6 Steps to Success

[sjj1805]

S Shutter speed
A Aperture
F Focus
E Exposure
T Tripod
Y Your light

Shutter Speed.
Are you taking a picture of a moving object?
Yes - set your shutter speed to freeze the action OR you may wish to deliberately use a lower shutter speed to blur something to give the picture the impression of movement. This can be running water such as a stream or waterfall. It could be a bird in flight, a racing car or a galloping horse etc.

Aperture.
Perhaps the effect you are looking for is a sharp subject with a burred background. For this effect you need a wide aperture setting. Confusingly in Photography a wider setting has a smaller "F" number so that F2.5 has a smaller depth of field (Not many things in focus) than a narrow setting such as F16. (Lots of things in Focus).

Perhaps you want everything in focus - such as a landscape shot.

Focus
Having chosen a suitable combination of Shutter speed and Aperture you must now concentrate on making sure the subject is in Focus. There will be a focus indicator in your view finder to help you.

Exposure
Your viewfinder will include an indicator to let you know if your settings will produce either an over expose, under exposed or correctly exposed picture. There are various ways to alter your settings to make sure you have a suitable exposure.

a. Use flash or other artificial lighting.
b. Alter the shutter speed
c. Alter the Aperture
d. Change the ISO
e. Use EV compensation

Tripod
Make sure you don't wobble that camera when pressing the shutter button. Use a tripod, lean on something or use faster settings. Use a remote release or the self timer to help avoid camera shake.

Your light (White Balance)
Lastly make sure you have selected the correct White Balance for your lighting source.

If you take pictures indoors without setting the white balance they will come out yellowy or orangey.
If you set your white balance to Tungsten and take a picture outdoors during the day the pictures will come out rather bluish.

[metmot]

Shoot in RAW format if possible. I have salvaged some nice pictures which I made grave errors on white balance and exposure settings while shooting just by having captured them in RAW format.

It takes up more space but it's well worth it.

[amyweaver29]

I just realized that there is so much in taking pictures. I know only it as just taking a shoot.

The SAFETY acronym is very helpful. Had I come upon this before, I could have used the ability of my camera to the hilt and have taken very nice pictures.

Who knows, I could have made an income out taking nice pictures and move forward to taking videos.

Thank you so much.

[kevinnewlove]

Shoot in RAW format if possible. I have salvaged some nice pictures which I made grave errors on white balance and exposure settings while shooting just by having captured them in RAW format.

It takes up more space but it's well worth it.

Very nice advice. I didn't think RAW was worth it until some things like that happened to me.

[lakulo]

SAFETY - very interesting and easy to remember.
Now, I can teach my students using this unique word. Thank you

[adamsc]

Wow, this is a very helpful acronym! Of course, there are much more photography summarization where they come from. I hope knowing these basics will get us on the right track. I wonder we need to follow this explanation that is all we need to explain, properly in our photography journey.

[Batan]

IMHO there is only one step: shoot as much as you can and have fun.

2y ago I got GAS (gear acquisition syndrome), bought a lot of (vintage) lenses and now my head hurts which one to choose... so I take way less photos than before :/

Especially all the 50-58mm Yes I’m looking at you Minolta MD 50mm https://productz.com/en/minolta-md-50mm ... 981/p/6pRx - lens that before was 100% time on my camera. Now choosing between around 20something 50-58mm is haaaard. BTW #2 is Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 58mm 2.0 - lens everyone should own!