Ever take off a pair of orange-tinted goggles/glasses and get really excited that the world looks blue until you realize that everything looks back to normal again? That’s white balance.
What’s White?
We see things from sensing the light that reflects off of a object’s surface. Something white reflects an close to equal amount of red, green, and blue light (RGB), which are the colors our eyes can sense. (Continued)
I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about lenses, and I told him that I use a 24-70mm. He asks me, “is it 24-70mm on a crop sensor or full frame?”
Let me make it clear; focal length is an optical property of a lens and DOES NOT change depending on the camera, sensor size, etc. However, the FOV does change depending on the sensor size. Let me use a diagram to explain why this happens.
The focal length of your lens determines how much “zoom” you have, in a sense of how large things show. Field of view (FOV) is the angle at which the camera can “see”. The shorter the focal length, the wider the field of view is from that lens. Vise versa, a longer focal length means a narrower field of view, resulting in enlarging objects more.
The #1 reason for new DSLR users to be disappointed with their results is autofocus (AF). Unlike point-and-shoot cameras that focus automatically on faces and focus pretty much everywhere regardless of distance, the AF on DSLRs are complicated and more difficult to use.
DSLRs use something called phase-detect AF to focus the camera, instead contrast-base AF like point and shoots. Using phase-detect AF allows faster focusing and tracking for moving objects, but it has some drawbacks too: it can only focus on certain points in the frame, and it has trouble focusing in low-light conditions.
Played around with your camera in manual mode and learned how to control shutter speed, aperture, and ISO to get a properly exposed photo? Are you pretty comfortable with it? If not, stop going any further and practice more.
So do pros don’t use automatic modes?
Of course they do. In addition to manual, most of them use “Av” (aperture priority) and “Television Tv” (shutter priority) mode. There is no best, since each one is used in different situations for various purposes. Here’s an overview of the three: (Continued)
ISO is one of the components that control exposure, but unlike shutter speed and aperture, it doesn’t actually change the amount of light that hits the image sensor. Instead, it just changes the amount of light the sensor needs to receive to be “exposed”.
ISO refers to the sensitivity of the image sensor. With higher ISOs the image sensor is more sensitive and requires less light to be exposed the same amount, so you can get the same exposure with less physical light. Back in the film days, the each roll of film had a specific ISO so people had to swap film to change ISO. Now, it can be switched easily with a flick of a knob. (Continued)
