YOUR CAMERA HAS YOU!
That’s right. You.
Your camera is the means of recording an image. That is what it does. It does it by you telling it what you want it to do.
You select:
- The metering system. Most cameras have three: (1) spot, (2) evalutive, and (3) center weighted. They may have a different names but most camera have these three. You make a choice before you start shooting and can change it while you are shooting.
- Exposure modes. When you select a mode you are telling the camera what to do. P usually means program and the camera will select both an aperture and shutter speed for a proper exposure based on the metering system you have selected. A or Tv means aperture priority; S or Av means shutter priority; and M means full manual control. In aperture priority mode you select the lens opening and the camera will select a proper shutter speed. In shutter priority mode you select the shutter speed and the camera chooses the correct aperture. In manual mode you select both aperture and shutter speed.
- ISO. How much light do you need. Set it here.
There are also a variety of menu items that will allow you to alter the way your camera interprets an image. Exciting stuff.
In other words, it is not your camera taking the picture–it’s you. Your camera is taking the picture but you are telling it what to make and how to make it.
That is why I am always amazed to hear conversations about how much better this camera is opposed to that camera and that his or her pictures look so much better because they spent $8000 and you spent $800. That my sensor has more megapixels than your sensor and that sensor is full frame as opposed to APS or Micro Four Thirds.
It simply isn’t the camera. It is the photographer. It is about how the photographer interprets what is in front of them and how the knowledge the photographer has about his or her camera gear and photography in general. Of course any photographer can set a camera on full auto and let it rip away at 9 frames a second and probably pull a really great frame out of 70 images. That is not creative photography. I am not sure that it really is photography at all.
The photographer’s knowledge of his or her equipment and photography and the creative vision they have in their mind and hearts is going to make the difference. Not the camera and lens alone.
