Summary of the basics

This is a photo of the Grand Canyon right after a snowstorm back in 2011.  Taken from the airplane window (obviously) using a mobile phone.  It's not relevant to our discussions at this point; I just ran across it and thought I would throw it in.  Because I like it.

I wanted to take a quick break to just summarize the important things in the previous posts before we start looking more at photo composition.  So, here is my summary:

Camera - Don't go crazy buying expensive gear until you learn how to use it.  And even then, you don't need to go crazy unless you plan to make a lot of money.  Actually, you may not need to do it then either.  I was discussing gear with a really good, professional wedding photographer, comparing his Nikon D5 to my D800, etc., and eventually we both sort of rolled our eyes at each other because we were nerding out.  He looked at me and said, "You know, the people who buy the photos can't tell the difference. They can't see what we see."  He is right.  Do your best and have fun.

If you can, do the following:

• get a camera body that allows you to change lenses
• also allows you to use manual settings for ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed
• shoots in raw format if possible, but that's not completely necessary 

A kit zoom lens is generally ok for most things and you probably have it anyway.  Later you can do something better if you like, but the kit zoom is sufficient.

Post Processing Program - All you really need here is a basic program.  Photoshop Elements costs $99 and will do everything you need.  Lightroom is used by a lot of professionals, and it's pretty handy, but it's also more expensive.  You can get a subscription to Photoshop and Lightroom together for $10 per month.  Learning curve on Photoshop is pretty steep but Lightroom is easier.  You will use this program to:

• Crop photos
• Straighten photos
• Adjust color balance
• Adjust exposure levels (or brightness)
• Adjust color saturation 

Of course, the programs I mentioned above will do a lot more than the basics, but we'll slide into the more advanced areas later.

That's it.  You can spend more money, but there's really no need to.  Unless you are planning to shoot high-quality landscapes or do fashion photography, this is really all you need.

Talking cameras

This is what I call my "walking around camera".  It's an Olympus PEN E-P3.  It has a 12 MP micro 4/3 sensor and several automatic settings as well as some built-in 'artistic' processing functions.  It has interchangeable lenses, with the one shown being a 17 mm f/2.8, which works out to a 35 mm focal length on the m4/3 system due to the crop factor.  Don't worry about what that means right now, but the 17mm to 34mm conversion is important.

Important features of this camera include:

• It's small and lightweight.  It will almost fit in your pocket.
• It has interchangeable lenses
• It has a pop-up flash
• It has ability to control shutter speed and aperture
• ISO range is 200-12,800
• You can get a 14-42 zoom lens (that's 28 - 85 essentially) pretty inexpensively
• can shoot raw images in addition to jpg output

There are a lot of cameras in this range, and this one is pretty dated (I bought it in 2011 I think).  In fact, there are improved models of the PEN camera that are probably cheaper and more capable.  But I am not going to buy any of them because this one does everything I need without being very obtrusive.  

If you want to see how well a camera like this works, check out this album on my Flickr site.

You don't need this specific camera, of course.  It's just an example.  But if you want to really be able to exert some control over your photography from the camera side, you need:

Ability to control the shutter and aperture yourself, either fully manually or at aperture priority or shutter priority.  Here's why:  if you set the camera on the P (program) mode, which will actually give you good results in many situations.  But the camera will decide an appropriate combination of ISO, shutter and aperture settings for a generic pleasing result.  That won't allow you to capture quick movement, such as people walking by or sports, etc. - for that you need fast shutter speeds.  It won't allow you to blur the background - for that you need a large aperture.  

My recommended settings for most photos:  Aperture priority, auto ISO.  In this setting you choose the aperture, which controls the depth of field (blurriness of the background) and the camera provides a reasonable combination of shutter speed and ISO to give you the least noise in the shot.  If it starts to get dark, then go to manual and make your own decisions.  A news editor once told me to not worry about noise, because post processing programs can minimize that.  Just make sure you get enough light on the exposure.  In most cases this is a good rule of thumb.

Ability to change the lens focal length, either through zoom or changing lenses.  As in film, you get better resolution if you don't crop too much.  So thinking ahead, you should use a lens that fills your frame mostly with the shot you want to get.  I always go a little wider so I can crop to straighten the frame or whatever.  The most convenient way to do this is through a zoom lens.  But, zooms are slightly lower in quality to a fixed lens most of the time, and they sacrifice aperture to get the zoom action.  Kit lenses (lenses that come with a camera) are almost always a medium wide to medium telephoto zoom, because it's the most versatile.  They will work most of the time.  Kit zooms usually add a couple of hundred dollars to the price of the camera, and often come in a bundle.  On the other hand, a really good say, 28-80 f/2.8 zoom will cost more than the camera body, in all likelihood.  

If you don't use a zoom, you will need a wide angle lens (24, 28, 35 mm equivalent), a 'normal' lens (about 50mm), and an intermediate telephoto (135mm to maybe 200mm equivalent, unless you want to do nature photography like birds, where you need something really long like a 400mm or 600mm).  The good news is, these lenses are individually much cheaper than 'good' zooms and work better as well.  The bad news is, you need multiple lenses, so the cost factor may offset.

My lens recommendation: Start with the kit zoom and as you gain experience either move up to a better zoom or start collecting fixed lenses that suit your subjects.

I am really a Nikon guy, so for advanced amateurs I recommend something on the order of a D7500 or something in that range.  There are also some good cameras in the D3500 range.  In fact, if you look on Amazon, for example here, you can get a complete D3500 kit with everything you need for about $400.  

It's a good place to start. 

Next time we will talk about how to set up the camera to take different types of photos.