Search Results for: back to basics

Back to Basics: A Beginner’s Guide to Capturing ‘Moody’ Portraits

Rachel and Daniel of Mango Street—one of the most popular photography channels on YouTube—have put together a great, straight-to-the-point guide to capturing that "moody" style of portrait that's become a popular counter-point to the "dreamy" overexposed look that often dominates lifestyle imagery.

Back to Basics: How Best to Hold a Camera When Shooting in Low-Light

One of the advantages a beginner in any field has over an intermediate or professional who is trying to improve their craft, is that the beginner has nothing to unlearn. So while the idea of holding your camera correctly for better low-light shots might seem painfully basic, this is one of those fundamentals you'd rather learn right the first time.

Back to Basics: Sharpening Best Practices for Photoshop and Camera RAW

One of the parameters first time photographers frequently go nuts with in post (to their detriment) is sharpening. So whether you're editing in Camera RAW or Photoshop (or even Lightroom, for that matter), the basic tips and tricks in this Photoshop Playbook tutorial will help make sure your photos don't end up as one big artifact.

Back to Basics: The Difference Between SD SDHC & SDXC, and Which is Best for You

I will start off by saying I am partial to SanDisk memory cards, but I recently found a great write up on their website that is pretty much universal, explaining the difference between SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards. I wanted to share this information with everyone because sometimes it can be confusing trying to figure out which SD Card is best for you.

Back to Basics: Short Walkthrough Covers the Exposure Triangle for Beginners

When you're first learning the basics of photography, one of the first things you find out about after dropping out of 'auto' is the exposure triangle.

Consisting of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, the exposure triangle is a system that takes into account each of those variables, making exposure adjustments a breeze when you need to change one of the variables for a particular situation (say, freezing motion or achieving a shallow depth of field).

Back to Basics: Useful Tutorial Shows You How to Properly Assess & Clean Your Gear

Most camera gear is built with longevity and strenuous activity in mind, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the best possible care of your gear. To that end, Canon’s service and support team recently put out this video showing the best practices for making sure that you properly and thoroughly clean and check your gear so it can keep working for as long as possible.

Back to Basics: Flash Photography Tips for Beginners

Sprinkled in-between the more advanced lighting, photography and post-processing tutorials that we feature on the site, we've been trying to add in the occasional basic tutorial or walkthrough for the beginning photographer. Not everybody who reads PetaPixel is a pro- or even an intermediate-level photographer, and we all have to start somewhere.

The video above falls squarely into the "for beginners" category (in case the title didn't clue you in), and even though it was uploaded all the way back in 2010, it will still come in very useful if you're just starting out.

Back-to-Basics: 7 Street Photography Tips for Beginners

Photographer Evan Raft recently published a list of 7 helpful, back-to-basics tips for anybody who is interested in getting started with street photography. If you're a beginner, this video is a great place to start before going out and trying to capture your first few street shots.

Back to the Basics: ISO and Noise Explained

As photography technology continues to improve year in and year out, the ISO ranges we’re capable of pulling quality images from are getting truly ridiculous. But as amazing as the improvements in ISO are, it's important to have an understanding of what ISO actually is and how you can make the most of these growing numbers.

It's those questions that Mike Wallace tackles in the detailed video above, as he breaks down that part of the exposure triangle that is all too often misunderstood or ignored altogether.

The Best Camera Bags and Backpacks in 2022

The Best Camera Bags and Backpacks in 2024

A photographer's camera bag is the unsung hero of the working professional. Without it, photographers simply could not do their jobs. But for as many good bags out there, there are hundreds of bad ones. Let's sift through that noise.

The Basics of Color Gels in Photography

The use of strong and complementary colors is an ever-growing trend in photography. Many modern advertising campaigns feature bold and contrasting colors in order to draw your focus to the product or message they are trying to sell. One way to create such vibrant color in your own images is by using colored gels (also known as color filters, filter gels, lighting gels, or simply gels).

Photography Club Basics: Why You Should Join a Camera Club

If you want to become a better photographer, learn more, get and stay inspired, meet others who share your passion, and make new friends, well, nothing beats a camera club (also known as a photography club). Joining a club might even help lead you to a new career. I know it did for me and many other photographers.

An Introduction to Backgrounds for Portrait Photography

Photographer Miguel Quiles has created a quick, crash-course style video that explores the different types of backgrounds you can buy as a portrait photographer, and then explains why collapsible backgrounds might be the best option if you're just starting out.

Basics of the Histogram: From Foe to Friend

A long, long time ago, that is, in days of film photography, it was a rather difficult task to learn how to produce properly exposed pictures. There was no instant feedback and the only way to see how good of a job you did exposing the scene was to wait until the picture was developed.

Lightroom Basics: How to Edit a Milky Way Photo

This short Lightroom tutorial will show you how to turn a simple RAW photo of the Milky Way into the kind of bright, vibrant Milky Way shot you're probably used to seeing online—complete with out-of-this-world colors.

To the Arctic and Back with the Leica M, a Camera Review

It was early in 2014, long enough after the introduction of the Leica M (also known as the ‘Typ 240’, or ‘M10’) when I finally bit the bullet and decided to sell my trusty Leica M-E for this newest, rather different digital rangefinder camera from the German niche camera maker.

How I Shot Award-Winning Wildlife Photos in My Back Garden Safari

A little over a year ago, a friend stayed for the weekend and, one morning, spotted a fox in my garden. I didn't see it myself, so was a little skeptical initially, thinking it was probably a neighbor's cat. A couple of weeks later however, I finally spotted the fox too and grabbed a photo of it with my iPhone. That brief moment was the catalyst for a year-long project, and one that would ultimately see me winning awards in the two biggest wildlife photography competitions in the industry.

Bound by Law: A Comic Book That Will Teach You the Basics of US Copyright Law

Want to learn the basics of US copyright law without having to spend eons going through imageless websites and backbreaking textbooks? Check out Bound by Law. It's a comic book that translates abstract and confusing copyright laws into easy to understand "visual metaphors."

By the time you're through with the 72-page comic, you'll know quite a bit about the basics of copyright law, including fair use, infringement, and public domain.

How Photographers ‘Photoshopped’ Their Pictures Back in 1946

Retouching and manipulating photographs is done with fancy photo-editing programs these days, but back in 1946, making adjustments required a lot more than a computer, some software, and some pointing-and-clicking skills. Retouching required a whole box of tools, a very sharp eye, and an extremely steady hand.

Foveon: The Clever Image Sensor That Has Failed to Catch On

Back in the early 2000s, Sigma -- a company usually known in the photography community as a lens manufacturer -- released a new type of camera sensor named the Foveon X3. This sensor technology was first patented in 1999 by a company called Foveon, Inc. (later acquired in 2008 by Sigma) and featured an innovative color perception technology: a 3-layer stack of photosensitive diodes.

The 10 Hottest 35mm Cameras You Could Buy in 1991

1991. What a great time to be alive. Seeing movies like Robin Hood and Hook in the theatres, and hearing hits like "Joyride" by Roxette or "Losing My Religion" by REM are some of my favorite pop culture memories of that time. Not to mention watching TV shows like Home Improvement, America’s Funniest Home Videos, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.