Part 1 The Course

In the beginning!

Now before I begin let me say everything here relates to 35mm. That works for digital as well including film as you can set the iso(din asa) rating in the camera. If you are using medium format then I don't expect you need to know this early part of the course. If you do then you should be aiming for a 120mm lens in place of the 80mm. Let's go!

Well as a beginner I expect you want to know what equipment will you need and how much is it going to set you back? Well to seriously join in the course and benefit from what is being taught the basics you will need are these.

Camera (with a lens)

Ok that's not too bad is it. Well we could debate for hours what type of camera, film or digital etc. I think the best thing I can say if you are using film then the camera should be SLR (single lens reflex) have a lens that covers 80mm and have a manual mode.

If you are on the digital road, then again the camera must have a zoom, and have a manual mode. You see it's all very well having a great digital camera that does everything, but later on in the course you will need to be able to adjust the settings manually so you can experiment with different settings and see what they do. Later when we get to high intermediate you will sometimes ignore completely what the camera wants to do!

So how much will this all cost? Well when I started out I always bought second hand because there is always a large choice, and you can pay less than half the new price. (Thank you the guys that upgrade their equipment every other week) It's not quite like this with digital as buying old means buying lower quality. They improve so fast.

You can pick up an old film SLR for next to nothing the names to look out for are Zenit &Practica.

A camera like the one above can be found for £10.00 $20.00 second hand. It's very basic, but that's the whole point of the course. If you really get good then you'll invest in something better later on. Something like this Nikon F80 or N80 in the States. Under £400 it produces fantastic pictures and does everything the top pro boys can do. Just doesn't have the titanium body! The point is don't sit drooling at the Nikon and think there is no point in me doing this I cannot afford all the expensive equipment. Yes you can do it as cheaply as you want to.

So now we have covered the film aspect what about you guys who want to go digital? Well at this stage what I said above will be enough for the early stages, but later on your digital camera will need a hot shoe. (where an external flash plugs on) So think about this when buying.

Next comes lenses. Here we need to think about what we aim to do. You see some of the independent lens manufactures have come on in the last ten years in leaps and bounds, but some haven't, so the best rule of thumb is to know you get what you pay for! Obviously buy the lens made by your camera manufacturer if you can. Otherwise buy the best you can afford. A few years ago I would have said buy a fixed length lens, but zooms are now great and penny for penny save you having to buy 3 fixed. For the type of photography we are doing your lens must cover the 80mm area as this is what we need for close ups of a face.

Don't worry if you don't know why this will be explained very soon. If you have a digital camera then this is why you need a zoom.

OK SO LET'S BEGIN

The very first thing you need to understand about how your camera works, is to understand how it sees light and why we need to meter the amount of light that reaches the film. The pupils of your eyes get larger and smaller depending on the amount of light that is present. And so it is with your camera it, or you control the amount of light that hits the film. How you do this is explained in a back article, but maybe it's not basic enough as it is more to do with studio work..

So light hits your subject, that light is reflected from them to your camera lens. Here it is focused onto the film and the image is made. Too much light and the picture is burnt out, too little and it will be muddy and dark. So we meter our subject and see how much light there is. Now of course we have to adjust the meter so it knows what film speed we are using. So we have three considerations when setting our camera to take a picture. Film speed, aperture and shutter speed. The shutter speed controls how long the film is exposed to the light as the shutter opens and closes. The aperture controls the amount of light that passes through the lens during this period, and the film speed tells us how much light is needed to produce a picture.

So our film speed is set so it is the other two variables we can play around with. A faster shutter speed means we stop any action and capture a still subject. A smaller aperture means we increase the amount of the scene we are taking that is in focus. Everything will be covered in more detail in further parts.

So the speed of shutter and the size of aperture are linked. Film speeds run 60 125 250 and apertures run f5.6 f8 f11. There are more apertures and shutter speeds above and below this is an example.

Our metering gives us this as a result

Now we have a choice if we need a lot of the scene in focus we would choose aperture f11 which would give us a shutter speed of 60. If we wanted a fast shutter speed to capture some action we would choose a shutter speed of 250 which would give us an aperture of f5.6. Do you see how shutter speed and aperture are linked. So each shutter increment, or each aperture increment is called a "stop". So increase shutter speed by one, decrease aperture by one. You have probably heard the expression 1/2 a stop out or similar. Just to add to your confusion each increment in film speed is also called a stop. Ok it's best to think of a stop as a marker point. If you increase by one stop you are doubling the amount of light. A shutter speed of 60 is actually 1/60th of a second. Now if we go down by one stop to 30 which is 1/30th of a second we have doubled the amount of light reaching the film. Now at f11 if we open up to f8 again we have doubled the amount of light the film receives. The same goes for film. If we go from 200asa to 100asa (i.e.: asa = din I'm old!!!) the film will require twice as much light to produce an image. Not sure then read it again.

Normally stops are thought of as aperture readings. "I'm opening up two stops" would mean the photographer is changing from f16 to f8. Yes sorry that's 2 stops. f11 and f8. Don't ask me I didn't make the system. Surely f8 is twice f16. No it's four times as much!!! Table for you to learn from at the bottom. Anyway this same photographer could have just as easily gone down one aperture and one shutter speed, or gone down two shutter speeds. All would produce the same results. Look don't get too bogged down here this will all be covered more fully and completely in future lessons..

So to recap. You meter the scene and the above scale is what you can select from. Normally in Glamour photography aperture is the choice, as film speed isn't so important unless the model is on a horse racing past, or a motorbike. More of why in future lessons.

So why is it so important to understand all this especially if your camera has a program mode? Take a look at this.Close window to return. You would not get this result simply by pressing the shutter unless you were very lucky.

Now you should be able to make sense of this article from October 2000. It's mainly about indoor, but does explain metering. I will explain further about spot, and the different types of metering again in a later lesson. Close the window when finished. Please don't concern yourself with the 5 stop rule yet!! That also comes later. One step at a time and we'll all get there together.

Now your project for part 1.

I want you to take a subject, wife, girlfriend, cat dog, it doesn't really matter. They must have lots of space behind them. A Park or field would be ideal with the sun behind you and slightly to one side. Stand about 3 mtrs away at 80mm on your lens, or there abouts. Focus on their eyes. Set your aperture to the smallest number, if it's a zoom probably around f4.6. Take a picture. Now set it to f11 and take another. Now f16 and take another. Obliviously if your camera has an auto program it will compensate the shutter speed automatically. Otherwise you will have to do this yourself. If the weather is dull then I would suggest 400 asa film. The prints will show you how at the different apertures different amounts of the view are in focus. The first f4.6 will have a beautifully blurred background where as the others more will be in focus until at f16 everything will be in focus, almost to infinity behind your model..

We'll go into far greater detail about selective focusing as it is so important in glamour, so make sure you understand what is happening here.

Now turn your subject into the light so it is coming from directly behind them. Stand about 4 mtrs away and again take your first picture using a general light reading from where you are standing. (Don't have the sun in the viewfinder, use your models head to block it, or wait for some clouds) Next walk up to your subject so their face fills the frame take a reading and remember it. Your camera calls this spot metering. Next walk back to where you were before and take the picture using those settings.

Finally for the last picture split the two readings .If for example the first reading was 250 at f8 and the next reading was 60 at f8 the split would be 125 at f8. Now take your third picture. The first allowed for all the brightness of the sky so your subject will be dark. The next allowed for the subjects skin so the sky will be too bright without any detail. The last is a compromise between the two. Not great but better than the others. Your camera program calls this matrix metering.

I hope that some of you will send your results to me good and bad so we can discuss what is happening in future articles. If you want to take great glamour pictures then understanding the rudimentary stuff will make the complicated stuff much easier to cope with and that's a promise.

OK the shutter speeds and the film speeds are obvious, but there doesn't appear to be any logic to the apertures. It's just something you will learn. It goes back to history when film speeds were read completely differently and that's all you need to know except, there are still some films that hang around due to their popularity that do not conform to the above. ............

There are two - 64asa which is 2/3rds of a stop down on 100asa and 640asa which is 1/2 stop above 400asa. OK?

Look at the aperture list I bet your camera offers sometimes f9.5 if it's electronic. Obviously this is half a stop up on f8 and half a stop down on f11. Is it that important just half a stop? Keep reading next month and don't forget do your project pictures and send them in.

RETURN

©Glamour Photo OnLine 2002