Fstoppers – Photography 101 How to Use Your Digital Camera and Edit Photos in Photoshop

When you pick up a digital camera, it's tempting to keep everything in an automatic setting and hope your pictures turn out. If you stick with this plan, you will constantly struggle with poorly shot images. Photography 101 teaches you how to take control of all the manual settings of your digital camera and make the decisions for the pictures you want to create. By understanding how to control your camera, you'll be equipped to take a properly exposed photo every time.
Although all cameras work in the same way, sometimes the various button layouts, names, and settings of different camera brands make the learning process confusing. In order to help, we teach Photography 101 with three different kinds of cameras, a Canon DSLR, a Nikon DSLR, and a Sony point and shoot. We walk you through the different kinds of gear you can buy and explain why some cameras and lenses are more expensive than others. We also show you when accessories, like tripods and camera filters, might be helpful.
Beautiful lighting is essential to creating an incredible photograph. Once we teach how to properly control your camera, we'll guide you through a foundational understanding of light, it's color, direction, and how soft or hard it is. There is beautiful light everywhere, and it's up to you as the photographer to recognize it and use it to your advantage. After we cover natural light, we'll add in the basics of using artificial light, or flash. It's important to understand when flash can be useful and how to use it properly to improve the look of your images.