How many settings or features do you really need on your camera?
Camera technologies and features can sometimes distract beginning photographers from what is really important. I was always comforted in knowing that there were really only a few things, that actually affected the appearance of pictures made in my film camera. This is why manual film cameras with only five adjustments or choices (shutter speed, aperture, focal length, focus, and film choice) can make a picture equal in quality to a camera with a multitude of automated features. Automated features automate the setting of these primary camera adjustments (e.g. auto focus and auto exposure modes) but they will only technically improve your pictures to the degree that they increase your chances of getting the shot you want. So given an equally sharp lens and the same film, you can potentially make equivalent pictures with either a fully manual camera like the Nikon FM10 ($320) or a fully automated camera like the Nikon F6 ($2450). Knowing all of this, beginning film photographers on a budget would often buy less expensive manual camera bodies and save their money for more expensive and sharper lenses, which contribute more to the quality of the image recorded by the film.
Unfortunately the evolution to digital capture from film has increased the number of primary controls or choices. So what are they? Let me first list all the choices a film photographer had before moving on to digital. These choices can be considered in four steps that can be remembered using the alphabetically ordered letters CDEF. (I was introduced to the CDE part of the reminder by Freeman Patterson. You can find mention of CDE in his instructional books. It has always been one of the most helpful reminders to me, as I was making pictures. Thank you Freeman!)
Composition
1. Focal length
2. Camera position
3. Point of focus
Depth of field
4. Aperture
Exposure
5. Shutter speed
Film
6. Film type (color balance, colors, contrast level, speed, appearance of grain, etc...)
(Note: the aperture setting also affects exposure, but in most situations you want to give priority to the depth of field you choose for creative reasons by selecting a specific aperture setting. This then leaves you only with a choice of shutter speed to achieve your desired exposure.)
There are two other brief observations that I'd like to make:
Now enter digital capture and my F becomes a D for "Digital capture" instead giving me D-CDE:
Digital capture
1. White balance
2. Saturation & Hue
3. Contrast
4. Sharpening
5. ISO
Composition
6. Focal length
7. Camera position
8. Point of focus
Depth of field
9. Aperture
Exposure
10. Shutter speed
Wow now I'm up to ten items to think about. But remember that even the least expensive of digital cameras like the Nikon D3000 has dozens of feature settings. So if you can bring yourself back to these 10 choices, you'll be more focused on what you are choosing, either directly or indirectly through automated features. Secondly the first five that you choose for Digital capture often remain the same for many pictures in a given situation. This means that you often only need to consider the last five items as you make each picture, since you've pre-chosen the first five before you began making pictures (similar to how you chose your film before shooting). (Hence the beauty of Freeman's CDE reminder for beginners as they proceed in making pictures).
So there you have it. Only ten core decisions for a photographer when making pictures, and frequently you only need to focus on the last five in CDE. That said #7 is really the big one that differentiates your best pictures from your others. A good starting point is Freeman Patterson's book, "Photographing the World Around You - A Visual Design Workshop."
Unfortunately the evolution to digital capture from film has increased the number of primary controls or choices. So what are they? Let me first list all the choices a film photographer had before moving on to digital. These choices can be considered in four steps that can be remembered using the alphabetically ordered letters CDEF. (I was introduced to the CDE part of the reminder by Freeman Patterson. You can find mention of CDE in his instructional books. It has always been one of the most helpful reminders to me, as I was making pictures. Thank you Freeman!)
Composition
1. Focal length
2. Camera position
3. Point of focus
Depth of field
4. Aperture
Exposure
5. Shutter speed
Film
6. Film type (color balance, colors, contrast level, speed, appearance of grain, etc...)
(Note: the aperture setting also affects exposure, but in most situations you want to give priority to the depth of field you choose for creative reasons by selecting a specific aperture setting. This then leaves you only with a choice of shutter speed to achieve your desired exposure.)
There are two other brief observations that I'd like to make:
- Focal Length: Many photographer's using zoom lenses often ignore or forget how the selected focal length affects the pictures they make. Consider walking closer or further away from your subject as an alternative to zooming in or out, and then choose.
- Camera Position: Sounds simple but this is one of the most important choices that differentiates photographers that produce amazing pictures, from those that don't. Encapsulated here is the chosen point of view, and the visual arrangement of shapes, lines, textures, and use of perspective within the two dimensional picture space.
Now enter digital capture and my F becomes a D for "Digital capture" instead giving me D-CDE:
Digital capture
1. White balance
2. Saturation & Hue
3. Contrast
4. Sharpening
5. ISO
Composition
6. Focal length
7. Camera position
8. Point of focus
Depth of field
9. Aperture
Exposure
10. Shutter speed
Wow now I'm up to ten items to think about. But remember that even the least expensive of digital cameras like the Nikon D3000 has dozens of feature settings. So if you can bring yourself back to these 10 choices, you'll be more focused on what you are choosing, either directly or indirectly through automated features. Secondly the first five that you choose for Digital capture often remain the same for many pictures in a given situation. This means that you often only need to consider the last five items as you make each picture, since you've pre-chosen the first five before you began making pictures (similar to how you chose your film before shooting). (Hence the beauty of Freeman's CDE reminder for beginners as they proceed in making pictures).
So there you have it. Only ten core decisions for a photographer when making pictures, and frequently you only need to focus on the last five in CDE. That said #7 is really the big one that differentiates your best pictures from your others. A good starting point is Freeman Patterson's book, "Photographing the World Around You - A Visual Design Workshop."
