EXPOSURE – THE MAIN ELEMENT OF PHOTOGRAPHY

The photography basics are fundamental for anyone who is beginning to work in photography.

You may be wondering, "How can I improve my photography? " It all comes down to building a strong foundation.

Knowing the basics of photography is key to capturing better images and keeping your skills sharp. Although it can be tough when you're just starting out, there are resources out there that can give you a leg up. In this guide, we cover all the important topics of digital photography in an easy-to-understand way with plenty of examples and helpful cheat sheets. We've broken down everything you need to know about the basics so you don't have to spend hours sifting through articles or trying make sense of conflicting information – this is your one-stop breakdown!

1. EXPOSURE – THE MAIN ELEMENT OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Exposure is the most important photography basic and the first photography concept that you need to understand.

You’ve probably heard before the expression “photography is painting with light”, and it’s completely true!

Photography is about capturing light, and exposure is so important because it’s the amount of light collected by your camera.

The photography exposure basics are composed of different elements that we’ll discuss below like the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. The fundamental thing to understand is the effect of exposure, which is to capture the image with a determined brightness (this is also called “Exposure Value”).

Ideally, the image should be correctly exposed, that is, with the perfect amount of brightness where you can see all the detail in the highlights and the shadows. However, in photography exposure there’s no right or wrong, and the artistic choice of many photographers is to capture an underexposed or overexposed image. For now, we’ll focus on the elements to capture a correct exposure.

Exposure basics also has other effects on the final look of the image like the depth of field, the motion, and the digital noise. We’ll also get into this throughout this photography basics tutorial.

On the next page you can see an image showing the basics with the main effect of exposure.