Camera ISO - Sensitivity Towards Light

Camera ISO refers to the camera sensor’s sensitivity towards the light. Normally, we can see ISO100, ISO200, ISO400, ISO640, ISO800 and so on. Light sensitivity increase when the number increase. The higher the sensitivity, the less light is needed to make an exposure. It is very helpful if we are able to control the ISO setting especially during indoor or night shot without flash.

ISO Values For Different Atmosphere
ISO 100 and lower - Excellent quality for brightly lit places, such as in bright sunlight outside. Allows for lots of detail and great image quality.
ISO 200 - Should be generally be used on dull days such as overcast and cloudy, only a tiny bit of noise.
ISO 400 - Great for indoor photography for flash and no flash – best use for high speed photography – but noise can be seen.
ISO 800+ Only really used effectively on high quality digital SLR cameras, most shots taken like this with a small compact camera will look extremely noisy.

How ISO Helps?
i. Increasing Shutter Speed
Higher ISO settings are generally used in darker situations to get faster shutter speeds. The higher the sensitivity, the less light is needed to make an exposure. Hence, the shutter speed can be increased through increasing ISO value. Appropriate shutter speed allows you to capture the specific moment at the right time without affecting much the image quality.

ii. Reducing Blur For Indoor or Night Shots
We always face insufficient light problem when taking indoor or night shots (without external flash support). Blur occurs in the picture due to the slow shutter speed under low ISO value. Through increasing ISO value, we can get faster shutter speed, and this will directly reduce the probability of image blur.

Disadvantage of High ISO – Creating Noise (Little White Dots)
If we are using very high ISO such as ISO3200 during indoor or night, it helps to increase shutter speed, however the picture quality will be affected because of the noise even though there is noise reduction function in the camera. Hence, ISO value shouldn’t exceed ISO1600 under active noise reduction function.

Noise (White Dots) Occurs When Using Very High ISO Value

* Please note that light painting or car trail photography use lowest ISO in order to create long exposure (slow shutter speed) to capture the long moment and star effect from the light.

My Experience with SONY Cyber-shot

2006 -the year I started to touch Digital photography, it was started with SONY Cyber-shot, DSC-S600! It was an amazing 1st time experience when we could use a camera device to take pictures and view the output instantly, even delete the unwanted picture by just one click.

Form 6 life and BBQ like kampung kia

From 2006 until 2008, it has helped me to take a lot of nice pictures, keeping many nice memories during Form 6 and the first year in University such as school mate gathering pictures, vacations pictures and so on.

Besides that, during the vacation to Pulau Langkawi (2008), a good friend of mine, r Zhe was using SONY Cyber-shot too. He was using DSC-T50 Model. It was great to have a partner using SONY Cyber-shot as we could discuss about the features and digital photography together!

1st year in UUM: 2 vacations to Cameron Highland and Pulau Langkawi

During 2009, my university roommate, Kok Seng bought a new SONY Cyber-shot, T2! This is a cool device with slim camera body, touch screen, and build in software function.

I borrowed his camera few times, taking a lot of activity pictures especially SIFE UUM events.

2nd year in UUM: Founded SIFE UUM together with my aspiring teammates

In the same year, my girlfriend’s sister bought a SONY Cyber-shot, DSC S-750! And, I used to play with it always as my girlfriend bringing it together when we have dating. This device has taken many nice pictures for me and my girlfriend.

Life with Tiffany Lo

I had a great experience with SONY Cyber-shot along my life, even today I’m using SONY DSLR Alpha-200 model! 

I’m proud to say that 99% of the digital images in my computer were taken by SONY Cyber-shot and SONY Alpha, and always have some great times browsing those nice memories!

Aperture and F-Number

In photography, Aperture refers to how big the lens hole opens for the light to travel across. High aperture means big hole, and low aperture means small hole. Controling aperture stop of the photographic lens means controling the amount of light reaching the film or image sensor.

F-Number or F-Stop
In our DSLR, f-number is used to describe the aperture of a lens. Please be aware that the f-number and the aperture level have inverse relationship. What is that mean?
Small f-number = High aperture
Large f-number = Low aperture
F-number or aperture also explain the speed of the lens. Higher aperture (Smaller f-number) has better lens speed. Professional Zoom Lens with aperture f2.8 is faster than the Normal Zoom Lens with aperture f3.5-f5.6.

How to read the lens aperture?
If you have a 18-55mm, f3.5-5.6 lens, it doesn’t mean that maximum aperture is f3.5 and the minimum is f5.6. However, it describes the maximum aperture vary with the focal length.
Focal length = 18mm; Maximum aperture = f3.5 
(Range is about f3.5 to f22)
Focal length = 55mm; Maximum aperture = f5.6 
(Range is about f5.6 to f22)
If you see a 18-200mm, f2.8 lens, it means the maximum aperture is f2.8 no matter the focal length is 18mm or increased to 200mm.

What can Aperture do for us?
1. Background Blur
Under a same focal length and camera distance from the shooting object, high aperture can increase the background blur, low aperture can decrease the background blur.
*Using manual focus has greater control to create foreground blur or background blur.

2. Increasing Shutter Speed
Under a same ISO level and lighting condition, high aperture can increase the camera’s shutter speed. In contrast, small aperture decrease camera’s shutter speed.
*When the light is not enough, maximize the aperture/minimize the f-number (shutter speed increased) can decrease the probability of blur picture output.

Now you can try to use the Aperture Priority mode (A or Av) and snap some objects with different aperture, then see the effects... ^ ^

Shutter Speed

What produce a photograph? The very basic 3 elements combination for camera setting is Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO (Light Sensitivity), creating various parameters of an exposure. And, we called it exposure triangle.

So what is shutter speed?
Shutter speed is the time length for our camera use to take a photograph, or the duration when we press on the shutter button until the camera releases it.
In technical aspect, shutter speed is a term used to discuss exposure time:
- The effective length of time a camera's shutter or lens is open.
- Duration of light reaching the film or image sensor.
There are different shutter speed in DSLR such as 1/1000s, 1/500s, 1/250s, 1/125s, 1/60s, 1/30s, 1/15s, 1/8s, 1/4s, 1/2s, 1s and so on. And, the “s” means “second”.
1/60s means “1 divide by 60” second or 0.016667 second shutter duration.

What can shutter speed do?
Fast shutter speed can freeze the moment and slow shutter speed can create blur motion in a photograph.

Let’s see some examples below:

Got it? Get your camera and test withome shot! Good luck...
Note: Keep the shutter speed at 1/lens focal length or faster to minimize hand shake.

Photoshop Shortcuts For Beginners

Changing Workspace: Window Tab -> Workspace -> Basic or Legacy

Create New Document: Crtl + N

Zoom In: Ctrl + Space + Left Click

Zoom Out: Ctrl + Alt + Space + Left Click

Moving Art board (When Art board is zoom until larger than screen): Space + Left Click & Drag

Fit On Screen: Ctrl + 0

Viewing Actual Pixel: Ctrl + Alt + 0

Image Size: Ctrl + Alt + I

Canvas Size: Ctrl + Alt + C

Switching Foreground & Background Color: X

Move Tool: V

Type Tool: T

Create New Layer: Ctrl + Shift + N

Duplicate Layer: Ctrl + J

Delete Layer: Select Layer + Delete Button

Undo (Step Backward): Ctrl + Alt + Z

Redo (Step Forward): Ctrl + Shift + Z

Save As (New File / Other File Formats): Shift + Ctrl + S

Open Document: Ctrl + O

Let's practice it and make our photo editing and design more efficient!
Click here to download Adobe Photoshop CS3 Full Version Keyboard Shortcuts (PC)

The Four Main Modes in DSLR

Before we see the four main modes, let’s have some basic understanding on the scene modes.

Scene modes such as Landscape, Night, Macro, Portraits, Sports, Sunset and so on are the modes preprogrammed by the manufacturer to automatically give the best exposure and settings for each scene. Sometimes we call it Auto Modes because we just need to select the scene and let the camera adjust the setting combination automatically.
To read more about Scene Modes, please click here.

PASM Modes
The four main modes, sometimes abbreviated "PASM", are Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual. Normally you can found it in the manual guide when you purchase a new DSLR.

So what are the differences?
P: Program mode has the camera calculate both shutter speed and aperture (given a manually or automatically selected ISO). The difference between Program mode and Full Auto mode is that in program mode, only the exposure is automatic, while other camera settings (e.g., shooting mode, exposure compensation, flash) can be set manually; in Full Auto mode everything is automatic.

A or Av: Aperture priority or 'Aperture value' enables manual control of the aperture, and shutter speed is calculated by the camera for proper exposure (given an ISO sensitivity).

S or Tv: Shutter priority or 'Time value' enables manual control of the shutter speed, and aperture is calculated by the camera for proper exposure (given an ISO sensitivity).

M: Manual mode both shutter speed and aperture and independently set manually (with ISO sensitivity also set manually), where proper image exposure requires accurate manual adjustment.

There are some less commonly seen modes like:
- Sv (Sensitivity Priority or ISO Priority)
- DEP (DEPth of Field Mode)
- A-DEP (Automatic DEPth of Field Mode)

These modes are only available with certain brands and models.
*Source from Wikipedia.org

Canon vs Nikon (Buying DSLR)

Using DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera) is a recent trend and causing many people want to own one and taking good picture. When beginners want to buy DSLR, they ask: Which brand I should buy? Canon or Nikon?

Personally, I have faced this question for many times. This is not a good question when we want to buy DSLR, so my answer is “No Answer”. Both of them are good and have their own competitive advantage. Today Canon and Nikon battle for the top spot in the SLR market, while Olympus, Pentax and Sony duke it out for a position in third.

Of course we know that the purpose of buying DSLR is taking picture, but the question is what kind of picture you like?

Some people like to take picture outdoor (vacation or landscape), some people like to shoot models (portrait) and some people like to take photo indoor (events or wedding). The choice of DLSR should be suite to type of photo you like. And, the lens and flash (speed light) will affect your picture output too. There are many genre of photography such as Portraits, Candid, Street, Landscape, Sports, Nature, Travel, Wedding, Events, Stage, Food, Product, Macro and so on. Hence, understand the type of picture you like is essential before buying DSLR.

A good question when you want to buy DLSR should be: “I like to take XXX pictures, which model I should buy?” instead of “I want to take good picture, which brand I should buy?”
Oh ya... you need to deal with your budget too!

I understand that people want to know about the differences between Canon vs. Nikon. My tip is don’t ask the DSLR beginners and the camera promoters to differentiate the brands for you. You should listen to the professional photographers who have tried both brands and discover photography for many years (at least 5 years).  Only these photographers have the experience and eligible to talk about the review.

I’ve found some good reviews from experienced photographers for Canon and Nikon. They have tried both and their reviews are useful for people who want to know about the Nikon DLSR and Canon DSLR.
*Must compare same level of different brand DSLR, eg: Entry level, Amatuer DSLR, Semi-Pro DSLR, else, you won't get a accurate comparison result! 

These are the links:
1. http://www.digital-slr-guide.com/canon-vs-nikon.html
2. http://www.digitalphotographywriter.com/

According to Willy Foo (Technopreneur, Photographer, Marketer) from Singapore, Nikon DSLR have better flash control, vibrant colors and well designed body. Canon DSLR have better Pro lens like TS-E lenses and more natural colors.

So, if you are interested (now or in the future) of taking a lot of photos using flash instead of natural light, then go with Nikon. Nikon has done a great deal of work to ensure that their cameras communicate well with their flashes - something Nikon calls the "Creative Lighting System" or CLS for short. However, everyone has their own preference on both brands.

Every Photographer Must Believe
Finally, no matter what brand & camera you are using, remember that every camera can take good picture, it depends on how you utilize your the camera, your creativity, the environment and so on. Think creatively, you can take good picture even with a iPhone camera or digital camera.

I will write about the setting of DSLR in my next post. Stay tuned…

Photography Glossary (Starting of New Topic)

Soon from now, I’ll increase the topic in my blog. I’m going to blog about photography. For people who would like to learn about photography and DSLR from the basic, you are welcomed to visit my blog.
For the beginning, I post about the photography glossary. It would be helpful if you understand the short form of the terms because you can understand what other photographers talk about easily.

These are some important Photography Glossary
DSLR - Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera

SLR - Single Lens Reflex Camera

PSAM / PASM Modes - Camera Modes: Program/Shutter/Aperture/Manual

AF / MF - Auto Focus / Manual Focus

Shutter Speed - Length of time a shutter is open

Aperture - Size of opening in lens to allow light into camera

ISO - Sensitivity of Sensor or  International Standards Organisation

F. Number - A number describing the inverse relation to the Aperture. Small F number E.g. F2.8 has a bigger aperture than F5.6

EV - Exposure Value or Exposure Compensation Value

Focal Length - Level of 'zoom' of the lens (ie. 35mm)

DOF - Depth of Field

Bokeh - Out of focus backgrounds (Background blur)

IS / VR - Image Stabilisation / Vibration Reduction

RGB - Red, Green, Blue

CMYK - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key (Black)

WB - White Balance (Colour Model)

CCD - Charge Coupled Device (Image Sensor)

CMOS  - Complementary Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor, Image Sensor capable of High ISO

CF Card - Compact Flash (Memory Card)

SD Card - Secure Digital Memory Card

JPG / JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group (Image Type)

TIF / TIFF - Tagged Image File Format (Image Type)

Pixel - One of the many dots that form an image

MP - Megapixel (or one million Pixels)

DPI / PPI - Dots Per Inch / Pixels Per Inch

If you want to know more about it, you can go to Wikipedia or Google and search for the information.
Next post will be about the myth of Brand – Canon vs Nikon
Stay Tuned... ^ ^