Preface

Understanding photography is not that difficult, and it's something that I enjoy greatly. It's an intensely powerful form of expression, and it's enjoyable on many diverse levels. Being good at photography takes an appreciation of the tools itself, and the ways it can be used. The modern camera can be intimidating, but every camera is essentially the same at heart. They all work by the simplest of concepts.

A camera at its most basic is simply a matter of light exposure. A piece of light-sensitive material is exposed to light through an opening. That's it. Everything else is flourish. By convention, we call the light-sensitive material film, the opening is called aperture, and the amount of time that the film is exposed to light is called shutter speed.

If one were to make a camera from these basics of photography, you'd have what's called a pinhole camera. It is a lightproof box with a piece of film inside and a pinhole through which light enters. It's not hard to make one yourself, but the developing and processing, that's tough. But it's a useful proof of the concept.

To understand your camera though, you'll need to understand aperture, shutter speed, and film. Understanding composition and technique doesn't require understanding your camera, but it sure helps.

I decided to start a blog for it, because the blog format is conducive to what I want to do, but the camera and composition sections of this site are structured like a tutorial rather than a blog.

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