Photography anyone?

There have been request(s) for me to put up rantings on photography on this blog.


To do that I will have to recollect my not-so-deep knowledge on photography even though I've started owning and using SLR cameras since 1983.


Cameras comes in many forms each with its features and functions. There are many school of thoughts on the basics as well as dynamics of using cameras. 


Cameras, be it a film-based or digital will rely on light to 'capture photographs'. The amount of light is that is allowed to be transmitted to the film or sensors are controlled by several components. This amount of light that goes into the film/sensor is called the exposure.


The components are:

1. Aperture
2. Shutter Speed
3. ISO

The Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO forms what photographers call an Aperture Triangle.

To make things easier to understand, imaging a typical kampung window for a room. Aperture is the size of the window. If it is bigger, it allows more light to enter the room.  The aperture is an adjustable opening in the lens of a camera. Similar to the pupil of our eye, the aperture adjusts to allow more or less light to enter the lens and reach the sensor. The size of the aperture is controlled via an adjustable diaphragm that opens or closes to allow more or less light to enter. On a standard camera lens, the opening is measured in units called 'stops'.

Shutter speed is the amount of time the wooden shutter of a window is opened, the longer it is opened, the more light comes into the room.  Shutter  speed refers to the amount of time the shutter remains open and allows light to enter and pass through the lens and strike the sensor. Shutter speed is measured in seconds and usually fractions of a second.  

ISO is the measured amount of sensitivity to light. It's like wearing rayban/sunglasses in the room. The darker the sunglass the less sensitive is the eyes to the light that comes into the room when the window and shutter is opened. One thing to remember, the higher the ISO, the grainier the photograph gets. This is due to the 'background noise'

The basic rule in the Aperture Triangle to remember is that all three factors control your exposure: a change in any one variable both of the other two must be changed as well.


I'll continue further in my next ranting when I got some time




.rr