Photography Basics (cellphone to DSLR)

Photography is getting popular nowadays because of the rise of cellphone usage. Even though you are not a professional photographer, you may need to know the basics of photography.

It all began with light

The most important thing in photography is the light. The principle was using a light sensitive material (film roll) to store the images in the past.

Light sensitive chemical over the film was reacting to the sunlight and turning into the black depending on the exposure time. Of course these film was storing the images as inverted color. So that black means white, red means cyan etc.

As we understand here, more light absorption means lighter images. This critical time is known as exposure time and has to be less than in a second in many cases. Typically we are using around 1/200 second when there is enough light for outdoor photography. This is also important when shooting moving objects.

We should avoid long time exposure if there is no reason. Otherwise our photos might be blur. If you need to shoot at night, you have to use a tripod to stabilize your camera.

Digital evolution

After a while the digital camera was invented in 1975. But the principle did not changed. We still control the shutter speed mechanically (DSLR only). The only difference is we do not need light sensitive film anymore. It was replaced with an electronical sensor. This sensor is actually an array of light sensors (LDR). Because of the advancements in CMOS manufacturing technology, we have a chance to get much denser light sensor arrays.

Then the signals are collected by an electronic circuitry and stored solid state storage. This is how we get images without any quality loss and most accurate way.

The era of cellphones

Today, we all have cellphones. Camera is one of the most important feature on our devices. It is also a great marketing technique to draw our attention on a new model. These little devices are quite capable of taking high resolution photos even they have tiny sensors.