Photography Basics: Phone or Camera
How light becomes a photo and how to take better ones with the phone in your pocket or any camera, with an animated diagram in every lesson that you step through.
For anyone who takes photos and wants them to look the way the moment felt, whether you shoot on a phone or a camera. No gear to buy and no maths beyond doubling and halving. Every lesson has an animated diagram you step through: light filling the sensor, the aperture opening and closing, a moving ball frozen or blurred, the exposure triangle rebalancing, the band of sharp focus, a white card changing colour, the grid, the sun crossing the sky. You finish able to control brightness and sharpness on purpose, compose a picture instead of just pointing, get skin and sky the right colour, shoot a flattering portrait and a clean night photo, and edit a picture without overdoing it.
By the end you can
- Explain exposure and set aperture, shutter speed and ISO on purpose, trading one against another
- Put the sharp part of the picture where you want it and choose how blurred the background is
- Compose with the rule of thirds, leading lines and framing, and use the colour and direction of light
- Shoot a flattering portrait and a steady low-light photo, then edit it lightly in a sensible order
Light and exposure
- Light, sensors and exposure
A photo is a record of how much light reached each tiny point of the sensor. Learn what exposure means, why a picture comes out too dark or blown out, and how to read the histogram.
- Aperture: how wide the lens opens
The aperture is the adjustable hole in the lens. Learn why a smaller f-number means a bigger opening, how each full f-stop halves the light, and how the opening also changes how blurred the background is.
- Shutter speed: freeze or blur
Shutter speed is how long the sensor collects light. Learn how it halves and doubles in stops, how fast is fast enough to freeze a child running or your own shaky hands, and when blur is the point.
Getting it right in the camera
- ISO and the exposure triangle
ISO brightens the picture after the light is in, at the cost of grain. Learn how aperture, shutter speed and ISO trade stops with each other, and how to choose which one to give up.
- Focus and depth of field
Only one distance is truly sharp; depth of field is how far the acceptably sharp zone stretches around it. Learn to put focus exactly where you want it and to make the background soft or crisp on purpose.
- Colour and white balance
Light has a colour, from candle orange to shade blue, and your eyes hide it while the camera doesn't. Learn colour temperature in kelvin, what white balance fixes, and when to let the warmth stay.
Composing the picture
- The rule of thirds
Moving the subject off-centre is the quickest way to make a picture feel considered. Learn the grid, where to put horizons and eyes, how to leave room in front of a moving or looking subject, and when to break it.
- Leading lines and framing
Roads, rails, fences and shorelines can walk the viewer's eye straight to your subject, and a doorway or branch can frame it. Learn to find them, change your height and angle, and clean the edges of the frame.
- Natural light and golden hour
The same place looks completely different at noon, at golden hour and just after sunset. Learn hard and soft light, where the light is coming from, and how to use shade, clouds and windows.
Real situations
- Portraits of people you know
A flattering portrait is mostly distance, light and focus on the eyes. Learn why a phone held too close makes noses bigger, where to put the light, and how to help someone relax in front of the lens.
- Shooting in low light
At night every stop counts, and you have to choose what to give up: depth of field, sharpness or clean shadows. Learn to hold still, open up, raise ISO, use Night mode, and bounce the flash instead of firing it at faces.
- Edit lightly and put it all together
A few adjustments in the right order make a good photo better; too many make it look fake. Learn a simple editing order, the classic over-edits to avoid, and a one-minute checklist for taking any photo from scene to share.
Keep it, don't just read it
Pathwise brings each idea back just before you'd forget it, with a quick question. Free on Android and on the web, in English and Persian.