Photography Essentials: Zero to Sixty

We will begin our lectures with an understanding of the camera's metering system, which allows it to evaluate light.

In part one of our practical examination of metering, we will look at how to adjust the metering system using metering modes.

Next we will look at choosing different metering modes and understanding how they alter the results we achieve and the erraticism of our results, while shooting outside.

Lastly, we will look at how changing metering modes will match your accuracy to the environment in which you find yourself shooting.

Adding on to our understanding of metering, we will begin altering our camera's exposure through exposure compensation. In this lecture we will understand what this means.

As we examine altering the camera's exposure we will begin to understand the stop system and how it affects the way we adjust exposure.

And now we will take our cameras outside and alter exposure in order to achieve a result that is technically accurate and aesthetically correct.

Many times our cameras will create an incorrect exposure. Here we will examine how and why this happens, learn how to metering accurately in the field, and build our exposures ourselves.

We will now begin to explore the exposure triangle and that begins with an understanding of our camera's sensitivity to light.

How does ISO change other aspects of the exposure triangle? In this lecture we will alter ISO and see how this changes either our brightness or our shutter speed.

We have mentioned a few times that ISO changes image quality. Now we will put that to the test by examining three different images shot at three different ISO values.

The next corner of our exposure triangle is the lens' aperture. What does it do and how does it operate? In this lecture we will learn its practical and creative benefits.

Now we will take our cameras outside to learn how to change aperture. We will also begin to understand the aperture values and how we describe them by a numerical system called "f numbers".

Let's take a short break and examine aperture, depth of field, and lens construction. By doing so, we will start to understand what lens we need for what shoot.

Join me on a shoot where we will alter depth of field by changing our aperture.

The last corner of our exposure triangle is the camera's shutter speed. What is it and how does it both affect motion and brightness?

Let's take a short break from the exposure triangle to understand, finally, how we measure each corner, and how we thinking about making adjustments to exposure as well as to light sources themselves. Doing so will enable us to make creative exposure decisions on the fly.

In this lecture we will take our cameras outside and alter exposure, as well as aperture and ISO, by changing our shutter speed.

Join me on a shoot at a park, as I use my shutter speed to capture birds landing at a lake.

Finally, we are ready to take our images and our exposures into our own hands and set exposure manually. But how do we begin? There is a simple system that will allow you to create an exposure in any environment.

As we make creative decisions, and then practical ones, how do we know if we're on the right track and how do we make these adjustments? Sit down with me and our cameras and follow along as we build an exposure from scratch.

We're off to another park to shoot a sunset image. To capture exactly the look we will want we will use nothing more than manual exposure theory and our histograms.

We will now shift our attention to the focusing system of the camera. Knowing how it operates will allow us to make intelligent decisions down the road.

We are going to manually focus and autofocus on a series of objects. In doing so we will learn how the camera's focusing operates and how we can tailor our approach to fit a particular subject.

In our last examination of focus basics we will focus on several objects , observes how focus crosshairs operate, and how to override improper focusing with manual focus skills.

Let's leave the basics behind a take a look at unmoving subjects. We will learn about focus lock and focus hold.

To lock onto the appropriate focus we will need AF-S, and the ability to choose a focusing area correctly. So we will work with auto, zone, center, and focus point selection to achieve appropriate results.

Follow me to a park where we will shoot a landscape image and use AF-S and focus crosshairs to achieve appropriate focus.

What if our subjects are moving? Then we need to constantly adjust focus. Here we will discuss how that works.

We use AF-C much like Af-S, and we think about the focus mode we need in similar terms. But we will also add subject tracking into the mix. Let's explore how that works.

We are off again shooting birds landing at a lake. We will use subject tracking, AF-C, and other focus modes, to achieve appropriate focus during their flights.

Just as we can alter exposure, we can adjust for the color of light. In this lecture we will introduce the concept of white balance.

The essential way you will adjust white balance is through presets. Join me as I shoot in direct sunlight and shade and understand how to make these adjustments.

Presets do not cover all the ways light sources can drift from neutral and balanced. Sometimes we need to custom calibrate our shooting to strange color temperatures. Here we will explore this concept.

We will begin by creating a custom white balance using our camera's and an 18% grey cloth. Learn how.

Now let's head into some very poor lighting and create a custom white balance that dramatically alters our image's accuracy.

Here I will introduce you to the basic editing that we will cover.

The first step to editing is importing images and creating a naming structure where you can find your files later on.

You do not need to know a lot of editing tricks to create great finished products. Here I will show you the few skills you need to be successful.

As we wrap up I hope to leave you with some encouragement, inspiration, and further challenges to explore.