Basic knowledge of SLR lens

What are the basic knowledge of SLR lens? SLR is the most popular viewfinder system, which is adopted by most 35mm cameras. Below I have compiled the basic knowledge of SLR lenses for you. Welcome to read the reference!

0 1. Always reset your camera settings.

Sometimes you can take a good photo when you see a scene, but it is even more frustrating to miss the opportunity because the camera sensitivity and saturation are still at the values taken in the last photo. Avoiding this situation depends on checking and resetting. The settings of your camera need to be changed after taking a photo, so that every opportunity to take the best photo is reserved for the next one.

02. Format, not delete.

Formatting your memory card means erasing all its data and re-recording any information about the camera. Delete your photo. No. Therefore, be sure to format your memory card to minimize the risk of data corruption.

Update your camera firmware.

Firmware is software that transmits images in the camera, sets the parameters of the whole camera, and even determines which functions the user can operate. Always check the website of your machine manufacturer to ensure that the firmware of your SLR camera is the most advanced.

04. Charge your camera.

Don't always assume that the battery of your camera is fully charged, make sure it is fully charged. Charge the battery before going out to make sure it is fully charged. If you often find that your shooting frequency exceeds the shooting time of the battery, please buy a spare battery.

05, set the picture resolution.

Many times, no matter what the subject is, you shoot with the maximum picture resolution provided by the camera. But is it necessary? Sometimes, a smaller picture resolution can actually meet your needs. Sometimes, lowering the picture resolution can not only make your memory card take more pictures, but also improve your shooting speed. If you are taking sports pictures, reducing the resolution will help you avoid the delay caused by the camera clearing the buffer.

06. file format: RAW? JPEG or both?

If you want to do the follow-up operation and repair on the picture, the RAW format is the best choice because of its high color depth. But the RAW format takes up more memory than other image formats, so it takes longer to take pictures with this format, and it also needs to be reprocessed when printing text and pictures. JPEG format, on the other hand, processes data in the camera while shooting, and can be printed or shared immediately. Moreover, this format can be used to carry out continuous shooting for many times at a faster speed and for a longer time. If you don't make large-scale and fundamental changes to the pictures later, you will find that there is almost no difference between the two formats.

As for the final choice, you can choose both when the shooting speed is not very important. Most digital SLR cameras can choose the picture format, and then you can decide what to do with the picture on the computer. Make sure you bring a spare memory card.

07. Test your equipment.

Professional photographers always spend a lot of time testing their cameras when they are not shooting special shots. This can be a test of the best focal length and shutter speed of the new lens, or a test of what values of camera ISO and white balance will get the best picture effect, or a test of the sensor limit in the dynamic range. You can also test your camera like them, so as to know the best and weakest parts of your camera. This is not to get the best pictures, but to learn more about your equipment through testing. Or, you can try some new technologies that may be used in the future.

08. Don't be stingy with the tripod.

A good tripod is as valuable as gold. Don't be stingy with the cost of buying it. It won't take long to buy a tripod for 20 pounds, and it can't fulfill its mission well. A good tripod can give you years of excellent service, thus turning this expense into a wise investment. Of course, don't forget to bring it, otherwise. ...

09, hand-held or tripod shooting

The simple act of putting the camera on a tripod will slow down your shooting speed, which is enough to make you pay more attention to what you are shooting and what you want to achieve. At the same time, putting the camera on a tripod every time you shoot will reduce your creativity, and you can boldly combine the two methods every time you shoot. If you are a devout tripod user, you can try to stay away from the tripod when shooting and see the effect. If you often travel without a tripod, bring a tripod and see how slowing down your shooting will affect your photography.

10, learn to use peripheral aids.

You don't need a tripod to fix your camera. You can get support by leaning against a wall or a tree to avoid shaking the camera when shooting. Similarly, a bag of beans or rice can also provide a more stable shooting platform.

1 1, horizontal line correction

Level is found on the basis of the horizon, which is why the word is named. If your camera has a built-in horizontal function, please use this function. If not, you can invest a little to buy a blood super-special. It will save you a lot of time to modify the photos in photoshop after taking them. Many digital SLR cameras can activate the grid that appears in the real-time view frame when shooting, thus easily obtaining the horizontal version function. Alternatively, the same effect can be obtained by using the autofocus point on the viewfinder.

Check your equipment carefully.

This may sound normal, but please check your camera bag if you need to leave home for long-distance shooting. You can bring a camera, lens and tripod, but if you bring a simple tripod, can it fit your tripod or camera base? If you use COKIN or Lee's filter, do you have the correct caliber adapter ring? These little things are often more likely to ruin your journey than the main equipment.

13, auto focus or manual focus?

It's easy to rely too much on the autofocus function of your camera, and then, in some cases, manual focusing is a better choice. For example, refocusing a fast-moving object in a game, or macro photography that describes local details.

14, what kind of AF focusing should I choose?

Digital SLR may have many chaotic AF focus points for you to choose from, but many times you only need one point to shoot, and that is the center point. Put this on your subject, press the shutter halfway to lock the focus, and then start taking pictures.

15, buying lenses

A bad lens is always bad, no matter what camera you put it on. Therefore, before you decide to get rid of your old digital SLR camera, ask yourself whether it is best to invest in a new lens. Higher pixels and smarter functions may sound attractive, but faster and larger aperture and higher quality optical imaging will help you take better photos on the basis of existing cameras for a longer time.

16, manual focus lens

Most digital cameras (especially Nikon and Pentax) are compatible with a large number of lenses left over from the 35 mm film era and can continue to be used in the electronic age. And these very cheap lenses are the best choice to enlarge the lens for you who don't know the focal length. On the other hand, the imaging quality of some lenses is better than others, and the only way to distinguish these good lenses from bad lenses is to eliminate bad lenses. Generally speaking, zoom lenses and wide-angle lenses have the worst imaging quality. In addition, for the lens that needs manual focusing, the metering mode of the camera itself is unpredictable and unreliable. Then in some cases, some manually focused lenses are quite cost-effective.

17. What kind of focal length do you choose?

Wide-angle lens can increase the visual distance on the object from far to near, while telephoto lens will compress the perspective of this lens. Choosing the focal length of the lens according to your own shooting needs is far better than using a focal length lens that can cover all scenes casually.

18, using hyperfocal distance.

If you want to make the best use of the depth of field of your lens, manually adjust the lens to the hyperfocal distance section, and the image you get will be very clear from hyperfocal distance point, which is half the distance from hyperfocal distance point to infinity.

19. Check the camera frame.

The viewfinder of most SLR cameras can't fully display the picture you shot, so the object you don't want to be shot will easily appear in your picture. The best way to avoid this situation is to view the photos from the LCD screen of the camera after taking them. If there is something you don't like in the picture, you just need to correct your framing and shoot again.

20. shoot more than you need

Even when shooting static objects, you can consider using the continuous shooting function of the camera. The subtle change of light caused by the movement of clouds in the landscape or the change of the subject's expression can be listed as examples of missing the classic moment because only one photo was taken. So choose the continuous shooting function, and then choose the best picture from it.

2 1, preset exposure mode

Strict photographers may disagree, but the exposure setting mode of your camera can't be wasted. The scene shooting mode will set a small aperture to increase color saturation, while the portrait shooting mode combines wide color saturation with soft colors. Both of them can achieve the purpose of pre-shooting, which is helpful to understand the function of preset parameters and the creativity of developing this function.

22, don't forget the camera program transformation.

Often, the automatic mode of the camera is seriously underestimated by users, and the P mode has a combination of two semi-automatic modes: aperture priority and shutter priority. If you want a large aperture, you can get a simple conversion program. If you want a slower shutter speed? Then turn in the opposite direction.

23. Which is better, aperture priority or shutter priority?

Simply put, the aperture controls the depth of field of the picture and the shutter controls the time of taking pictures. Not sure how to choose. Of these two items, choose the aspect that your picture focuses on, and then give priority to this aspect.

24. Determine the dynamic range of the camera

Unless you know the dynamic range of your camera sensor, it is easy to lose the light and dark details in the scene when taking pictures. There are many ways to test the dynamic range of your camera, among which the research method of DxO Lab has tested many single-camera cameras, and you can use their data as guidance.

25. Try using bracketing exposure.

You may be able to use post-production software to correct the exposure of your pictures, but enhancing underexposed photos will increase the noise of the pictures, and it is impossible to repair overexposed photos. If you are not sure which exposure parameter to use, using bracketing exposure will ensure that you get at least one photo with normal exposure, even if you choose the RAW format.

26, research histogram

When a picture displayed on the LCD screen of your digital camera is perfectly exposed, it may not be completely believed. In a bright environment, pictures tend to appear darker than the actual brightness. When you look at the screen at night, pictures will appear brighter than the actual brightness, even if they have been exposed. Histogram is the only way to accurately show whether your picture exposure is normal or not. What needs to be avoided when shooting is to discard highlights and dark shadows. If the histogram is on the left side of the numerical range, consider reducing the exposure and taking a new picture.

27. Expose the high brightness part.

It is much easier to restore the details of underexposed shadow parts than to modify overexposed highlights. Therefore, when the contrast is strong, we must first keep the details of the highlights present.

28. Lock the midtones

The camera's image metering mode can handle most scenes, especially the partial metering mode and spot metering mode, which are very helpful for shooting large areas of light and dark parts. You can use it to read the midtones of nearby objects such as crosswalks or lawns.

29. Evaluate and compare.

When you can accurately read the exposure value, you can use the spotlight of the camera to determine the exposure brightness contrast in the scene. Reading from the brightest bright spots and the darkest shadows is beyond the dynamic range of the camera, so you must accept discarding the bright parts, the dark parts or both. Or you can take two HDR (high dynamic value) photos according to exposure and dark light.

30. Take photos with high dynamic norms.

To test the exposure range of HDR images, we can use aperture priority mode to take two values from the highest brightness and lowest brightness of the scene for experiments. Switch to manual gear, set the aperture size, and use your spot metering as the starting point and ending point of high dynamic range value in turn. Calibrate the shutter speed and stay once until all exposure ranges are covered. Read our high-dynamic photography guide to learn how to take high-dynamic pictures with double exposure, or read the 2 1 high-dynamic photography example.

3 1. Use gradient filters to balance the exposure.

You can use a medium-density gradient filter to balance the brightness of the ground and the sky, thus discarding the uncharacteristic sky in your landscape photography. Best of all, you have a series of gradient mirrors and filters that can be used under different conditions. As an option, you can use two exposure parameters when shooting the scene, one according to the brightness of the sky and the other according to the foreground, and then mix them in the post-image processing software.

32. Use a gray mirror to extend your exposure time.

If you want to extend your shutter exposure time, medium density grey mirror is a good choice. At the same time, they are often used to control the size of the shutter. The triple exposure subtracter allows you to open the aperture three times, thus deepening the depth of field of the scene, which can also be achieved in a bright environment.

33. Polarizer

The function of polarizer is not to take digital online pictures, but to help outdoor photographers avoid reflection and enhance the effect of blue sky in pictures. Don't be frugal and responsible for the price, which will greatly reduce the quality of the picture.

34. Black and white: Early or late?

If you don't explicitly print a black-and-white photo from the memory card, or take a color photo and turn it into black-and-white in the later software, you will better grasp the shooting process. If you decide to take black-and-white photos in JPEG format, don't forget that in the camera's color filter system, red, orange and yellow * can add a dramatic effect to the boring sky, and orange can also help eliminate stains and stains in portrait photography.

35. Use the preset white balance function.

Because it is processed inside the camera, if you want to make your JPEG format picture normal, you can only set it in advance when taking pictures. Therefore, use the preset options of your camera (daytime, shadow, tungsten lamp condition, etc. ) instead of automatic white balance. Of course, if you take photos in RAW format, you can safely use automatic white balance and then correct your photos in post-processing.

36. White Balance Surround Mode

If your picture is in JPEG format, you can shoot it in white balance surround mode. JPEG format can take up the minimum space of your memory card and save a lot of time to correct pictures with incorrect white balance.

37, using the wrong white balance

Deliberately setting the wrong white balance can add different colors to your picture. If you set the white balance as the tungsten lamp lighting option, the picture will be blue when you shoot in daytime, and orange when you shoot in tungsten lamp with the white balance option during daytime. In the sunset, it is feasible to use an automatic white balance camera, but using another effect will bring a comprehensive warm tone to the picture, which is exactly what you want to capture. This is a small "trick" brought by the cloudy mode, which is used to warm up the scene with cool colors.

38. Set color standards

If you want the color of the picture to be consistent from beginning to end, set a color standard in the first positive frame. When the camera starts to process the picture, set the gray point value (both black point and white point value) as the standard reference number, and your camera's built-in software will match the color standard you set in a series of subsequent photos.

Use a machine with a flash.

Machine flash can be used to highlight dark details, but it can also be used to create dramatic photos. Use the exposure compensation function of your camera to reduce the exposure by half, and then increase the flash exposure compensation by half to balance the exposure (some cameras allow you to correct the background light without affecting the flash exposure, in which case you don't need to increase the flash exposure by half). In this photo with flash exposure, the illuminated subject will be well presented in a delicate dark background.

40. Turn off the flash of the camera.

Keeping the flash away from the camera will change the effect of your portrait shooting, especially the professional flash controlled by the camera wirelessly. You can try to use a reflector to reduce the reflection of hard wires.

4 1, high-speed flash memory

The duration of flash exposure is much shorter than that of your camera, which makes it "freeze" the shooting of high-speed events. The easiest way to start is to film the falling of water droplets. All you need is a darkroom, a flashlight and patience. Follow the instructions to take amazing water droplet photography and start your first step in high-speed flash photography.

42. Take a video with your camera.

Digital cameras with photography function use CMOS sensors and use "rolling" shutter to shoot video, which will produce some unexpected effects for your shooting. The rolling shutter exposes each frame one by one in sequence. From top to bottom, it works the same as a scanner scanning a file. If the camera doesn't move when shooting, there will be no problem. If the camera shakes the lens when recording, especially in the horizontal direction, a single picture on the same horizontal plane will be deformed. Using telephoto lens in hand-held camera will aggravate this phenomenon, so it is best to use tripod and wide-angle lens. Sensors using CCD originals are not affected because they use spherical shutters. They take complete photos of each frame at the same time, just like taking still photos.

43. Select the frame rate of the video.

Most SLR cameras with video function provide a series of video frame rates for you to choose from. In Britain, the TV system is PAL, with 25 frames per second. If you need to play your video on TV, you need to consider the format of your video when shooting. In addition, if your camera function allows, you can use 50 frames to create a slow-motion effect. When a video is played at 25 frames per second, it will appear to be played at twice the speed of a movie. So a one-minute picture will be played for two minutes. Another frame rate that can be considered is 24 frames, the standard movie frame rate. Although the difference in a frame doesn't sound too big, it is enough to create a focal plane that many filmmakers and TV manufacturers love.

44. Replace the lens

There is a lot of talk about lens dust (some tiny dust stays on the sensor of your camera, thus forming a stain on your photo), and some photographers are paranoid about changing the lens because that is one of the most attractive places of digital SLR. There are some simple precautions when changing lenses. Keep the camera off when changing the lens, because turning off the camera can prevent the electrostatic charge on the sensor from attracting dust. Avoid changing cameras in windy and rainy places, and ensure that the cameras that need to be changed are in a ready state. Finally, when replacing the lens, make sure that the lens access port of the camera is facing down to avoid the risk of dust falling on it.