7 Photography Questions Every Photographer Should Know the Answer To
Photography can get complicated very quickly.
There are hundreds of camera settings, technical terms and different ways of doing things, but you don't necessarily need to understand all of them to take better photographs.
Sometimes, understanding one simple concept can make a much bigger difference.
So, here are seven photography questions that are worth knowing the answer to, including a couple of concepts that are often misunderstood.
1. What is lens compression?
Lens compression is a visual effect where the background of a photograph appears much larger and closer to the subject than it actually is.
It makes the space between objects appear to be compressed or squashed together.
Despite the name, the lens itself isn't physically compressing the scene. It comes down to the distance between your camera, your subject and the background.
For example, if you use a wide-angle lens such as a 16mm and want your subject to fill the frame, you'll need to stand relatively close to them.
Because you're so close to your subject, the subject is magnified much more than the background. The result is a relatively large subject with a background that appears smaller and further away.
Now take a 200mm telephoto lens.
To get the same subject framing, you'll need to stand much further away. You're now further away from both your subject and the background, so the difference in magnification between them becomes much smaller.
The background therefore appears larger and closer to your subject.
So, despite what the name suggests, ‘lens compression’ isn't really caused by the glass in your lens. It's caused by where you stand relative to your subject.
2. What are focus zones?
Focus zones are areas of the frame that you tell your camera to use when deciding what to focus on.
Depending on your camera, this could be as small as a single focus point or expand to cover a much larger part of the scene with some modern cameras going even further, with subject and eye detection systems that actively search the selected area for a particular subject.
The important thing to understand is that the larger the focus zone, the more freedom you're giving the camera to decide what should be in focus.
And on the surface that sounds good, but it can also give the camera more opportunities to focus on something you didn't intend it to.
This is why, as a general rule, choosing a smaller focus zone gives your camera less opportunity to focus on the wrong thing.
So, rather than simply choosing the biggest or smallest focus area, think about your subject.
How predictable is its position within the frame?
That should help determine how much control you give your camera.
3. How do I make my photos sharper?
There are plenty of reasons why a photograph might not look as sharp as you'd expect, but three of the most common are incorrect focus, a depth of field that's too shallow, and movement.
Let’s take a brief look at why each of these affects sharpness.
Firstly, missed focus.
Your focus mode and focus zone should be appropriate for the subject you're photographing. A static landscape and a moving animal don't necessarily need the same approach. Getting your focus mode or zone wrong can allow the camera to focus on an area of the frame that isn’t impoertant. This, leads to blurry or unsharp subjects.
Secondly, shallow depth of field.
Shooting with a very wide aperture and a small f-number can give you an extremely shallow depth of field. This means that even a small change in distance can put part of your subject outside the area of focus. This can lead to unsharp subjects.
Stopping down your aperture can increase your depth of field and give you a larger area of acceptable focus, giving more opportunity for your subject to within that area.
Finally, motion blur.
Movement from either the camera or the subject can introduce blur, even if you've focused perfectly and got a suitable depth of field.
Selecting a shutter speed appropriate not only for exposure, but for motion blur from your camera, lens and subject, is an important step in achieving sharp subjects within your photographs.
So when an image isn't sharp, don't immediately blame the camera or lens.
Ask yourself three questions:
Did I focus on the right thing?
Was my depth of field large enough?
Was my shutter speed fast enough?
Very often, the answer is hiding in one of those three.
4. How do I avoid camera shake?
The easiest way to eliminate camera shake is to use a tripod.
But a tripod isn't always practical, so we can also use shutter speed to reduce the effects of camera movement.
A useful starting point is to use a shutter speed where the number on the bottom of the fraction is at least double the focal length of your lens.
So, with a 50mm lens, you could start at around 1/100 second.
With an 85mm lens, double 85 and you get 170. If your camera doesn't offer 1/170 second, move up to the next available setting, such as 1/200 second.
The idea is simple:
Longer focal lengths generally require faster shutter speeds to reduce the effects of camera shake.
It's worth remembering that this is a starting point rather than a hard rule. Your technique, the camera and lens you're using, and whether image stabilisation is available can all affect the result.
And there's another important distinction:
A faster shutter speed can reduce camera shake, but it won't automatically stop your subject from moving.
That's a different problem.
5. What’s the best shutter speed for my subject?
There's no single shutter speed that works for every moving subject.
The faster your subject is moving, the faster your shutter speed generally needs to be.
As useful starting points, you might try:
A person standing still: 1/125 second or faster
Someone moving slowly: 1/250 second or faster
A car moving through a city: around 1/400 second or faster
A pet running: around 1/500 second or faster
A large bird in flight: around 1/1600 second or faster
A small bird in flight: around 1/4000 second or faster
These aren't universal rules. The actual shutter speed you'll need depends on how quickly the subject is moving, the direction they're travelling and how much movement you want to freeze.
But they give you a useful starting point.
There's also a trade-off.
The faster you make your shutter speed, the less light reaches your camera's sensor. If you combine a very fast shutter speed with a smaller aperture, you may need to increase your ISO to compensate.
And that can introduce more image noise.
So shutter speed isn't just about stopping movement. It's part of the wider exposure decision.
6. How do I use my camera's exposure meter?
Your camera's exposure meter is essentially a guide that tells you how it thinks your current settings will expose the image.
You'll usually see it as a scale running from negative numbers, through zero, to positive numbers.
A negative reading suggests the camera thinks you're underexposing.
A positive reading suggests it thinks you're overexposing.
And zero indicates that the camera considers your current settings to be correctly exposed.
So, if the meter is showing -2, you need to allow more light into the exposure. You could do that by opening the aperture, slowing down the shutter speed or increasing your ISO.
If it's showing +2, you would do the opposite.
But there's an important point that is often overlooked:
Your exposure meter can only make its judgement based on the part of the scene you've told it to measure.
If the camera is measuring a bright part of the scene, it may recommend different settings than if it's measuring a dark part.
And that's why your choice of metering mode matters.
7. What’s the best metering mode?
Metering modes essentially tell your camera which part of the scene to pay attention to when calculating the exposure. But there isn't a single metering mode that's best for every situation.
There are all-rounders like evaluative or matrix metering where the camera looks at a large part of the scene and makes a judgement about the overall exposure. But whilst it's generally a good starting point and works well for most everyday photography, it will struggle in certain situations such as backlighting.
And that’s where some of the other options become far more useful.
Centre-weighted metering gives more importance to the middle of the frame. This can be useful when your subject is centred, particularly with a backlit subject, because it gives the subject more influence over the exposure.
And spot metering measures a very small area of the frame, useful when you want your exposure to be based on one specific part of your subject, particularly when there are large differences between the light and dark areas of a scene.
So rather than asking:
‘What's the best metering mode?’
Ask yourself:
‘Which part of this scene do I want my camera to look at when deciding the exposure?’
That simple question will often lead you towards the right choice.
Want 20 answers?
These seven questions are just a selection from a much bigger collection of photography questions.
I've covered 20 answers every photographer should know in my latest video, keeping the explanations simple, practical and focused on the things that actually matter when you're taking photographs.