The Basics of Photography

Everyone who writes about photography typically loves to sing on about esoteric topics, and debate (ad nauseum) the merits of some esoteric bits of photo-trivia about which almost no one knows much or really cares. But comes a time when you answer the basic questions that everyone who picks up a camera wants to answer, especially those who stays with it for more than few moments. It's even more true with film photography. In that spirit I'll join that group and pass on some of my knowledge of a few of the very basics of photography to the next generation.

The first question I saw today about basics asked if the older Olympus lenses were any good:

Zuiko in general made a top quality lens. Some are better than others, while few of them are 'junk'. That 50/1.8 for instance is about as good as any other camera maker's 50/1.8: Nikon, Canon, Pentax, etc.

A very confused person said this:
"I don't think it really has any bearing on the subject, but I have neer seen anything I liked that came from a telefoto."

While there is nothing wrong with telephoto lenses in general, there are lots of problems with patently ludicrous generalizations.


Nomenclature is important, especially with technical terms, so that everyone is speaking a common language, and there can be effective communication:
Apature ==> Aperture. (Apature is the name of a brand of Cheap Chinese Crap)

More about aperture vs. shutter speed:
As you 'stop the lens down', you increase the aperture number and decrease the size of the light admitting hole in the lens. The shutter speed must be longer to give the equivalent exposure to the film / sensor. More occurs in the physical world during a longer period of time: moving things move further. This may cause some objects to be burred. Also, you may move the camera more, meaning that all that is depicted in the frame will have more blur.

You are balancing shutter speed and movement-blur against Depth of Focus (Field) and focal-blur, assuming equivalent exposures.

Equivalent exposures: F16 @ 1/125" is equiv. to F11 @ 1/250" is equiv. to F8 @ 1/500".

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