Camera Basics you need to know

Things you need to know in order to start shooting in manual

Aamer Seth
6 min readMay 2, 2021
Photo of me by Annabelle Hartwich

Let’s say you’ve got your first camera, been shooting around in automatic mode and really enjoying it! But, now you want to explore, get more creative, have more control over your camera and start getting specific photos that you have in your head, saw on Instagram or maybe saved to your Pinterest board.

In order to do this, you need to start shooting in manual. Shooting in manual lets you have complete control over the camera so that you are able to calibrate the settings to get the shot that you want. In particular, you have control over four big things: ISO, Shutter speed, Aperture and White Balance.

ISO

ISO stands for International Organization for Standarization. However, to be completely honest, nobody cares what it stands for, and frankly most people don’t know. I just did a quick google search.

ISO is the camera’s sensitivity to light, and it ranges from 100–25,600. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive the camera is to light, which means the photo will get brighter. However, the higher the ISO, the more grain is introduced in the photo, so there is a give and take. Additionally, ISO also depends on the model of camera that you have. With higher end cameras, you are able to…

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Aamer Seth

A young University student very curious about many things and here to share his thinking. Interested in Photography, Technology and sharing stories.