Forgetting Photography Basics

When I started in photography way back in 1973, I bought myself a Zenith EM with a 55mm f2.8 lens. The camera was very mechanical rather than electronic and there was no sign of “auto focus” but at least it had a split focus in the centre of the lens so I could actually see for myself what was in focus.

These days it’s all auto focus and intelligent auto settings so the photos we take are all reasonable and fairly well exposed for what the camera thinks would be correct.

It seems to me then that as we go forward in this all auto world that we’re forgetting the basics of photography.

One of the tips that a photographer friend of mine gave me way back in my early days of tacking photos of people was to face the subject away from the direct sunlight. Now this seems counter-intuitive as the faces of the peopole would then be in some dark shadows which is usually unwanted.
However, if we do this then take a little bit of control of our camera and set the exposure to “over-expose” the image by half or a full stop then the results can be stunningly good with well light faces and a much brighter background with actually helps make your main subject pop out of the photo.

Many of the all auto camera allow you to easily “over expose” your subject on a dial setting so you can easily get the same effect as if the camera is on full manual settings.

If you’re feeling a little adventurous, why not have a go at changing this season camera setting and see what happens.

Pick a subject and take a standard all auto image, then change the setting in some way and take it again. Compare them and try again if it’s not what you thought you’d get. Make sure that you make a note of the setting that you change and you’ll soon start to get th idea of what some basics of photography are all about.