Is it a good idea for an aspiring photographer to read about the technical stuff in Photography books?

5 Comments

1. Edwin says:

   July 2, 2010 at 4:53 pm

   I believe your source on Diane Arbus was very misinformed.

   A lot of people seem to think that if you "… just get out there and shoot…" you’ll somehow take a good picture. Of course, using this logic, its possible that you’ll take 300 lousy pictures and have no idea why they are lousy pictures. That’s where the "technical" part comes in. (A person once stated in here that if they took 100 pictures and got 1 good one they were happy. Talk about low expectations! I honestly believe you’d get similar results if you just gave the camera to a chimpanzee.)

   If you don’t know and understand the exposure triangle of ISO, shutter speed and aperture then how can you control your picture making? Sure, you can set your camera on Program AE and let it make all the decisions about aperture and shutter speed but how does the camera know what effect you are trying to achieve? It doesn’t. It can’t. Cameras are just dumb boxes.

   If you don’t understand how aperture and focal length are used to produce either a shallow Depth of Field (DOF) or a deep DOF then how do you isolate your subject from the background? How do you make sure that everything from 3′ in front of the camera to infinity is in focus? (Depth of Field is defined as that area in acceptable focus in front of and behind your subject).

   If you don’t understand the role of shutter speed then how do you expect to use it to stop motion or to allow a subject to be slightly blurred to show motion?

   If you don’t know how the ISO you choose affects both the aperture and shutter speed and the picture quality then how will you know what ISO to use on a sunny day? For sports/action? For the best possible picture quality?

   Without a good technical knowledge of photography, how will you know what to do when confronted with scenes that aren’t average and that will cause your in-camera meter to give you a bad exposure? Suppose you have a subject against a bright background and don’t want a silhouette? What if the subject is frontlit against a dark background? If you depend on your camera you’ll be disappointed. Your subject will not be correctly exposed. Suppose your scene is white sand or snow. Let the camera’s meter decide and your white sand or snow will turn out gray.

   You also must know and understand the "Rules of Composition". By knowing them you make your pictures more interesting. You know to not center your subject. You know to keep empty space to a minimum. You know to check the background so you can eliminate trees "growing" from someone’s head. You know how to eliminate ot at least minimize a distracting background. Of course, knowing the "Rules" then allows you to break them when your creative impulses overrule them.

   So yes, having the technical knowledge is needed. Without it you are just a snapshooter. Point. Shoot. Hope. With it you are on your way to being a photographer. Compose. Shoot. Know.

   For the record, I almost always shoot in Aperture Preferred because I like a lot of DOF and I know that lenses are designed to give their best results at between f5.8 to f11. I watch the shutter speed to make sure it isn’t too slow to hand-hold.

   "Pictures are not taken, they are made." Ansel Adams

   "Best wide-angle lens? Two steps backward. Look for the ‘ah-ha’ ". Ernst Haas
2. Vince M says:

   July 2, 2010 at 4:53 pm

   If you really think Arbus didn’t know "anything" about that technial stuff, then your reading material has badly misinformed you. Especially back then, there weren’t a lot of the kind of "point and shoot" cameras you see now. There were basic, box cameras, and, eventually some like the Kodak Brownies, but these aren’t the type of equipment Diane Arbus used. Hers were more sophisticated than these. And because they were, she had to know how to make proper settings for her to get good results. No one can possibly say that all her famous work was the result of pure luck.

   What does NOT really matter is the scientific reasons cameras have adjustments and setting. What does matter is that there ARE reasons for each setting, and expected results for them.
3. L E says:

   July 2, 2010 at 4:53 pm

   i think its good to understand how it all works. when i first started out i didn’t understand it all properly but i had a rough idea from flicking through some books and then when i started taking pictures i used manual and experimented with different exposures to see the effect it had and that’s how i learned. it is definitely important to understand exposure so that you can become more creative with it. u need a basic understanding to begin with but then once you get shooting, that’s when you’ll really learn.
4. Brian says:

   July 2, 2010 at 4:53 pm

   As a photographer myself i would definitely suggest that you know the technical side of at least using a camera and about light in the natural world. This will help you

   1. Save time because you know how to get what you want the first time.
   2. Ensure that you get what you want and the image is properly exposed
   3. Allow you to have creative control over the image by being able to alter the way the light enters the camera giving you different results.

   The minumum that you should know if you are semi serious is:

   1. Shutter Speed and how it relates to motion or slight bluing of subjects
   2. F-Stop
   a. how it affects amount of light
   b. how it affects depth of field
   3. Lenses and field of view
   4. Light fall off

   After that study the light and your subjects … never forget that light and the subject is the most important part of an image. Many people forget about one or the other.

   Look at other photographer work and take lots of photos because you learn by doing which is probably what the case is with Arbus.
5. gatewaycityca says:

   July 2, 2010 at 4:53 pm

   If you truly want to learn about REAL photography (as opposed to just taking snapshots for MySpace), then YES, absolutely you need to learn everything you can about exposure. That "technical stuff" is what photography is all about. You can never have any control and creativity in your pictures if you don’t learn the basics first.

   In order to have more control over your pictures and use real photographic techniques , you need a manual camera. And you won’t be able to use a manual camera unless you understand exactly how to set your shutter speed and aperture to get a proper exposure.

   The "technical stuff" is critical. You need to learn that, there’s just no way around it. Unless you plan to just stick with a cheap point and shoot digital camera and are just happy with snapshots. If you ever want to expand into a manual film camera or digital SLR camera, then you absolutely need to learn the technical aspects.

   Then, you can experiment. Bracket your pictures and try different shots with a different shutter speed and F-stop. You can really get creative and get the pictures the way you want them to look. But like I said, you can’t experiment with something if you don’t understand the basic concepts first. For example, If I say that I want a picture with a shallow depth of field to make the background softer and to draw more attention to the foreground, would you understand what that meant or how to do that? Or what if I wanted to do a long exposure at night to get a picture of star trails, would you know how to do that? This is where you ABSOLUTELY need to understand the basics about shutter speed, F-stops, depth-of-field, etc.

   Photography is a creative art, but it is also a technical craft that must be learned and practiced.