process of projecting your film onto a piece of paper washing it through chemicals and creating your shot in a dark room typically lit by a red light. Now a days we have our computers. and no matter what brand of computer you have, i personally use a mac, the same basic programs are available to you to edit, view and share your photos. I want to save sharing our photos for the last segment of this show because this is where you can get recognition for your hard work...
Now one of the first things you should invest in if your computer doesn't already have it, is a card reader fo your computer. Now you can plug your camera into the computer but it is much better to just take your memory card out of your camera, replace it with a empty spare and just plug it in. Now most computers, unless you have turned this feature off, will automatically recognize your memory card and ask you what to do with it. Now I recommend that you use one of the multitude of programs that are available to transfer your files onto the computer. Resist the urge to just drag and drop the files onto your hard drive. I really don't think that would be many of you.
However, the reason why you want to use a program is because you want to get this thing right from the start, and what i mean by that is you need to organize your photos so that it is easy to find them later. Doing this will help with your "workflow" which we will get into in a future podcast. By using a program like iphoto, picassa, lightroom 2, or the program that came with your camera, you will be able to asign the files a name, a date, and even leave comments on the photo including possibly the location were you shot the photo. So for instance you wanted to look for pictures you took at Disneyland, you might be able to type "disneyland" or California into the search bar and the photos you took there will pop up. Trust me, creating an organizational system is crucial, especially once you get thousands, if not tens of thousands of photos.
So here are three easy steps to organizing your photos:
1. Get familiar with your photo program. For instance iphoto has a facial recognition feature that you can actually train to pick out people you have taken photos of. For instance, it well start recognizing grandma connie's face and when you upload pictures in the future, it will automatically tag that photo with her name.
that brings up the second step:
2. Tag your photos. As in the disneyland and grandma examples, it is extremely important that you tag your photos with location, person, or event (such as wedding) so you can easily find your photos in the future. I personally use picassa and I sort my photos by date taken and then add tags to groups of photos (called batch processing) so I can easily find an event of subject. I have also created folders for works in progress, which is the work i'm currently editing and one for edited work, this is my folder that I sooner or later publish to my blog JEBVision or Flicker.
3. The third and most important step is Back your photos up!!!!
Trust me, I have hundreds of photos that are gone forever because I didn't back them up. On my mac I use time machine, but you can get an external hard drive and save a copy of your photos there as a backup or you can burn them to disk. one of the best ways to keep your photos around virtually forever is to upload them to either a site like flicker, photo bucket, or for the more serious photographer, smug mug. Whats great about backing up your photos online is that you can access them anywhere you have a computer and an Internet connection. That means Grandmas house.
For more tips, check out http://www.basic-digital-photography.com/organizing-photos.htmlIve included links to some sites to help you further in organizing your photos on my show notes.
Now lets talk about editing photos. Photo editing programs range from free to a thousand dollars. One such free basic photo editing program is picassa. It doesn't give you much latitude but it does do some basic things like filter effects, contrast, lighting, and even touch up. I've included a site for free editing software on the show notes. http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pixelbasedwin/tp/freephotoedw.htm
On the other end of the spectrum is Photoshop express which gives you a multitude of options in their famous layer editing format. Now the more money the program costs, typically, the more it can do....however, the more it can do, the more complicated it is to learn and use. Gauge what you are wanting to accomplish with your photos to make a good jugment on what will be good for you. If you want to just correct the exposure, add a border to your photo, and mess around with some cool effects, use picassa. If you want to create a magazine advertisment use photoshop CS4. I use a middle of the road program called Photoshop Elements that gives me the ease of use of Picassa, but I can get more complex if I choose to. (www.adobe.com). A free middle of the road program would be Photoscape (www.photoscape.org) which gives you a bunch of cool tools.
Now I would be remissed if I didn't mention Aperture, apples own editing software. Its only available for the mac, but its calling card is that it provides some powerful editing tools that you get out of the $1000 programs for a fraction of the cost and it also provides an extremely intelligent user interface for which apple is famous for. In the photography war, a whole other bunch of people get fired up over which is better; Photoshop or Aperture, the truth is, it doesn't matter. Want me to prove it? Download either program free.....i'll include the address in the notes.....and see which one you like the best. www.adobe.com http://www.apple.com/aperture/
In fact, try out as many programs as you fell fit until you find one that works for you. The truth is, many professionals use more than one editor and more than one photo site or backup method to get the job done.
Next up, we'll discuss sharing these great photos you took........
Printers.
Buy the printer that fits the format you want to use. for instance a 4x6 printer to a larger format printer. Think about ink and paper cost. whatever you choose, buy the branded paper that goes with the printer. they are designed in the lab specifically for their ink.
<<<>>>
Intro-This is a Monthly Podcast not weekly.
I meant CS4 not Photoshop express which is a flash based editor that is free.
No comments:
Post a Comment