Photography Field Of View
how is photography taught now?
is it all about the images and framing, in this digital camera world.
are students still taught about aperature, field of view and so on?
and forget the darkroom I know those are becoming extinct
This is how I taught a friend & my nephew when they got a dSLR.
The first day, we did not even look at their cameras. I brought my trusty Nikon FM2, which is an all-manual, all-mechanical (except built-in light meter), with me. We discussed various parts of the camera–and it’s pretty simple. Light goes in through the lens, bounces off the mirror, goes up to the prism and through the viewfinder. When a shot is taken, the mirror bounces up, and lets the light go through the focal shutter plane that sits in front of the film strip.
Then we discussed exposure–this involved aperture & shutter speed. Furthermore, we discussed program shift, where 1/125 at f 2 is equal to 1/250 at f 2.8. Then we discussed depth of field related to the aperture – and I showed them that the DOF preview button closes down the aperture (and at first, they didn’t understand it, wondering why it got darker–until I stressed that the aperture closes down at the moment of exposure).
Then we moved on to ISO and the relation to aperture & shutter speed. We discussed why ISO needed to be high, (or low).
We discussed manual mode–and why sometimes it needed to be used. I taught them how to override the settings. For example, you’d think you would need a very fast shutter speed to take a sport photo–it can be arty if you use a slow shutter speed and pan the camera with the main subject.
We didn’t use their camera until the next day. I truly wanted them to know the reasons behind all these controls before they picked up their camera–I wanted them to know that they can override the camera’s setting(s) at any time, and the reason for doing so.
Then the next few days, we went out and start taking photos.
They’re very comfortable with their cameras now.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/little_pooky/2265471299/sizes/o/ (I was showing him about the DOF in this photo).
Note that I did not go into the composition & rule of third and all that–I told them to look at good photos and try to emulate them. It’s not difficult once a person knows how to use his camera when it comes to that point.
Programmable Aperture Photography: Multiplexed Light Field Acquisition
Tags: calculator, camera, lens, lenses, Photography