There are a couple different classifications for camera lenses, and one way you can classify them is as either prime lenses or zoom lenses. The lens to the left (Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L Lens) is a lovely and expensive example of a zoom lens.

So what exactly is a zoom lens?

Keep reading…

There are a couple different classifications for camera lenses, and one way you can classify them is as either prime lenses or zoom lenses. The lens to the left (Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 Lens) is an example of a prime lens.

So what is a prime lens?

Keep reading…

As soon as you make the step up from a point and shoot camera to a dSLR, you’ll encounter a new phrase: “shooting in raw” or the “camera raw format.” What is it, and why should you care about it…?

When you view an image on your screen, for example a jpeg image, you’re looking at a processed photo. Somewhere along the line, a computer has taken the raw image data from a camera’s sensor and turned that into a jpeg file. The “raw” file is that un-processed image data. Keep reading…

Something seem wrong with this picture? There surely is.

Your camera most likely has a “White Balance” button or setting on it. Chances are, you probably leave it on auto most of the time. If you don’t know what it does, that may be a good thing…

The image to the left is the result of using the wrong White Balance. My student photographers were shooting a football game yesterday, and one of them accidentally changed the White Balance setting to Tungsten. The result is a blue-ish tinge to the picture. Keep reading…

Chimping, or to chimp while you take pictures, means to look at the LCD screen of your digital camera after taking a photo.

Coming from some old school photographers, this tends to carry a negative connotation. They grew up shooting film, and you couldn’t just look at the image immediately. Either you got it right, or you shot a roll and realized it was all wrong. To them, you should be able to judge the exposure properly (perhaps with the built in light meter) and not need the immediate feedback given by the LCD screen. Keep reading…

Previously, I wrote about the meaning of the term “exposure” in camera talk. To briefly recap, a “stop” is a relative term describing how well-lit and well-exposed the image is. Adjusting the camera settings to increase the light by “one stop” will effectively double the amount of light in the picture (either by opening the aperture, raising the ISO, or lowering the shutter speed).

The same terminology applies in post-processing, although at this point you’re no longer changing the camera settings. In photo editing software, including Adobe Lightroom, you will usually find an “Exposure” adjustment or slider. Dragging this will digitally alter the image and brighten or darken it as if you had adjusted the camera settings. Keep reading…

A stop (might also be called an f-stop or an exposure stop) is a basic but important term in photography. You might hear someone say that a picture is “Underexposed by 1 stop” or “The picture is overexposed, turn the exposure down one stop.” The term “stop” is a relative term defining the amount of light in a picture.

If you increase the exposure by one stop, you double the amount of light in the picture. If you decrease the exposure by one stop, you halve the amount of light in the picture.

If someone says, “The picture is underexposed by 1 stop,” they’re making a comparison between the picture they see and what they think the proper exposure should be. If you double the amount of light in the image, it should look better. Keep reading…

A battery grip is a camera accessory with two purposes – to add battery capacity to your camera and to allow you to more easily turn the camera to portrait orientation and take a vertical picture. The image to the left is one example: the official Canon grip for a Canon T1i.

One reason to have a a battery grip is that it increases the battery life of your camera. For example, the battery grip for my Canon T1i allows me to have two batteries in the camera instead of one. Effectively doubles the battery life of the camera, reducing the need to pull out batteries and change them in the middle of an event. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had to stop and change the batteries in the middle of an event/shoot now that I have the battery grip. Keep reading…

On most cameras, you’ve got a handful of automatic of semi-automatic modes. One of those is usually Shutter Priority Mode. It’s usually identified with the Tv label on the settings dial. It might also be labeled simply with a “T” or an “S”.

In shutter priority mode, you select a shutter speed. The camera then automatically chooses an aperture value that gives you the proper exposure. This might be a good option if you want to control the amount of motion blur in the picture – choose a slow shutter (i.e. 1/30th of a second) and you can force the camera to capture a little blur. Choose a quick shutter (i.e. 1/250th of a second), and you’ll eliminate most of that blur. Keep reading…

An important concept to understand in lighting is the ambient light or ambient exposure.

The ambient light level is the amount of light that’s normally present in a setting. If you’re inside, the ambient light is probably provided by lamps or sunlight coming in through the window. If you’re outside in the daytime, the ambient light is probably the sun.

When you “expose for the ambient,” you’re taking a picture with the available level of light. You pick the right mix of camera settings – shutter speed, aperture, and ISO – that makes a reasonably well lit photo based on the light that is currently available to you.

This is particularly important to understand when you start working with external lights and flashes. Then, you’ve got the option of working with the ambient – i.e. exposing for the ambient and then adding some lights to fill in shadows – or overpowering the ambient – picking camera settings that underexpose the ambient and then light the whole scene with speedlights.