Digital Cameras — A Caveman’s Guide
By: Abhra Biswas
Tags: Digital Camera, Photography, Beginners Guide, Cameras, Tutorial

It was a lot of fun to go from having no clue how photographers produced images like this, to learning the process from content creators, to producing one myself.

This article will explain the very, very, very basics of using a digital camera, in the simplest terms possible.

There are 4 sections:

The Digital Camera The Settings Basic Accessories Lighting

The Digital Camera

The Camera

The thing that takes the photo. The digital ones do not use film. Photos are stored on a memory card.

The Canon Rebel line is a popular series of beginner digital cameras

Types of Digital Cameras

Digital cameras can be “Digital Single Lens Reflex” (DSLR) or Mirrorless. Each type has their pros and cons. A mirrorless may be easier for beginners as you can see on the screen what happens when you tinker with settings, which we’ll talk about later.

Camera Sensors

Camera have sensors in them. The sensor’s job is to convert light that enters it, into the images we see once we click the shutter button.

Sensors come in different sizes. We will come back to this later.

Brands

Some of the big brands are Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax, Panasonic, and Fujifilm.

“What camera should buy?”

It doesn’t really matter. A bad photographer with an incredible camera will produce bad work. A skilled photographer with an inferior camera can produce excellent work. See this in action here:

My photograph could have been produced by a camera that costs 1/5th of my camera. Mine just has some bells and whistles.

The Settings

Shutter Speed

Shutter Speed determines how much time the sensor is exposed to the light coming into the camera.

It is measured in increments of seconds. Such as 1/1000 second, or 2 seconds.

A faster shutter speed will expose the sensor to less light. So the image produced will be darker. But it can “freeze” motion.

from erdinç ersoy

A slower shutter speed will expose the sensor to more light. So the image produced will be lighter. But it can also “blur” motion.

from Brayden Law

Aperture

Aperture determines an image’s depth of field. Let’s first talk about depth of field.

Depth of field can be shallow, or quite deep.

This is shallow depth of field:

from ionixpadayao

You can see the background is blurry. The truck is in focus. The “focal plane” is narrow.

This is a deeper depth of field:

from Mihis Alex

Almost everything is in focus.

Aperture is measured in these funny looking units: f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22 and f/32.

The lower the number on right side of the slash, the narrower the depth of field. The higher the number, the deeper the depth of field.

Where shutter speed adjusts how quickly the shutter is operating inside the camera, the aperture is adjusting how wide or closed the aperture blades inside the lens are.

It is kind of like squinting and opening your eyes. Where an aperture like f/1.4 would be wide open, and f/32 would quite narrow.

When a lens is capable of apertures like f1/2 and f1/4, that lens is called “fast”.

ISO

ISO is the camera’s sensitivity to light. It’s measured in units like ISO 100, ISO 200, ISO 400, ISO 800, ISO 1600, ISO 3200, ISO 6400.

Different cameras have different ISO ranges.

A low ISO means the camera is not sensitive to light. You will need adequate light for the camera to pick up on what is in front of it.

A high ISO means the camera is sensitive to light. You will need less light for the camera to pick up on what is in front of it. Setting a higher ISO helps at night when there is less light but you still want to shoot a photo. But there is a tradeoff. When ISO is high, you are more likely to have photos with noise.

An exaggerated example from Digital Photography Live

Maybe you want noise, maybe you don’t. Maybe you need to boost ISO to compensate for low light outdoors and can live with grain. It is completely up to you.

Basic Accessories

Tripod

Holds your camera. Allows for slower shutter speed (so, longer exposures) because you don’t need to worry about your hands shaking your camera.

Batteries

Powers your camera

Camera bag

Holds your camera and lens(es)

Lighting

Flash unit

This can be a speedlite, which is one of those small lights that go on top of your camera.

Yongnuo YN560-II

Or a big one with a bulb in it.

Godox AD600 Pro

The bigger ones need to be mounted on a stand of some sort.

Light Stand

This is a stand you put your light on. You can put other things on it too.

Impact Heavy-Duty Light Stand

C Stand

C Stands are really flexible, versatile, heavy duty stands that mount whatever you want to mount.

They have infinite uses, which how their arms work.