This introduction photography article is basic but will cover all the important aspects that are important to know. As photography is so vast field that cannot be written in an article but still, you will get the necessary information here.
Table of Content
What is photography
History of Photography
2.1 Nicephore Niepce
2.2 Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre
2.3 William Henry Fox Talbot
2.4 Frederick Scott Archer
2.5 George Eastman of Rochester
2.6 Era of the 1900s
3) Photography background
4) Photography for beginners
5) Camera settings in photography
5.1 Aperture
5.2 Shutter speed
5.3 ISO
5.4 White balance
5.5 Focus setting
5.4.1 Focus Area Modes
5.4.2 Single point autofocus mode
5.4.3 Dynamic or AF Point Expansion
5.4.4 3d auto-focus
6) Photography FAQ
What is photography?
We are living in an era where taking pictures or photographs is very common because we all have cameras on our phones. But, we all are not good photographers. The answer to the question “what’s photography” is not as simple as it seems. It is different for every person. But if we go in the wordy meaning of “photography, we see that it is comprised of two words, “photo” and “graph”. So firstly, we will see what is photo? So in simple words we say that “photo” means “light” and “graph” means “to write or draw”. So photography is simply a drawing that is made up of light. Or if we say photography is all about what then it is a technique for recording the picture of an article through the activity of light, or related radiation, on a light-touchy material. But we see different concepts and definitions of photography in different photographer articles. If we see the complete introduction of photography we will come to know that photography is considered both on science and arts. It is a part of science because it follows certain laws and principles and reflection while it captures beauty so is a part of the art. Whenever we go somewhere, we click photographs of beautiful sceneries, creatures, roadside scenes, and much more to keep some memories of our trip. In the same way, photographers also capture photographs according to their interests. Where there comes about “introduction to photography”, we must also talk about photographer introduction. They are the people who struggled at different times and did so many experiments and made this art so common for us. In this article, we will also discuss the achievements of different photographers in past. The things we have discussed here just intro to photography. The topic is very vast and includes a lot of interests and information. In this photography article, we will try to cover all the basic information about photography.
If we see the photography overview, we will come to know that camera is the main device used for photography. Different people are inspired by different things and they capture them on their camera to make memories. Now, it is much about photography intro, now we will discuss further features about photography.
History of Photography
The history of photography is very old that starts back in France in the 1830s. Before photography was created, people had figured out the basic principles of lenses and the camera. They could project the image on the wall or piece of paper, however, no printing was possible at the time, recording light turned out to be a lot harder than projecting it. The instrument that people used for processing pictures was called the Camera Obscura (which is Latin for the darkroom) and it was around for a few centuries before photography came along. It is believed that Camera Obscura was invented around the 13-14th centuries, however, there is a manuscript by an Arabian scholar Hassan ibn Hassan dated the 10th century that describes the principles on which camera obscura works and on which analog photography is based today.
Nicephore Niepce
Years of work: from 1822 onward, he used to take the photographs on zinc, lithographic stones, and glass.
From 1826 he started using the heliographic technique on pewter plates.
He made his first photograph image in 1826.
Place: France. The first photograph was a view taken from the window at Le Gras.
Experiment: Nicéphore Niépce, a beginner innovator was keen on lithography. Lithography was the art of making drawings by painting them by hand on a lithographic stone ad then imprinted in ink. They just extended light onto a different surface, one which the artist used to paint the picture by hand, however not the real photos. He used the concept, but without hand painting, he made a strategy to make the image by using light. He coated a plate with asphalt and expose the object to the light. The shadow of the object made on the plate was fixed by washing it with lavender oil. Following a couple of hours, the arrangement under the light spaces of the impression solidified, while that under the dull regions stayed delicate and could be washed away, leaving a permanent, exact duplicate of the print. In this way, he used to take the photograph image of the object. He called the method heliography or sun drawing.
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre
Years of work: In 1839 he took his first commercial photograph or daguerreotype.
Place: France
Experiment: The photograph was made through a cycle that elaborates covering a copper plate with silver iodide, which was along these lines fixed into the camera and uncovered. Afterward, to make the picture show up, the plate was then presented to mercury fume, and made lasting by washing it with salt-water.
In 1839 Niépce’s child and Daguerre offered full rights to the daguerreotype and the heliograph to the French government, as a trade-off for annuities forever. On August 19 full working subtleties were distributed. Daguerre composed a booklet portraying the cycle, A Historical and Descriptive Account of the Various Processes of the Daguerreotype and the Diorama, which without a moment’s delay turned into a blockbuster; 29 versions and interpretations showed up before the finish of 1839.
William Henry Fox Talbot
Years of work: 1830-1840
Place: England
Method of work: Calotype
Experiment: Simultaneously, when photographic work was carried out in France, in England, William Henry Fox Talbot attempted to make another photographic method. His paper-based photographic procedure, called the calotype, included covering a piece of paper with silver chloride and presenting it to light in a camera, which created a negative picture. During this period, moderate openness times and cumbersome gear implied that most photographic pictures were representations and landscapes. Photographic artists all around the world adhered to Daguerre’s guidelines and started making their daguerreotypes. In the United States, for instance, daguerreotype pictures were more mainstream than elsewhere on the planet. In the interim, researchers, just like, Anna Atkins utilized Talbot’s cycle to archive the regular world.
Frederick Scott Archer
Time of work: 1851
Place: England
Method: wet collodion process
Experiment: Both of the previous techniques were largely replaced by a new technique called the wet collodion process, which was invented by Frederick Scott Archer of England. Instead of glass or paper, Archer’s process used a glass plate. The plate was coated with a sticky solution called “collodion” (cellulose nitrate) and iodine. After being set in a silver nitrate solution to make silver iodide, the plate is “wet” with the photosensitive solution and carefully positioned in the camera and uncovered. Battles of this period were captured with the wet collodion strategy: During the mid-1850s, Englishman Roger Fenton reported the Crimean War. During the American Civil War, picture takers—drove by Alexander Gardner and Mathew Brady—laid the preparation for contemporary photojournalism.
George Eastman of Rochester
Years of work: 1889
Place: New York
Work: photography with Kodak cameras
Experiment: George Eastman of Rochester in 1889 evolved photography with his camera pack proposed for mass crowds. Until Eastman’s “Kodak” cameras, photography had required unambiguous abilities and offices and costly hardware. Eastman acquainted simply with use cameras in 1889 and later spearheaded roll film. Interestingly, regular individuals could make photos “photographs”— of their lives. Indeed, Eastman’s imaginative promoting roused clients to do as such.
Era of the 1900s
In 1936, another camera, quick and lightweight—called the Leica—made it conceivable to record life progressively. Although, the photographers had been attempting moving photography since 1880s. Equal advancements in printing advances upheld an expanding magazine industry, and soon, all through the world, individuals found out about contemporary occasions through photos. All through the principal half of the 20th century, photography extended its quality being used across an assortment of fields and in regular day-to-day existence through magazines, papers, and other printed media. At home, the creation of photos became inseparable from homegrown and familial life. During the 1960s, colored photography underlined the unforgiving real factors of the Vietnam War, and it extended our view of the universe through shading photos of the earth. Shading film ruled as a famous configuration until the last part of the 1990s when computerized photography came into inescapable use.
Photography background
The pioneer of the camera was the camera obscura, a dull chamber or room with an opening (later a focal point) in one divider, through which pictures of articles outside the room were projected on the contrary divider. The guideline was likely known to the Chinese and antiquated Greeks, for example, Aristotle over 2,000 years prior. Late in the sixteenth century, the Italian researcher and author Giambattista Della Porta showed and depicted exhaustively the utilization of a camera obscura with a focal point. While craftsmen in the ensuing hundreds of years ordinarily utilized minor departure from the camera obscura to make pictures they could follow, the outcomes from these gadgets relied upon the craftsman’s drawing abilities, thus researchers kept on looking for a technique to duplicate pictures totally precisely. In 1727 the German educator of life systems Johann Heinrich Schulze demonstrated that the obscuring of silver salts, a wonder known since the sixteenth century and perhaps prior, was brought about by light and not heat. He showed the reality by utilizing daylight to record words on the salts, yet he made no endeavor to protect the pictures for all time. His disclosure, in mix with the camera obscura, gave the essential innovation important to photography. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century, in any case, that photography really appeared.
Photography for beginners
Professional cameras are complicated and technical to use. So, if you are a beginner, you have to learn much about the camera and its functions. For this, you can read about usage and features o camera, read photography articles, and learn about the proper settings of your camera. As this article is what photography is all about, we will try to cover its every point that is necessary for you. For becoming a professional photographer, you have to learn about photography introduction, what is photography all about, and much more.
First of all, you need to know about the basics of camera. For starting the photography, you will not need an expensive camera. You can start with your smartphone to correct your angles, color brightness, and sharpness, etc. but after some time, you have to upgrade you to a camera. Know about its setting, color balance, zoom, focus, grid mode, flash, histogram, ISO, and everything. For becoming a professional photographer you have to complete your equipment’s kit that include lenses, covers, tripod stand, external light, rechargeable batteries, memory cards, cleaning supplies, external hard drive, and bag. Read properly your manual of the camera and research about every part and thing. Photography needs time and your hands should have the grip on the skill. Make your mind that what kind of photography you want to do and just practice on that.
Camera settings in photography
Buying a good camera doesn’t assure to take the perfect professional pictures. The camera is a complicated thing with a lot of setting that you have to learn to take the photographs. Bad pictures may be due to your non-professional style but sometimes, it is the setting that makes your photos bad. So learn the simple camera setting for starting your photography hobby.
The easiest mode on the camera setting is its “auto mode”. When the camera is in this mode, it will adjust the picture quality and the basic things. But if you want to be a professional photographer, you have to come out of your comfort zone and learn more about the settings. Here are 3 basic things that you have to learn about, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.
Aperture
This controls the entering of light into the lens. A narrow aperture allows less light while a wider aperture allows more light to pass the lens. It is an important setting of the camera because it affects image sharpness, depth of the field, and exposure of the image. It is shown in the camera by “f” and has different ranges. F2 will be a wider aperture and f10 will be narrow, so adjust it accordingly.
Shutter speed
The shutter allows the light to come in so this determines the open and close time of the shutter while taking the picture. Short the shutter speed, less light will enter so results in dark exposure and reduces the motion blur. The larger shutter speed will result in a brighter image. On camera, the shutter speed is shown in a fraction of seconds.
ISO
It determines the light sensitivity of your camera. It helps in balancing the aperture and shutter speed. If you want to take a sharp photo with the narrow aperture, you will have to increase the ISO. A low ISO will maintain the picture quality but the camera will be less sensitive to light. So keep ISO low while shooting in the daytime and high in nighttime shooting.
White balance settings
As we know that the visible spectra of the light contain 7 colors and our eyes can adjust them easily. But cameras cannot adjust them so ruin the colors of the photograph. To adjust the light, you have to set the white balance of the camera. You can choose the setting to auto-white balance for normal pictures. But if you are keen to learn, you have to learn it in detail. Setting this mode manually is very easy because they are named after the weather for example you have to choose cloudy for cloudy weather and fluorescent for a bright sunny day. The goal with white balance is to keep white objects a true white in the photograph.
Changing the white balance settings differs based on camera models. You can also set white balance manually using temperature settings. If you’re shooting RAW, white balance is not a huge concern for you. A more advanced solution is to take a photo of a white object or color card.
Focus setting
Focus Area Modes
Focus area modes determine the focusing point of an image. Many cameras have these autofocus modes. Auto-area AF is the default autofocus setting.
Single point autofocus mode
It focuses on using one small point. In this setting, you can tell the focus point to the camera by using arrow keys or a joystick.
Dynamic or AF Point Expansion
This allows a user to select a single point. For moving objects, it chooses the surrounding focus points so good for capturing moving objects.
3D autofocus
It gives the choice to select the subject. This mode fails if the subject moves out from the frame or if no contrast is found between the background and the subject.
Photography FAQ
What are the four types of photography? Photography has not 4, but many types including architectural photography, fashion photography, wedding photography, wildlife photography, aerial photography, action photography, portrait photograph, conceptual photography, HDR photography, forced perspective photography, macro and micro-photography, hi-speed photography, abstract photography, landscape photography, and much more.
What are the three elements of photography?
The three main elements of photography are camera, scene, and illumination.
What are the basics of photography?
The basics of photography are shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focus, sharpness, focus modes, white balance, and editing.
