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Welcome to Photography Know How.
Explore the digital photography how to information on this site to discover useful tips and techniques you can apply to speed up your understanding
of digital photography ... and we'll try to have some fun along the way.


“Photographers Catch the Light”

The word photography means: “writing with light”. Indeed, without light there would be no photography…and not much else either. Light is a part of all visual art, but photography is unique in that it actually records light.

When you take a photograph, you are quite simply recording the light that illuminates the objects you see.

Catching the Light

Catching the Light



“I knew, of course, that trees and plants had roots, stems, bark, branches
and foliage that reached up toward the light. But I was coming to realize
that the real magician was light itself“.
…Edward Steichen…



Read the full article on Using Light in Photography

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Depth of Field is probably one of the more challenging areas of photography to understand.

depth of field graphic

In this graphic, the black line at 15′ is critically sharp.
This is where the lens is focused.
The yellow area would appear ‘acceptably sharp’…
The yellow represents the Depth Of Field.

Let’s begin with a workable definition.

Depth of field is that area of an image that is considered acceptably sharp … in other words it appears to be ‘in focus’.

There now, don’t you feel much clearer on this subject? NO! Well, not to worry. It is not as hard to grasp as you might fear.

To understand what the term acceptably sharp really means, it helps to know what actually happens when you focus your lens.
[click to continue…]

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Controlling Depth of Field

Photography Lecture Hall

The 2 Factors That Control DOF:
The two primary factors that affect DOF are:

the distance from the lens to the subject
the f-stop being used

Let’s look at each one of these separately.
DISTANCE:
The closer your subject is to the camera lens, the less depth of field you will have.

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Photo Composition – Choose Your Subject

Learn Photography Online

Choosing Your Subject
Every good photo has a subject, and in a great photo the subject is what attracts the viewer immediately.
In some photos, the subject may be quite obvious … an expressive face, a colorful Autumn landscape, or some sort of dramatic news event.

And in others, the subject may be more subtle? a pensive [...]

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Photo Composition – Rule of Thirds

Learn Photography Online

A well known rule of composition is the “rule of thirds”.
Imagine your image divided into a grid of 9 equal parts, similar to a tic tac toe grid.

Where these lines intersect are known as power points, or strong points of interest. Artists have been applying this rule for centuries.

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Composition In Photography

Learn Photography Online

Photo composition is all about the art of subjective arrangement … what to do with all that stuff. Composition is really about choices.
What is your subject?

What do you want to say about the subject?

Or what is the subject saying about you?

What do you include and what do you leave out?

Read the full article →