Camera Basics | Full Manual Mode Fast Track

1. What To Expect!: The greatest part about being a creative is doing just that, creating. You can take a 1000 different creatives, give them the same scene to take a picture or video, and they will all come out with different outcomes. It's truly amazing. But in order to ascend to a creative mind, to creative way of thinking, you must first understand your equipment. And that's what we're going to talk about today. And we all know that cranking that Dalen to automatic and just chill and there is comfortable, it's safe, but it does not give you for creative ability over your camera. So today we talk camera basics. This class is going to be composed of eight lessons. Lesson number one, we're gonna go over the physicality of the camera, buttons, settings, things of that nature. Lessons number 234. We're going to talk about the big three, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and how they all work together. It gives you a good exposure, which is lesson number five, how to get that perfect exposure every time you take a picture. Moving on to lesson number six, we're going to talk about the importance of color, the feelings that each color conveys and invokes. Lesson number seven, we're gonna go over seeing in black and white. That one is a very important. And finally, Lesson number eight, we're gonna go over full manual mode. We're going to take everything we learned and put it together in one lesson so we can take control of our camera. Now as you learn in sharpening your skills in this class, I would love for you guys to share your work down in the projects and resources. Let's interact with each other in just a minute. Each other's beautiful work. So are you ready to take control of your camera? 2. Lesson 1 | The Camera: All right, You guys, welcome to lesson one of camera basics. The camera. In this lesson we'll be going over the physicality of the camera, the buttons and attachments that most cameras will share from brand to brand. Now my hand here, I have a Canon T6. I, it was my first camera and I'm going to use this to show you guys. First thing we're going to touch over, it's the shutter control. This button is going to allow you to take pictures, focus, one of the most important parts of the camera. Now in this case, almost cameras, the shutter is in the same position. Usually, it's going to be naturally where you grip the camera and it'll be on your pointer finger. You're going to have pressed the focus In one hard-pressed to take a photo. That's all there is to a shutter. Let's move on. Next. We have the on and off button. This one's pretty self-explanatory. Most cameras are going to have it labeled as on and off wherever the switches, this one happens to be on the top. I know that different cameras have them in different spots, but most times you can figure this out on your own. So are you going to do is flip the switch and the camera will power on. Now let's move on to an area that's relatively close to the on-off button, usually the mode selector. Different cameras do this differently. Sometimes you will have the round mode selector like this. And on other cameras like my usr, you'll have a screen at the top. This is how you're going to switch between modes. Pictures, video, portrait, landscape, whatever your camera has. And it's as simple as clicking, just like this. Now when you switch modes, you might see an explanation of what that mold does, which is very helpful. Some cameras do it, some cameras don't. But if you have that, that's pretty cool. Alrighty, Let's move on to the diopter. So I'm sure we've all tried someone's glasses on that weren't ours and it will super blurry. That's how it can be sometimes when you look into a viewfinder and what the director does is basically changed the concentration of the glass. So this really helps people that wear glasses. If you have a certain type of lens in your glasses and you don't want to use your glasses while you're taking pictures. All you have to do is tweak the button and it's going to change that for you. There are some buttons on here that are specific to canon, but you should have something like these on your camera as well. So the info button will bring up different displays while you're taking pictures and it'll show you different things. So I press the info button once I get my shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, I press it again. And it'll show me all of these ways I can change how I take my photo and what the photo will look like. That's why balanced picture profile, autofocus method metering modes. I press it a third time in here I'll get my histogram reading. And then the fourth will knock everything off the screen and we're back at square one. Next is the menu button. And obviously this will bring up the menu. Now we're not going over the menu in this lesson. We're not really going over the menu at all. This is more of like a self-education type thing. I do encourage you guys to dive deep into your menu of your camera and get to know where everything is because it'll help in the long run. Now this is definitely different on some cameras, but you have your way of navigating through the camera, these little buttons right here, there's either a set button in the middle and four buttons surrounding that. And that's how you would go up downside side. Or you have a little wheel that you can turn with your thumb. And it's just as easy as that. Down here we have a button that looks like a YouTube sign. We press that and we can see the pictures that we've taken right next to that. You have a trash can. It'll pull up a cancel any race option. And you would either cancel or erase. On the top right of our camera will have a Zoom button. And this helps with autofocus. If you can't tell what you want and focuses and focus, you'll press this button, press it again, press a few times, it'll zoom in. And then you can see if what you want in focus is in focus is a good way to say autofocus definitely need to know how to use that. Our next we have the cameras hot shoe. It's at the top of the camera. Always. Obviously there are some exceptions, but most every camera has one of these is you can connect microphones, lights, camera receivers, flashes, and stuff like that. This right here is usually on most cameras. And what this is is usually the shutter speed control. In the new cameras these days, you can change the inputs of the buttons. This one right here does not have that feature. If yours doesn't, don't worry about it, use what you have. So now let's talk about the viewfinder. Very powerful thing. I myself do not use this camera anymore. It's more like a trophy for me. It's my first camera that got me into photography. I use to mirrorless cameras and they are great. I do not use the viewfinder as much anymore, but if you find it's very powerful. So when you look into the viewfinder, you'll see your image. Of course, you'll see the little square where the autofocus is working at. And then it'll show you the settings you're currently holding In the exposure reading. Now, taking pictures like this with a mirrorless camera is awesome, but sometimes it's good to look inside of you find it if recomposition purposes, when you're trying to get symmetrical shots, centered shots, stuff like that. It's really hard to tell if you're centered on something, if you're not looking into the viewfinder, the viewfinder cuts everything out and it's just you and your image. We look on the right side of the camera and you'll see an SD card slot. You open that up and you'll see your insert here. That is pretty self-explanatory. You just pop your SD card in there, get to work. On the opposite end. You have your HDMI input and your mic input. All you do is pop these out like this. You can insert your mic there. You pop this one out, and you have your HDMI input. The sun is setting very fast. So let's finish this lesson. We can't forget about the lens. The lens is also a physical part of the cameras. So most, but not all lenses will have autofocus and manual focus. Rocker. Switch it to auto focus and the camera will do the focusing for you. Switch it to manual focus and you will have to do all the focusing yourself. If you have a zoom lens, it will have a locking mechanism so you can lock it into place when it's all the way compressed. And that my friends is the end of this lesson. I appreciate you guys watching and I hope you guys got something good from this. Let's move on to the next one. Oh, come down, come down. You're still here. You're still in the class. A different part of the class. We're in VR right now. I'm not hard to actually. My name is Lucas and he hired me to issue you guys homework after every lesson. So we're gonna be spending some time together. Please take a moment to admire my Krispy Kreme doughnut sign in my heart to plug visual sign that I don't want there. I don't actually work for this guy. I'm a contractor. So he was drawing near for some reason on my board and we have a love-hate relationship that's neither here or there. So after every lesson you guys are gonna get shot over to me so I can issue you guys some homework. He told me to look at the lesson plan, but I didn't. So you guys learned about the physicality of the camera. So for today's homework, I want you guys to do a deep dive into all of the settings on your camera gets nowhere everything is at, get familiar with it and become best friends with it and that my friends will help you in the long run. Okay. Thank you guys for joining me today. Again, my name is Lucas and I can't wait to see you guys in the next lesson. I'm gonna go talk with your teacher now. Goodbye. 3. Lesson 2 | Aperture: Alright guys, welcome back to camera basics. So this is less than two. We're going to talk about aperture. So what does aperture? Aperture is basically going to control how much light is able to pass through your lens. Now if you look into your lens and bring the aperture up and down, you will physically see the aperture blades close and open. So the lower the aperture, the more open the blades will appear in, the more light is able to pass through the lens, the greater the aperture, the more the plays will close and the less light is able to pass through the lens. Most people refer to aperture as f-stop, that is a photography term. Now the F for f-stops stands for focal if you wanted to know that. And that's basically how people will tell you what aperture they were using. Now we haven't covered lenses yet, but zoom lenses and prime lenses are two different types of lenses, right? I'm lenses are lenses that are fixed on one focal length. Basically, you cannot do this right here. So right there I zoom the camera end with a prime lens. You can't do that. This difference will cause the zoom lenses to be different with aperture, right? So for zoom lenses, It's not at a fixed aperture as you zoom in, the aperture closes down. So most zoom kit lenses will have F4 aperture as the lowest, but it'll say F4 through F7. And that's because at the farthest use Zoom, it'll be at F7 instead of F4. It won't stay at F4 once you zoom in. So before we move on using a low aperture lets in more light, using a greater aperture, less and less light. Now, let's talk about depth of field. So your aperture is also going to control your depth of field. So if you've ever seen a picture like this or like this, or like this, those types of pictures. That is, what depth of field is this? When something is in focus and something is not. So usually when you see a good portrait, you'll notice that the model is in-focus. Her is blurred out, right? That is what happens when you use a low aperture. Now let's talk about something else you can do with abstract is pretty cool in my opinion. So there's this thing called plane of focus. But so plaintiff focus is pretty cool because you can get really creative shots like this, right? So when you focus on something with your camera, you placed that little square around whatever you're trying to focus on, everything on that same plane will be in focus with what you're focusing on, everything 1 third in front of it, and 2 third behind will be blurred out. So say if you're taking a picture of two people, right, they're lined up side-by-side, same distance away. You could focus on one and it will focus on both. But if you take one person and they stepped back a couple of feet, then the other person on the back would be blurred out in the person in the front would be in focus. Does that make sense? There's two types of depth of field. There's a shallow and there's a deep. Okay? Everything 1 third in front and two-thirds behind your subject will be blurred out. That is a shallow depth of field, is basically super compressed. And in terms of your subject being in-focus and everything else is not. So just remember the lower your aperture goes, the more of that blur you'll get. A deep depth of field is going to be when you have a higher aperture. So say you take a picture with the aperture of 22, okay? And that's usually as high as you can go on most cameras, there will be little to no blur because that is a deep depth fulfilled. That is the basics of aperture, right? There's a lot of stuff you can do with aperture, but that is everything you need to know to get started. This is why this has camera basics. This is gonna be the end of lesson two, which is aperture. I hope you guys learned a lot or something that you didn't know. Like I said, this is just the basics, so I'm not trying to go too deep into anything really. I just want to get you out there shooting and taking good pictures the fastest way I'm saying. So I definitely want you to practice what you've learned today with your own camera. Whether you have a camera that goes all the way down to F12 or as low as you can go is at 4, doesn't matter. You can do some cool things with aperture. You have to trust me with that being said, and have a great rest of your day. And let's move on to the next lesson. Alright guys. Oh my god. His mouth is open. He looks ugly right there. Okay, that's decent. Guys. We can just do this. Welcome back to the VR classroom. Looks like you guys talked about aperture today. So for today's homework, we're going to have you guys experiment a little bit. Okay, so let's take off our cameras and play with aperture. The deep depth of field is in the F22 is and the F 16s. The shallow depth of field is in the F1. And the F1 point to very wide open apertures. So go ahead and experiment with that and see what you get and feel free to drop what you got until the projects and resources so everyone can see what you made. Okay, You guys have a great day and let's move on to the next lesson. 4. Lesson 3 | Shutter Speed: Good morning, good evening, good afternoon. Whatever time you're watching this, I truly hope you've had a wonderful day or are having a wonderful day. This is going to be less than three of camera basics, shutter speed. Now I'm not here to waste you guys this time. So to speed is super simple. So I'm going to take you guys quickly to these notes and gets you into the next lesson. So let's get into it. So before I start every lesson, I'd like to give a synopsis of what each thing is. So this is what shutter speed is. Shutter speed is gonna be the duration of time that light is exposed to the image sensor. So your camera sensor is always going to be protected by the shutter, shutters there to prevent dirt, debris, all that stuff from getting inside and damaging your sensor. So when you take a picture, it has to open to expose light to the sensor and then close back up. Now if you have a DSLR cameras, the shutter is going to open at the same time the mirror opens. And obviously if you have a mirrorless, you don't have a mirror. The shutter would just open by itself. So there's a tip I wanna give you guys to get more familiar with the shutter speeds. It's called TV mode. And no, it's not like a television. It's actually a mode on your camera that will pre-select the shutter speed for you based off of how fast you're moving the camera in your scene. So you will have control over the aperture and the ISO in that mode, not the shutter speed. The purpose for using this mode is to get familiar with the shutter speeds you will use for different scenes. The camera does a pretty good job at predicting what shutter speed to use for what it's looking at. Now this has gone on the video side of things and this is not in my notes, but I decided to give you guys this tip as well. Whenever you're recording video, whatever your frame rate is that you're going to want a double your shutter speed to that number. So if you're recording in 29 frames a second, you're going to want your shutter speed to be one over 60th. So you would just take 29, which will be basically 30 in times of B2. So you're so to speak and start as low as 30 seconds to one over eight thousandth of a second, depending on what camera you have. The higher the shutter speed, the more you freeze action, the lower the shutter speed, the more you blur action. So if you're taking a portrait of someone sitting down, you don't need to add shutter speed, right? Because there's no motion. You can go as low as one over 80th of a second. But if you're taking a picture of someone running or doing something in motion, you're going to want to up the shutter speed, right? So if someone's running, I will put it at around 500. If I'm trying to freeze a car emotion, I would put it at around a thousand so on and so forth. Now, that is all I have in my notes, That's the basics of shutter speed. Now I brought something to demonstrate this to you guys. So here's the ball. Alright. This is the ball I'm going to use and I'm going to show you how using a low and high shutter speed freezes and blurs this ball while I'm thrown in there like this as you get it. So I'm going to use a shutter speed of one over 20, and I'll show you how that looks. Here's one over 60. Here's one over 500. So I said one over 20th actually met one over 25th. Okay. But you saw what the one over 25th at the camera shutter didn't stay open long enough for it to freeze that action. So the ball came out blurry as we went up to 160th. You can already see the difference. The ball is a lot more clear and sharp. And then we went up to one over five hundredths and you can barely tell it wasn't even thrown. It looks like it was just placed into the sky. So that is the easiest way to demonstrate for you guys shutter speed, shutter speed blur, how shutter speed freeze action. So when you start using one over one thousandths of a shutter speed and you go higher than that, you really start to not see a difference because it's just catching everything. There's not a lot of things that move that fast where you need that higher shutter speed. But if you ever need one over eight thousands, I don't know what you will need that for you, but, you know, it's there if you need it. And that my friends is shutter speed. I appreciate you guys watching this and I hope you guys learned a lot. I would love for you guys to experiment with shutter speed and show me what you've come up with in the projects and resources that being said, that is the end of this lesson. Let's move on to the next one piece. Calling heart. Hello. Hey, I'm so sorry to bother you. What shutter speed? Well, it does not look at the lesson plan. No. I I looked at the lesson plan. You've heard it before. You never told me what any I don't know what any of this stuff is, man, I'm not a photographer. I just sent you something and email. Can you read? Yeah. Okay. We'll read that. It hasn't all there. Yeah. Yeah. I'll do it. Okay. Oh, yeah. I can I can do that. All right. Don't don't call me currently. I got you. Sorry about that, guys. First of all, welcome back to the VR classroom. If I didn't tell you, I'm not actually a photographer. He hired me to just give you guys homework. I'm supposed to read the lesson plan and just live a little bit. Look, look, look. I know it sounds bad, but he saving a lot of money working with me. That's neither here nor there. It looks like you guys had a lesson today about shutter speed. So what is today's homework? I want you guys to experiment with your shutter speed. You guessed it. Let's take our cameras up today and let's get motivated. Let's be particular about this now. I want you to take a picture of something fast and you freezing that motion. And in, Let's take another picture of something fast, but you blur it. How about that? Two pictures? Put it in the projects and resources and let everyone see what you created. Okay? You guys have a great rest of your day, and I'll see you in the next lesson. Goodbye. 5. Lesson 4 | ISO: Are you guys, as you can see, it is a beautiful day outside here in Colorado Springs. Welcome back to camera basics. This is gonna be less than four ISO. Iso is not really a hard thing to explain. I figured, why not do it outside again? And this time we don't have to be so formal, we can walk around with each other and just talk about it. So what is ISO? Iso is gonna be your cameras sensitivity to light. And it's also going to be one of the things you'll be having to tweak to adjust your exposure. And it actually comes from the Greek word ISOS, which means that equal. And this will make sense when I explain to you how ISO works. A lot of people mistake it for ISO, but it's not actually an acronym. So unlike shutter speed and aperture, ISO is going to have a digital effect to your images. Instead of a natural effect, shutter speed is changing how fast the shutter opens and closes. Aperture is just changing if the aperture blades are closed or open. What I saw was different because all it's doing is changing your cameras, sensors sensitivity to light. So I thought it was really cool because it basically gives you light when you have none digitally. So if you're looking into your viewfinder and you see like your images a little too dark, you can use ISO to bring some light until your image, but it does have a negative effect. So when you start to raise the ISL too high, it starts to introduce what's known as a background interference or a digital artifact. Both of these terms can be referred to as noise. So what's the best way to describe know, as we'll call it, a variation of brightness or colors that aren't supposed to be in the image. So you ever see bright spots in your image, dark spots, colors that aren't supposed to be in that area. That's gonna be noise. Now that's going to happen when you use a high ISO. Iso numbers can range from about a 100 to 52 thousand or so depending on what camera you have, different cameras have different ISO ranges. Now, having ISO and your images usually looked at as a bad thing, but it doesn't always have to be okay. I saw can also be labeled as green and people use grain all the time. So get a more cinematic look on their photos and videos. So I want you to be ISO as your last resort. Like I said, it ranges from 100 to about 52,100 will ensure that you will never have noise. The grain and your images fit the 2000s, you're going to have a little bit. So say we take a picture of this flower here, right by a cell that has 100 ISO, where it's like physically visible to see the grain, right? The reason why I don't give you a number for that, it depends on your camera. Again, some cameras can handle a higher ISO than other cameras. Basically, the more money you spend, the better your images look with a high ISO. So to an untrained eye, you would say there's nothing wrong with either one of those images. And you're not technically wrong, but there is a bit of grain in the second image. Now, I did leave something out. The grain is actually really hard to see or noise because really hard to see when there is a lot of light. So those were kind of dark images when you have bright spots for a bright image, and it'll be easier for you to see the noise. So if you're looking at a dark image and you need more light, adjust your shutter speed and aperture is first before you consider your eyes so you can prevent noise from getting into your images. I noticed a couple of times I kept calling an ISO. Iso is ISO. I still have a bad habit of doing that because that's how I started calling it and now I can't get rid of it, but it is what it is. Ar call it ISO. That is the correct term. But since we've covered shutter speed, aperture and ISO, I want you guys to try out using all three together. We will be doing that in less than eight, but it wouldn't hurt for you to try to do it now. So don't be afraid to show us what you've got in the Projects and Resources, and I will see you guys in the next lesson. Be safe. How do I find myself here, man, I don't necessarily want to work here, but I mean, he's paying me get money. So I mean, I guess it's guys. Did you hear any of that? If you heard that, I was totally kidding. I was trying to provide some comedic relief, right? Because, you know, that heart guy isn't funny at all. So he just talks and talks and I mean, it doesn't really entertain, but me. I'm the entertainer. Iso, Let's take our cameras up. I love doing that. Let's get motivated. Okay, remember that you adjust your shutter speed and your aperture before considering your ISO. I read that in the lesson. So I know it's, I know it's I know it's correct. Now, I want you guys to go out at night or near sunset safely, of course, and see what happens when you raise your ISO to a crazy high number. This is a good time to test your camera limits. I want you to experience the grain that you get when you use a higher ISO. See how high of an ISO you can get to before you start noticing the noise or the grain. And take a photo of that and show us down in the project and resources. We want to talk about it with you. Once again, I'm Lucas, I hope you guys haven't forgot my name. I'm very important. So we're going to see you guys in the next lesson. Okay, Be safe now. 6. Lesson 5 | The Perfect Exposure: Hi guys, Welcome back to camera basics. This is going to be less than five, the perfect exposure. As usual, I have my notebook here with me. So we're going to run through these notes and we're going to learn how to achieve that perfect exposure every time. So if you're into definitions, I have the definition right here, so I'll read it off to you guys. Exposure is going to be the amount of light per unit area reaching the frame of the photographic film or the surface of an electric image sensor, as determined by shutter speed, lens f number, which is aperture, which we talked about. And seeing luminance, which is ISO, and all of those combined is going to give you your exposure value. Now your exposure value can range from 0 to plus three or Israel to negative three. These numbers are simply going to tell you if you're taking a good-looking image. Now what do I mean by good-looking image? Take this 1 first. You can see that the shadows were taking too dark, so the information in there was lost. And then this one, the highlights are too bright, so information was lost. That's all photos are just pixels and data. So if you take a picture with the wrong settings, you can either lose data in the highlights or the shadows. So right before you focus to take a picture, you're going to see a meter at the bottom of your camera stream. That meter is referred to as the light meter. In there. You will be able to see the numbers I was telling you about. Pat ranges from 0 to plus 30 to negative three. So let's explain what each space means. So I want you guys to act as if you're taking a picture OK, half press the shutter button so you can get that light meter to pop up and bring your attention to the middle. 00 is where you want to be all the time to explain why when you're in the middle, that means that the image is perfectly exposed. That means you won't be losing any data in the highlights and the shadows. Now let's go down to the negative numbers. The numbers on the negative side will signify a darker image. If you bring your attention to the positive numbers, those numbers will signify when you start to lose information and your highlights. So basically you want to avoid going into negative and positive sides of that meter. One thing in the middle will ensure that you don't lose information in either part of the images. Now I'm going to tell you guys to do something without telling you how we're going to switch this from GoPro footage. So remember I said this light meter is controlled by your shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. So that is how you're going to control it. This is the beauty of learning the three and using them together. Aside from that, I'm going to set my settings to where my light meter read 0, and we're going to start from there. So every number on this light meter signifies a stop of light. Now what is a stop of light you ask? So a stop is the photography term that describes a measurement of light and that's it. So you see that I'm at 0. Let's click on our aperture and we're gonna go from the aperture we are at until the next one. And you'll see when I get my next meter reading, we're not negative one. From one aperture to another is a stop of light. We're gonna go from the shutter speed graph and we're gonna go to the shutter speed below that. So the left, bringing the shutter speed down will brighten your image. And you'll see that now I am back at 0 on the meter reading. This same rule applies to ISO. You'll see that there are numbered as well. Each number is a stop of light difference. Now the numbers for your shutter speed, aperture, and ISO stops of light are not always in chronological order. For shutter speed, you can go from one over 100 to one over one 25th, and that will not bring you down a whole stop of light. You have to go to the next whole number that you see labeled. And that is what's going to change your stops of light. This applies to aperture and ISO as well. So now you know how to find the light meter, you know how to read it, and you know how to control it. Now let's go full circle and let me explain to you the three types of exposure and this will all make sense. Type one is gonna be the correct exposure. That one is going to be when you stay in the 0 area, you don't lose any information in the highlights or the shadows or the blacks, the whites, any of that underexposed, not enough light details and the dark areas in the image, the shadows and the blacks will be lost overexposed. This type means that you have too much light, overblown highlights, details in the light tones will be lost. If you don't take anything else away from this lesson, please take this. You never want to rely on post-production. And what I mean by that is when you're on a shoot or you're outside and you're just practicing or whatever you're doing. And we had taken photos and you notice that your image is too dark or it's too bright, don't say I can fix it in editing, you need to get in the habit of taking the perfect exposure, which is around that 0 mark every single time. And that way you'll always be able to manipulate your image. How you please say you take a picture that is a negative three on that light meter. I want you to take that photo and bringing in a light room or whatever editing software you use and try to fix it. And you're going to see that the image destroys itself when you try to bring the shadows back, and it's vice versa with the highlights. If you overexpose a photo that's in the plus three area and you try to bring that back in your editing software, you will see that the image again will destroy itself. It will not work, it will not correct yourself. It'll be above the rules to shutter speed, aperture and ISO still exists using a high ISO, though it gives you light, it will corrupt her image with noise. So just remember that while you're adjusting your settings. So if you're looking at a scene and you've drawn your shutter speed up as much as you could in your aperture down as much as you could. That's the time when you use use ISO. I saw is always gonna be a last resort. It doesn't matter what. Now using these three in tandem comes with time. You're not going to wake up tomorrow and just fall asleep. Know how to use all three of them together. So do yourself a favor and practice with it. And eventually you'll be able to look at any scene, anything you're taking a picture at and quickly adjust your settings, how you like it and how you want it. Just like that. In guys, that is all I have for the perfect exposure. I truly hope you guys learned a lot or something that you didn't know. And I hope you enjoyed this lesson. Let's go into the VR and I'll assign you guys your own work. 321. Hey guys, I'm ready for you this time. You're not catching me off guard again, the perfect exposure. Okay? So I believe in this lesson you guys learned about achieving the perfect exposure. I'm pretty sure you remember heart explaining to you that negative three is too dark. Positive three is too bright. 0 is where you wanna be in the middle. So I want you guys to practice on landing yourself in the middle by tweaking your settings. Let's pick our cameras up and let's take control of our camera. Okay, so go ahead and practice on getting the perfect exposure on every single one of your pictures. Okay, It's very important, shared down in the projects and resources. Maybe even show us where it landed on that line from 0 to negative three to positive three. And we can have a good conversation about that. I think I will see you guys in the next lesson. Let's go. Let's keep going. 7. Lesson 6 | The Importance Of Color: Welcome to lesson. Is this Jesus? Before we start this lesson, I want to welcome you guys back. So camera basics, this is going to be less than six. The importance of color. I'm going to need a chair to sit down on. Oh, that's not what I was trying to do. On try again. Here we are. I will write as you know, we'd like our definitions. So let's see if there's an actual definition of color. Because colors, one of those things where it's like it's just colored, but there should be a definition. So let's see colors defined as the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way the object reflects an emits light, that is the definition of color. So we'll start off with black and white because those are very important. Now shockingly, the light that we see appears to us as white. And I know that doesn't make any sense because we can see all these a range of colors, but all of it is white. And let me explain. So you have three primary colors, which is red, green, and blue. And when you mix those together, you get your secondary colors. So basically these three colors make up the whole color array. And what happens when you mix red, green, and blue together, you get white. Now, black is the exact opposite. Black is basically the absence of all color. So pay attention. This is very interesting to me. So when light travels into our eyes, it reaches the retina. In your retina is covered with millions of these cells called rods and cones. And those are light-sensitive cells that basically sends signals to the brain. And that is what it's telling you. This is red, this is green, this is blue. The human eye can only perceive reflected colors. So interesting enough, when you look at an object, you're not seeing what color it is. You're seeing what color is it reflecting? All objects reflect and absorb colors. So the ones that they reflect, that is the code that you'll see, the ones that they absorb, obviously you will not see those. So when we take how that works and apply it to a camera, you get what's called a Bayer filter. The Bayer filter is a screen that lays on top of your camera's sensor. And it is a color filter array. That's what it's called a CFA. And what it does is it takes the colors that is given and arranges it on the square grid of your photo sensory. So when light hits the camera's sensor, the Bayer filter is going to catch that light until all the colors where to go. And I'm almost certain it's done with some type of algorithm. And that's what brings together a Cameras color science, fun facts. Without that Bayer filter, everything will be black and white. Cameras actually sees in grayscale. So next, let's talk about color space. So color space is a range of colors that can be represented and displayed in a given photo. So whatever color space you will be using depends on what editing softwares and stuff you use as well. So a few examples of color space would be RGB, sRGB, sRGB, Adobe RGB, pro photo, CIE, RGB, and one that's used for printing stuff per se, you would use CMYK. Rgb is a large color space, and sRGB is a condensed color space to save memory for shooting like jpeg and stuff like that. Now this is the part I've been waiting to get to. This one. It's gonna be fun. I have my coloring pencils. So it's very important for us to know what each color means so that we can convey the right message that we want to convey through our art, right? If you want people to feel sad, what colors would you use? If you want people to feel happy, what colors would you use? We need to know these things. That being said, I'm gonna give you a couple of examples of this using these colored pencils. So we're gonna go through the colors that we see most days, the primary and the secondary colors. Well, let me start off by saying that each color can have a positive and a negative two. So let's talk about green. Now. What is it that we think about when you talk about green? Well, we can think like the environment, trees, plants, growth. But on the negative side we can think greed, jealousy, money. Now what about the color blue? What do we think? When we talk about blue? We can think peace, harmony. But on the opposite side, we can think code, depression. Gloomy. Blue also has a positive and a negative side as well. And how about red? What do we think when we talk about red? Well, it can be love, ****, but it can also be death in danger. Even a caution. What does orange mean to us? Orange can mean vitality, warmth, love, longevity, stuff like that. Beautiful color. We all know what pink looks like. This is kind of a painful bear with me. What comes to mind when we think about the colored pink? We can think things like playful innocence. On the opposite end. We can think things like gullible, naive, vulnerable even. Alright, and the purple. What comes to mind when I think about programs? Well, we can think nobility, royalty, wisdom. Oh, wise. Gray color. Even yellow has two opposite ends. Yellow can mean summer, joy, heat, happiness. On the other side it can mean disease, famine. And also another caution. Now, what on earth could black mean? Well, black could mean sophisticated, fancy, modern. But as well, evil, death, destruction. Dangerous color. Now why am I holding the red, green, and blue together for white? That's why, remember I said, these two colors mix together will make white. So what is Y? Y can mean things like cold, winter, peace, tranquility in cleanliness. And there's one more thing that I want you to grasp before I end this lesson. Monochrome, monochrome images does not always have to be black and white. Basically, all it is is when you have the same color with different shades in the same image. Let me explain. So say I wanted to take a picture of a red lipstick capsule and saying, obviously the capsule is going to be red. Lipstick is red. But I put it on top of a box that is also red, but it's a different shade of red. And maybe for the background, I'll have another different shade of red. Now, all those are the same color. They're just different variations of the same color in the same image. Therefore, it makes it a monochrome image. And guys, that is all I have for their importance of color. This lesson is over. Congratulations for making it pass no less than five, even though there's not ten lessons, five is always a good 0.5, right? If you do so please, and you want to further your experience and your knowledge on color, I would suggest that you go and do some research on color theory. I will make a lesson on it later on. Color theory. Basically, he's going to explain to you how all the colors can fit together. The way that color grading works, not in this class, but in another class. It was just really help you with the editing side of things. And that is going to wrap up this lesson guys, like I said, congratulations on making it to less than six. I'm proud of you. If you've been taking pictures, make sure to share it down in the projects and resources below. And like always, I have some homework for you. Let's move over to the VR classroom. You see, look at this guy. What did he say? That's a bit selfish. What happens if he gets hurt? And then you can pay me anymore? Is he, is he really just thinking about themselves here? Is this you guys have teacher, you know what? I take that back. Don't tell him I say that because I don't I don't think I'm allowed to say that actually, I signed a contract. I digress for me not being a photographer myself. This lesson was actually really interesting to me. I didn't know that there were so many definitions and meanings to color. I just look that I'm like, Oh yeah, that's right. And that's what I mean. I want you guys to think of an emotion, okay? And I want you guys to try to portray that emotion using color. Be creative, drop it down in the projects and resources, and we would love to see it and talk about it. Okay, you guys be safe. And we'll see you in the next lesson. Lucas out. All right guys, I'm Robin. You happen to get okay, I gotta go. 8. Lesson 7 | Seeing In Black & White: Oh my God. What are you all doing down here? Come on somebody. Sometimes we gotta, we gotta get thanks to the class. Hi guys. Welcome back to camera basics. This is gonna be less than seven, seeing in black and white. So this is going to happen to you quite a bit. Through your journey in photography, you'll see something you want to take a picture of. And it may be a fleeting moment that won't be there forever. And you're like, Oh, I got to get the picture right in and you're fumbling with your settings. And then you take the picture and it doesn't look good, that will be a very sad day for you. You'll probably want to quit, but this technique will help you with that. So unless the image is intentionally made black and white, you always see most images in color. But as a beginner photographer, it can be sometimes hard to nail the exposure every time I had this problem when I started as well. So I want you to click your camera into manual mode and you'll see that there is a option called picture style. You go into that and there's all these different styles that will change the saturation, the sharpness, all that stuff. Now you're gonna go to the monochrome option, and that is going to change your view to black and white or grayscale. Now it's important that you have your camera shooting in RAW and JPEG. Jpeg will be saved in the grayscale, in the raw image will be saved in color. If you go to the image you just took and go to the settings of that, you'll find raw image processing. In there. You'll be able to change the JPEG image to a raw image. So you're pulling the photo from gray scale to color. So that is how you take in control monochrome images. Okay, so to start taking good photos, we need to understand tone. And this is where seeing in black and white, using monochrome with your camera is going to help someone you're looking at an image in color. Sometimes it can be hard to tell if you know the toner not wear black and white makes it clear as day if you did or didn't. So looking at an image in black and white, you can tell instantly if something is too bright, if something is too dark, so on and so forth. So how to judge a monochrome image if you can tell the differences, the grays, that is a good monochrome image, that is a good color image. But if the grades are run together, if there is a drastic shift, if it looks like it's this all over the place. That's how you're going to tell if it's not correctly exposed. Now, like in every other photo, lighting is paramount. Making sure that there's plenty of contrast in the image. And that's basically like a gradual change from blacks to whites. Meaning you don't want a super bright sky in a super dark subject. You want to make it look as realistic as possible, like they are meant to be in the same image together. Now let's talk about the elements to make a good black and white photo or a photo in general, of course, texture. Now texture adds more depth to your photos. So having different textures and one image, we'll separate things from each other. Look for patterns. Patterns can make your images really interesting, especially if they're black and white really catches the viewer's eye. And then last but not least, shapes, just like patterns, shapes are very interesting to look at as well and it provides an anchor to your viewers eye. Now if you're looking to shoot photos only in black and white and keep them like that. These are a couple of things that you can use them for in that I think you will enjoy. Now if you're working with models or a family member or anybody, you're taking a portrait of someone. It adds drama to the image. It can help reveal something about their character and be very flattering. It's really good at creating a timeless picture. A good way to approach a black and white portrait. Simple background, neutral clothing. So no bright colors or any kind, just earthy colors and you're good. Now sometimes you can get away with taking a landscape photo in black and white and it can look really good in Moody is the way we're looking for. But for landscape photography, you will need things to assist you in taking these photos. Nd filter, a neutral density filter. It's like sunglasses for your camera lens, and that will help you get the proper exposure if this guy is too bright in, like I said, the bottom is completely in darkness, it will even it out for you. Let me show you. So you see this guy behind me is too bright. I have my sunglasses here and I will simulate what an ND filter would do. I put these sunglasses in front of the camera here. And now you can see the clouds exposed behind me. Nd filter does. It evens your exposure out so you don't have to change any settings, including ISO, which we don't want to bump up. Next is one of my favorite things to photograph, street photography. This is you're capturing real life, real people, real moments, real action, all the good stuff. You see a guy on the bench snap picture of them. You see a couple of people walking across the crosswalk, snap a picture of him. You see people interacting with each other. Snap a picture of them. Maybe you see people inside of a restaurant having a good time and you kept someone in the beginning. I'm trying to describe the pictures that I know I've taken and I'm popping up on the screen. But anyway, I digress. Street photography is amazing because it has a chance to show people real life in a photo. Is that not awesome? You can add a lot of emotion and mood to street photos simply by using black and white. All you have to do is expose properly. Take the photo. Black and white. You're good. And last but not least, something that I don't do too often, but wildlife, black and white is basically like a medium to add mood and emotion to your images. So that's what you can take away from black and white. So guys, that is all I have for seeing in black and white. I truly hope you guys enjoyed this lesson. Like I said, this isn't a hard concept to grasp at all, but it is very important that you practice with this if you see fit for yourself, if you're already kneeling your exposures without seeing in black and white and analyzing your pictures. Good for you. Keep going, keep practicing. But if you need practice on getting a sharp image, that looks good for you every single time. Go ahead, switch your came into monochrome and get to work, man. So I'm pretty sure you already know what your homework is gonna be, but let's go over to the VR and Alice on your homework, I hope you guys have a great rest of your day. And I will see you guys in the next lesson. What are you doing down here? Come on probably sometime we go, we gotta get back to the class. Hi guys. Welcome. Okay. One thing I can say about this guy, he knows how to listen. I think he heard me say that he wasn't entertaining. And now look what he's doing, all this funny stuff. I am an inspiration after all. Another interesting one, in my opinion, what do you guys think? I thought it was pretty interesting myself. So I think he tailored this one to the inexperienced shooters, right? So I was told that achieving the perfect exposure and seeing in black and white go hand in hand or seeing in black and white can help you achieve the perfect exposure. Basically, if you guys are still not yet confident in your ability to achieve the perfect exposure, go ahead and flip your camera into monochrome so you can see the differences between the shadows and the highlights, all of that stuff, right? It will help you better distinguish if something is too bright or too dark if you're losing information in a certain part of the picture, so on and so forth. Alright, so we want to see two photos, okay, go ahead and set your camera to shoot in RAW and JPEG. You'll have both files there. Show us the black and white one, and then show us the one in color so we can see how it translates. Okay, You guys are awesome. Keep it going. Unfortunately. You will not see me again after this that being said, I really enjoyed my time with you all. And I hope you guys enjoyed your time with me if you want to see more of me, unfortunately, I'm nowhere because this is my first job. But maybe if you convince heart to put me on his YouTube channel or his Instagram, you'll see more of me. Lucas for President. Alright, very good. Anyway, you guys have a beautiful rest of your day. Stay safe. I love you all and continue to grow for me. Okay. 9. Lesson 8 | Full Manual Mode: Alright guys, welcome back to camera basics. We all know what less than this is, less than eight. And yes, we made it to the end. And I just want to congratulate you guys on making it this far. The reason for that is that most people, when they start new things, they let time flyby, they, they procrastinate or they don't start at all. But here you are. And I truly want to commend you for going after something that you feel like is for you and that interests you. Because a lot of people don't do that. I'm thinking you for doing something good for you. I love that. I love to see people chase their dreams. A lot of people don't take advantage of this thing called chance. Everyone has a chance. And if you let it, it will pass you by. And I truly don't want that for any of you guys. So thank you for sticking with this. And what would do me even better is to know that you guys learned something of substance that you can go out there and use and become a formidable shooter. So that is what this lesson is going to be about. We're going to take everything we learned from this class and throw it all into one video. Alright, so let's move this out of the way. I have my phone here. They're going to be my YouTube videos that I've recorded of the photo shoots that I've been on. Basically, I want to show you guys my thought process when it comes to approaching different situations. So let's get into it. So first category we're gonna happen too, is cars. So I'm going to show you this video of this Mercedes AMG. And we're going to see if we can learn something from it. So let's get into it. Like I said, this is a AMG Mercedes by turbo, I think. So. Really fun shoot. I think in this next clip here, I dropped my hat on, my head, almost flew off my heels. Very windy. Yeah, there it is. That's great. But basically these are called rolling shots or roller shots. And it's basically you're taking a picture of a car moving. You're catching a car still in the ground beneath it, and everything around it is blurry. And that is the shutter speed trick. Let's pause it there. I will show you guys really quick those pictures. And I'm going to show you too, if you want to achieve a photo like that, basically you're going to match your shutter speed with the speed of the car. So we were only going about 30 to 40 miles an hour. So my shutter speed was 31 over 30th of a second. But it's not actually freezing motion. But when you are painting with an object while having a low shutter speed, that object will be frozen and everything around it will be blurry. That's how you achieve that photo. Alright, and let me show you guys a second example of this. This time I was shooting a BMW m4 and beautiful picture. But let's watch the video really quick. We look at, look at the color minute and I was living at right, awesome as positive. So we took till the road with that car and like I said, you're going to match the speed of the car with your shutter speed. So that time we were going a little bit faster, 50 to 60 miles an hour. So my shutter speed was sitting at about 50. And that got the ground blurry enough in the BMW, perfectly in focus, beautiful picture. Now I'm a firm believer that the best way to progress and to get better at something is to be uncomfortable. That may not always be the case, but in this case, let's talk about approaching random people. I do this a lot in my YouTube videos and my TikToks and stuff like that. And it's really made me a better photographer because it forces you, it forces you to be better at knowing what to do, what your settings. So let's dive into this video. I'm gonna show you how I approached this girl, took some pictures over on the spot and they turned out pretty good. Hey, excuse me. Can I get a secondary zone? Are you are you too busy? No, no. I'm just trying to find a restaurant. He was super cool by the way. Skirted never was pretty cool because kind of treat it with her. And she was looking for a restaurant, so we helped her find it and in exchange, she let us take some pictures over. Super cool person. We saw a little weird. Just takes a lot of gusto. If you're nervous or somebody just take introverted, you just might not work for you really pretty years ago. So maybe we can get you connected with people than 100%. Alright? You could do one of these. Doing it. He's like, like, like you to me, like it's only for a very down to earth. You have to be very down. Are you already done saying, I love your dollar? Love the jaw line. So let's pause right there. And here I'll show you the pictures. My ISO was at 1600, very high, but it's because I had to compensate for the darkness, right? And like I said, an ISO lesson, it's okay to bump your ISO up if you have the capability to. Some cameras are better at higher ISOs and others by ISO was at 1600, f-stop was at 1.8. And then I think I was at one over 200th of a second. So that was my settings there. The premise of approaching random people for me is to make myself a better and more knowledgeable photographer. Because you're in a different scenario. Every single time it requires you to know what you're doing with your camera. So let's look at another example of that are, so in this one, I'm with my homie Nick, and we were doing some street photography, but He's strictly a street photographer and I want it to get him out of his comfort zone. So I propose that we approach random people. And he agreed. So this is what came of it. I took some pictures of this woman. He also did and they came out great. So let's let's see. Excuse me. I had an awesome address out. I think they were like cost playing and some kind of way. I don't know what this is, but okay, Cool. It was perfect. Unnatural. That guy was awesome. It was awesome. All emotion for sure. Okay. Go back here. Honestly, I didn't think Nick would do as well as he did. I was kinda setting them up for failure because I know he doesn't deal with people like that. All right. Let's pause it right there. So you see what I mean last time it was night, this time as day. So what do you think my settings where it was more doable, right? For the ISO part of things, my eyes on this one was at 100, the lowest they can possibly go, which is good, That's where you want it to be. And that's because it was plenty of light outside, right? I was at an F18 and I was at one over five hundredths of a second. So higher shutter speed, just in case I need to capture some extra motion. That's it. Our next we're going to dive into my actual photo shoots. This is like a one-on-one type of thing. One photographer, one model. Now these types of scenarios are more controllable because you're there for a purpose. You know why you're there. You arrive to the photoshoot knowing I'm gonna be taking photos of this one-person. Easy enough, right? But whether you shoot natural light or flash photography, that is when the techniques in the skill, in the knowledge comes into play, right? I am, I'm mostly natural light shooter. So I'm going to show you how I approached indoors and outdoors shooting. Okay. Well, let's get into it. So this is Janine. I've shot where they're like, I think three times now, actually two or three times now. Every time it's been a banger, me, her shoot a lot. But I consider all the models I shoot with good friends. So it's a good photographer model relationship I tried to have with all of my clients a little bit more. That way. These were amazing. But there's a couple of things I need to go over, right? So when you're indoors, you're relying on either light from outside or a low aperture number, right? And sometimes that's not good because when you go into the one-point 2s and stuff, it can be hard to nail your focus. So what do you do? Well now you have to bring your ISO up, right? So I hope you guys are catching what I'm putting down. Basically it's like when it's dark, obviously ISO is the solution to that, but it should be your last solution and every situation, you should never bring your ISO up unless you absolutely have to. In this case, I did. I was at an F18, very low, very wide open aperture, right? My ISO was at 800, so it was a little bit up there but not too bad. And then I was shooting at a 125th of a second. So those were the settings I used to get these pictures and they turned out beautifully. And like I said, high ISOs may not affect you in the same way as it may someone else because of the camera that you have. So keep that in mind. But you can see that we're in a hotel, right? You see all these windows on the side there. What you need to do when you're inside is stick to the natural light. If you're shooting natural light, if you're shooting flash, obviously you're gonna be shaping your own life. You don't need to worry about that. But if you're indoors and you're hurting for light and you don't want to bring your ISO up, just move closer to a window and that will give you more light to bring into your camera. And secondly, it's important to remember to add your own style to things. I liked doing cloning images. So I took this picture of her, put her in four different chairs and merge them together. My editing style is a little different from others. Have your signature, separate yourself from others. Alright, let's move on to another photoshoot. And this one was a while ago, but this one was with my friend Camilla. You come closer here. Backup a little bit. What's the K4 on your on your key chain? My name of n. Now this is a funny like you guys are interested. You should go watch some YouTube videos. They're always funny, but you see the photos that we get here? Amazing. Okay. I'm going to show you it separately right here. So yes, we're indoors and you see how dark it is in there, but you see how good the pictures look. And this is what I was saying about when you're inside and you're hurting for light, you move closer to a window and now you have this abundance of natural beauty. Light. I was at f 1.8. Iso only get to 100, the lowest it can be because I was so close that window, the natural light was working for me. And then one over 200th of a second. Shutter speed, perfect settings right there. So when you're shooting inside, move closer to some natural light. That's it. And in case you guys are still confused, I have another example. I got you. I got you always find it. What's your Instagram? So this right here is Adrian. Beautiful Shoot I had with her and she claimed that she had no experience modelling. And I said There's no way because she did an amazing job. Right. So yeah, I'll pause it right here. You see me doing there with the GoPro. I pause right there. Look at these pictures. Now we are outside a little closer to sunset, right? I'm at a f 1.8 for my aperture, 100 ISO, and one over three 20th of a second for my shutter speed, I'm able to have all the settings where I want them because there's plenty of light to play with. The time of day that you're shooting depicts what your settings are going to look like. Now let's go back to that video and see that we moved inside of a furniture store. It takes some more photos. You'll see in these that I had to bump my ISO up because we're in a darker area where inside there is a bit of natural light coming through, but it's not enough light to not have me bring my ISO up. So I had to F11 again. I saw was at 400 this time because I needed more light. Then one over one 25th of a second. Shutter speed. Alright, so let's see how we would approach a landscape photo in a product photography photo, both outside, there is this thing called white balance awareness. I'm just kidding. I just made that up, but basically I just trying to tell you that you need to be aware of your white balance when you're outside and you're taking photos, the photos need to be coming out of your camera as realistic as possible. So cloudy days usually give you a lot of bluish tones, cooler tones, I guess you would call it selecting the cloudy white balance option will raise your cameras color temperature to a higher color temperature to counteract those bluish tones to us watch this video and we'll take a look at these photos. Yeah, casualty smacking eyes with it, with my accent about they're stuck. Stuck. There you go. Boom, there's the Axe. Awesome. So seeing those pictures, be aware of your white balance when you're shooting, take a look what your scene looks like and if it doesn't look like that and your camera, or it looks odd, maybe it looks a little too warm or too cold. You can change that in the white balance. Make sure you do that. And you always have to remember to have fun. By far, one of the funny sheets I've had car wash photoshoot. It's amazing. Deal with two girls like I did. Maybe a couple. Water gun fights are mandatory. So we're not going to go to the VR classroom today, guys. I don't have any homework for you. I do. I want you guys to continue and that's all I can ask. Continue. Whenever gets hard, keep going. These are all the magazines that have been published in I say that to say this, that did not come easy and it did not come quick. I had to invest a lot of time and money into my education for me to be even considered to be in these magazines, small victories lead to something bigger. So I just want you guys to make sure you remain grateful for where you're at, that you even have the opportunity to partake in a skill and a craft. As this one continues to drop your work into the projects and resources. I really want to build a safe and supportive community under there where we can admire each other's work. So I would love to keep seeing what you guys creating with the knowledge that you've picked up from this class. And if you ever have any more questions or you're unsure about something or something you didn't understand, feel free to send me a DM. I will answer. Instagram TikTok, leave a comment and my YouTube video, I'll make a whole YouTube video for you. I'm really here for you guys and I want to, I want to let you know that there are other creators that will be there for you. I'm saying as a role model, as a bank of information, just somebody just talked to whatever you need me for. I am here for you 100%. So you can find me on Instagram at heart, the plug, YouTube, TikTok is all the same. So hard to plug on all three of those. I have a website, hard to plug.com, easy to find. If you feel so inclined, spray loved, beloved, and I will see you guys later.