Basics of SLR Photography
Learning about photography can seem somewhat intimidating. People take classes, there are so many different lenses and accessories, the terminology sounds like a foreign language. But once you get the basics down, all the rest will fall into place. All you need to do is understand how to maximize the use of your DSLR to take great pictures.
Canon Japan has put together an awesome tutorial on the basics of DSLR
photography. Don't worry, it's all in English. It visually explains
everything from aperture to shutter speed and more. Check it out:
Canon
Enjoy! DSLR Cameras Site
Here are a few other great resources for beginners:
Photography can seem a bit intimidating once you leave the safety net of the point and shoot camera. But once you unleash the endless number of possibilities with the SLR, you can create some beautiful art. It just takes some experimentation and understanding of a few basics.
Focusing
When you press the button half way down, the lens focuses on
whatever is in the center of the frame. Once you lock this down, it will remain focused at that focal distance and if you
move the subject around in the frame, it will remain focused. If you are in AV mode, the background will be blurry and the
subject clear and focused (this is called bokeh).
Aperture, ISO and Shutter Speed
Depending on your environment and the light conditions, you will need to learn how to adjust your camera to different
situations to get the best results. The three ways to control the "exposure" (amount of light to the sensor) for these
different cases are aperture, ISO and
shutter speed. The exposure is what leaves the imprint of the image you are taking on the sensor and is a function of
light.
Aperture is the size of the hole which light passes through the camera in the sensor. This varies depending on which lens you're using and is indicated by the f number. Although it sounds counter-intuitive, the lower the f/stop number the bigger the hole (or aperture). So if your lens has an f number of 2.8 it has a bigger hole and can let in more light than a lens that is at an f of 5.6. The bigger the aperture, the better the lens performs in low light situations (without a flash). People often refer to how "fast" a lens is by how low the f/stop number is. The larger the aperture, the faster the camera is when there's less light.
ISO is a measure of the sensitivity of the sensor. The sensor is where the image is actually captured when light comes through the lens. It is a similar measure to the speed of film. Like film speed, the lower the number, the less sensitive the sensor is to light. That means that at an ISO of 200, the sensor won't be very good in low light situations. But if you bump it up to an ISO of 800 or 1600, the sensor becomes more and more sensitive to any light that comes through and can better capture the image despite less light. The downside of increasing ISO sensitivity however, is that the picture becomes grainier with the increased ISO.
Shutter Speed is the length of time that light is allowed to pass through to the sensor. Shutter speed is measured in fractions of a second. The longer the shutter speed the longer light hits the sensor. 1 second is a slower shutter speed than 1/60 of a second. When you see images of cars at night where the lights drag through the streets are taken on a tripod without a flash firing and with a slower shutter speed so it can catch the movement of the cars as the move from one point to another, all the while allowing the image to hit the sensor while the cars move.