The Fabulousness of Shooting With A DSLR Camera #Photography

Learning to shoot photos with a DSLR camera can seem really overwhelming, so much so that many people just keep it on auto and don’t venture beyond that. I can totally understand this, because when I bought my first DSLR camera two weeks ago, I didn’t think I would ever be able to keep all these terms and concepts straight. DSLR photography seems like a lot of work, juggling so many factors just to take a single picture, especially since stepping into a different lighting meant you have to readjust everything all over again anyway. Why bother?

Evidently, lots of reasons! Have you ever gone to a web-site or opened a magazine to find beautiful pictures, photos so gorgeous that you wanted to return or subscribe, possibly for no other reason than to see the beautiful photography? Well, me too, except that I wanted to be able to create those kind of photos myself. Once I went ahead and bought my DSLR camera, I discovered many other reasons why my new hobby has become a time-consuming passion.

The benefits of learning to use a DSLR camera (manually):

1. If you love to take pictures, you’d probably want to take amazing pictures, the kind you see in magazines and your favorite blogs. You can take great shots with a point and shoot camera. You can take great shots with a DSLR camera on auto. But you can only take phenomenal shots on a DSLR camera that you understand how to work. You can create pictures that look like an image you picture in your mind, by setting up the scene (composition) and changing settings on the camera to alter the lighting, the focus point, and more.

2. You can create awesome special effects, such as blurry backgrounds, a silhouette photo, and much more, and it’s not necessarily dependant on what lighting you have or the location, but rather adjustments on your camera of the aperture, ISO, shutter speed (also known as the exposure triangle).

3. You choose the central focus of the photograph, whether it be something close up or someone in the far distance, or you can choose to have everything in focus when details are important. With DSLR photography, it’s all in your control.

4. You can shoot pictures at 10 pm at night or indoors in pitch black areas without a flash, and make them look like you snapped the photographs at 3 in the afternoon. No flash means no distracting glare off a mirror or eyeglasses, no eyes shut from a too-bright flash, no washed-out colors, etc. These pictures were taken at 9 pm with my DSLR camera:

5. You can change lenses for different looks, such as achieving an extreme zoom, taking fast-action shots, or creating a “fisheye” effect. The pictures are super sharp, and action pictures freeze a moment in time with unbelievable clarity. Many DSLR cameras also include in-camera special effects and editing, so you can perfect your pictures.

In the next few weeks I’m going to post a few lessons on the basics for beginners as I learn them, explained very simply (the way I needed in order to understand them myself), including the Exposure Triangle (Aperture, ISO, Shutter Speed), a basic understanding of lenses, and some fun tricks to achieve special effects in your digital slr photography. There are so many great resources of information as well (both online and off) that I can’t wait to explore and share with you, so stay tuned!