Learning to use a digital SLR

I'm teaching myself how to use a digital SLR.

Over the weekend, I picked up three books from the library: Digital Photography, Digital SLR Cameras & Photography for Dummies and Digital Photography in Available Light, and I've been slowly ploughing through them this week.

Digital Photography in Available Light by Mark Galer is my favourite because of the way it explains things and for the unexpected humour. I was surprised that a non-fiction photography book could be humourous, but I found myself chuckling aloud twice. I can't remember over what right now. I'll have to go back and check.

The way it explains stuff is also cool. For example, to explain why when you decrease the f-stop, you are actually increasing the aperture size, a lot of authors say it is because it is a fraction. That makes sense. Mark Galer explains that the f-stop is obtained by dividing the length of the lens by its diameter. An f-stop of 4 means that the diameter is four times smaller than the lens length, which results in the same exposure regardless of the lens length because it takes into account the distance the light as to travel to the sensor. I mean, that's a cool explanation.

The way it explains histograms is also more thorough. Digital SLR Cameras & Photography explained histograms by showing three shots of an American flag against a blue sky, one overexposed, one underexposed and one correctly explosed. As you would expect, the correctly exposed shot had a nicely distributed histogram, and so I thought that was all to it. The second one I read, Digital Photography, showed two pictures, one of a black cat and one of a white something or other, which was very confusing because it seemed different from what I read in the Dummies book. Only Mark Galer explained that the example given by the first book was of neutral tones, while the example given in the second was of predominantly black, or white tones. When taking a picture that it is predominantly black, the camera tends to overexpose the shot, making the black tones look grey. Hence the photographer ought to adjust the exposure component down to compensate. This same is true for predominantly white tones. That's a much better explanation!

I'm probably only about two-thirds through, but I'm sure I'll find more gems. I think exposure bracketing is very cool too.

Right now, everything's just a concept, but it is so much fun! :)

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