Photography 101: How to take good photos

Photography 101: What is Shutter Speed?

I love photography, especially travel photography,  and I’d like to help you out with some basic photography tips so you can start capturing the world with your DSLR.

The three most important terms in photography:

- Shutter speed
- ISO
- Aperture (also called F-stop)

These three things are the pillars that any great photographer builds his masterpieces upon. And when you know how to make them work together you will start creating some wonderful photos.

Let's talk about shutter speed, what it is, and why it matters

Shutter speed is the amount of time that your shutter is open. When you take a picture and hear that ‘click,’ that’s the sound of the shutter opening and closing. The shutter covers the camera sensor- basically the eye ball of the camera- and when the shutter opens we get a picture.

Shutter speed is measured in seconds, and if you see, 1/1000, that means the shutter is open for 1/1000 of a second. This is a pretty fast shutter speed. 1/125 is a fairly average speed. A slower shutter speed would be something like 2 seconds.

Why is shutter speed important? Two reasons. Movement and Light.

Movement:

Sometimes we take pictures of football games, or playing babies, or running horses- and these things all move. We can’t really stop them. So we have to input the right shutter speed to capture the image just how we want it.

I have three photos below that are centered around movement. Let’s look at the difference between the photos and their shutter speeds. The shutter speeds are 1/5 (Slow). 1/50 (A little slow). 1/2500 (Very fast).

Thailand fire show – Shutter speed: 1/5 –  This is a slow speed, and this allows you to see that the sparks are long and stretched. This creates a beautiful blur across the photo.

Thailand Fire show – Shutter speed: 1/50 – This is about ten times faster than the previous speed, and the sparks are not so blurred here. You can see each individual spark as it flies off the hot, spinning coals. The sparks are still slightly blurred, but not so much as the previous shot.

Snowball in face – Shutter speed: 1/2500 – This is a very fast shutter speed. You can see every detail of the snow ball as it breaks apart on my friend's face. Imagine what it would look like at a slower speed; you wouldn't get any of that sharp detail, especially for something as quick as a thrown snowball.

So you need to consider if your subject is moving or not. The snowball was moving fast and I wanted a very sharp picture, so that called for the fast shutter speed. However in Thailand, I wanted a beautiful, bright photo, with lots of color smeared across it- so I used 1/5.

You must also consider the movement of your own hand. If you have a steady hand, then you can do well in the slower shutter speeds, such as 1/5 or 1/50. If you know you have shaky hands, then you will need to keep a quicker shutter speed.

Light:

It’s important to consider the movement of your subject, but now you need to think about light as well.

Your camera won’t work without any light present, so we must ALWAYS consider how much light there is when we’re looking at our settings. A slow shutter speed, such as 1/5, lets in a lot of light, and so this is ideal for a night scene.

1/50 is a little slow, and is ideal for photographing indoors, as well as sunsets and sunrises- anywhere with minimal light.

1/400 is fast, and this lets in only a little light. Because of this, 1/400 must be used in a very bright area.

Below are some examples of bad photography. I used the wrong shutter speed intentionally, so you can see how shutter speeds can be misused.

 – 1/5 –  This is a cat in my back yard, but it’s hard to tell what it is. A 1/5 shutter speed lets in so much light that the picture is almost unrecognizable.

 – 1/50 –  Here, too, you can see that there is just too much light coming in through the shutter. The picture is recognizable, but it just doesn’t look good; the dust is practically white because there is so much light coming in.

 – 1/400 –  This is a photo of the same cat from above. While the 1/5 lets in A LOT of light, the 1/400 only lets in a little so this photo is too dark. If I had used the same shutter speed as I had with my friend and the snowball, (1/2500) this picture would just be black. 

In summary:

 – 1/5 –  Lets in a lot of light. Good for dramatic night shots. Makes moving objects blurred.

 – 1/50 –  Lets in a good amount of light. Makes moving objects a little bit blurry.

 – 1/400 –  Lets in a little light. Ideal for daylight. Ideal for stationary or slow moving objects.

 – 1/2500 –  Lets in very little light. Ideal for bright daylight. Makes moving objects incredibly sharp.

So remember, when you're in a place with a lot of light, you want a fast shutter speed.

Here are some good uses of shutter speed

Man on Truck – Shutter speed: 1/320 – This picture has great light, and very little movement. 1/320 allows me to let in all that light to catch the beautiful landscape. 

Thailand Beach – Shutter speed: 30 – When you're in a place with very little light, you will need a slow shutter speed, and a tripod. This photo  would have been pitch black at a faster shutter speed. And it would have been blurry if I hadn't had a tripod.

Thanks so much for checking out the blog. You can always comment below if you have any questions.

Coming soon: ISO settings. How to make pictures brighter, even at a fast shutter speed.

What is Aperture (F-stop) and why does it matter?

And please check out my friends' blogs! They're fantastic.

Wen is just starting her blog, but it's a lot of fun to read.

Renee travels around the world, takes beautiful pics, has awesome adventures, and makes kickass blogs.

Four days. Five countries. 1500 kilometers.

I was in Slovenia- a tiny country that borders Croatia, Austria, and Italy. I needed to be in Spain in four days, to meet my mother, who was flying in to see me.

Due to Europe’s budget airlines, a flight to Spain would have been cheap, quick, and simple. But that’s too easy- and boring. I wanted to see more of Europe, and try new food, and meet great people. So I decided to take busses, trains, and ride-shares from Slovenia to Spain. I traveled during the day, stopped in hostels at night, and got very little sleep through all of it. But hell, you’re only alive once- I say you go for the more interesting of the options you’re given.

Day 1. Ljubljana (Slovenia) to Milan (Italy). 

Ljubljana is a wonderful capital city. It’s modern, it’s clean, it’s small, and it’s a lot of fun to wander around.

Sadly, I only have three pictures of Ljubljana-

Refugees Welcome. (As they should be.) 

The best travel companion you could ask for. (She gave me the last piece.)

The river that cuts through LjublJana.

I took a bus from Ljubljana to Milan. The fare wasn’t much- around 20 dollars.

Milan was an interesting city. Much more graffiti than I would have expected, and REALLY good pizza. As always, I opted for the cheapest hostel, booking it from my wi-fi equipped bus. I was let off in the center of Milan and made my way to the hostel with Milan's metro system.

When you book hostels through websites such as Hostels.com, or HostelWorld.com, or Booking.com, the hostels generally give you directions on how to get there. I’ve found that they’re accurate about 90% of the time. I once spent two hours wandering around a coastal town in Vietnam because the hostel had posted the wrong address.

Arturo

But I arrived at this hostel without incident, and found myself sharing a room with a cool Mexican guy named Arturo. And that night I dined on pizza and beer (yum…)

Day 2. Milan.

I spent the next day exploring Milan with my new friend, Arturo.

Milan had lots of touts, as I expected, and the public parks were wonderful. The architecture was also great, and the city was fun to explore. While on our way back to our hostel, Arturo and I were stopped by two Indian tourists- a man and woman. They had paid for a city bus tour but were leaving Italy and had no use for the tickets. We gladly accepted the tickets, and then rode to our hostel in style, inside a double-decker bus. 

Milan Cathedral

Day 3. Milan (Italy), to Monte Carlo (Monaco), to Nice (France).

Milan had been pretty good to me, but I was excited to go to the next city. Monte Carlo. And after that, Nice, in France. I found a hostel in Nice, and decided to take a ride share to Monte Carlo, which is only a quick train ride from Nice.

Milan has lots of grafitti

I LOVE the ride-share website BlaBlaCar.com. I’ve used it a number of times, and have had really good experiences. Allow me to explain BlaBlaCar- it’s a ride-share program. So imagine that you’re driving from Paris to Brussels, and you need a little gas money. You would go onto BlaBlaCar and sell the available seats in your car- and anyone who needs to go from Paris to Brussels would buy a seat in your car. So if you have four available seats in your car, and you sell all four seats for $20 each- then you make a cool 80 dollars, and you get to drive with four nice people in your car. The website is in a number of countries abroad, but I am still waiting for it to come to America.

I met my driver at the bus station in Milan, and we were off. He was a stout, bald man who reminded me of the bar owner that had robbed me in Istanbul. He drove an old van, which was packed with 7 people- I made 8. Our driver was lovely. He was driving with his sister, mother, and father to Monte Carlo, and had sold the additional seats using BlaBlacar. Each seat costed roughly $25, which was much better than the bus ($37 - 72) and train ($50 - 65).

We hit heavy traffic while leaving Italy, but it was the best place to hit traffic. This is because the section of Italy near Monte Carlo is BEAUTIFUL. It’s honestly more than beautiful- it's a medley of rolling hillsides, covered with rocky outcrops, tiny houses, and bits of foliage here and there. The colors- luscious green and light brown and earthy orange blend together and paint the countryside- this is all opposite the rocky cliffs of a robust coastline. It is truly one of the best looking bits of scenery I’ve ever seen, and I think that only sections of western China can compare when discussing beauty of this magnitude.

No pictures for you- sorry. I was so mesmerized by it that I didn’t want to block my view with a camera.

I wanted to explore Monte Carlo more, but the traffic in Italy was so bad that we were late and had to hurry to catch our train. The last train out of Monaco is at something like 8 or 9 pm, and if you miss it there’s no other form of transportation to Nice- save for a hundred dollar taxi ride. We got there just in time to catch the train.

The ride to Nice was nice (see what I did there?), and a few of the passengers from the BlaBlaCar ride were also going, so it was fun to exchange pleasant conversation while winding through the countryside on our train. The land from Monte Carlo to Nice (the French Riviera) was truly astounding. Beautiful blue beaches nestled in between rocky cliffs. I would love to go back and visit the French Riviera- I always assumed it was a place for pretentious westerners with too much money, but it really was wonderful.

I arrived in Nice after the sun had gone down, and slowly made my way to my hostel. I stayed at a GREAT little hostel called Hostel Baccarat, and I highly recommend it. It had a fun, casual atmosphere, and was 20 euros a night (cheap for France), and it has its own kitchen so you can cook your meals and save money.

Nice was a great little city. I only had one day there, so I didn’t get much time to explore, but it just had such a wonderful feel it. The restaurants, and cafes, and the vibe of the city streets- it was really something. This is why I’m so saddened, because just a few days after I was in Nice, it got hit by a terrorist attack, which left 84 dead.

A few places I’ve visited have also been hit by attacks, such as Istanbul and Ankara, both of which I missed by a few days. Narrowly missing these attacks makes me nervous, but it does nothing to dissuade me from traveling- nor does it make me look at Muslims any differently. I have met many wonderful Muslims in my time abroad, and it’s not fair to punish a whole religion for the actions of a few assholes.

Day 4. Nice (France) to Barcelona (Spain).

I took an early morning train to Barcelona. I wanted to use BlaBlaCar, but all the available cars had been filled up by the time I searched for a ride. The train was expensive, costing me over a hundred dollars. The busses, much like my beloved ride-share, had all filled up. The train was comfortable and quick- not a bullet train- but close to it.

(Why the hell can’t America have trains like Europe?!)

Anyway, rolling into Barcelona felt like returning home, because I had already spent so much time in the city. And as I arrived, exhausted and hungry, I reflected back on my previous few days.

The wonderful little capital city of Ljubljana, with its unique architecture and fun, polite people. Milan, with its great cathedrals, rampant graffiti, and delicious pizza- and there was the day I had spent wandering around with Arturo. (I spoke with Arturo at some length about my time in a refugee camp in Greece, and he actually joined me when I returned there to volunteer. What a friend!) And then I thought of the amazing countryside in Italy, and the all too brief time I spent in Monte Carlo. And the great little hostel in Nice, and the fun vibe of the town.

As I made my way to the Barcelona airport to meet my mom, I reflected on all of this, and knew I had really had a wonderful four days.

My mom! Isn't she lovely
: )

Thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Check out my friends' blogs! They're fantastic.

Wen is just starting her blog, but it's a lot of fun to read.

Renee travels around the world, takes beautiful pics, has awesome adventures, and makes kickass blogs.