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It's not the lens that makes the picture, nor is it the camera body, nor is it I'm afraid the photographer. It's a system of integrated parts that work together that produce an image, no one part can claim all of the credit.
The popular viewpoint that it's the photographer that matters not the gear, doesn't tell the whole story. I agree with the sentiment ...
46
Because
there is a lot happening in a short timeframe (movement phases of a fast animal or athlete), and you want to photograph it all
and/or
the exact timing of the relevant event cannot be predicted, so covering as many possible times where that event could happen (and discarding the rest later) is necessary
and/or
redundant pictures are needed ...
41
From a purely theoretical point of view: more megapixels good.
People often talk about how high megapixel sensors were now outresolving most lenses, thus there was no point going higher unless using the very best glass. This is not always true. System resolution is the product of lens resolution and sensor resolution. Thus if you improve one, your system ...
38
What you are describing is shutter lag. When you press the shutter release, the camera must focus before exposing the image. There are many ways of avoiding this. The easiest is to half-press the shutter so that the camera focuses, then press fully down when you want to take the image. Because the half-press will focus, there is less or no lag when you ...
37
What you are looking for is large depth of field. This is an optical property, not something applied as a special effect, so it's not something you can turn on or off. The raw image captures the light focused by the lens, and inevitably there will be parts of the scene which are either too far or too close — out of the range where the rays are tightly ...
37
Firstly the iPhone 5 lens has to be f/2.2, due to the small pixel size, the effects of diffraction which start to creep in at f/11 on a DSLR, start to creep in at f/1.45 on a 5.6mm (diagonal) sensor!
I though that in order to have a big aperture such as f/2.2 a big amount of light should be able to enter to the sensor and in order to do it, a big lens was ...
37
Strictly speaking, one does not need high FPS burst modes for sports or wildlife, but rather they are useful tools that open up more options.
I've shot sports in the last few years with a Canon 7D, typically using 5-8 frame bursts (at I think 8fps) at a time, and I've also used a medium format manual focus camera.
Both methods have produced great images, ...
31
These letters refers to zooming depth as follows,
W = Wide angle
T = Telephoto
Read more about wideangle and telephoto in the tags.
29
The answer to this question revolves around explaining how zoom lenses function because you are correct in your observation: As you zoom to higher and higher magnifications the image dims unless somehow compensation is applied. Suppose you zoom from 25mm to 50mm, should the working diameter of the aperture remain unchanged, image brightness would suffer a 4x ...
25
A stop will halve or double the amount of light, depending on the direction and that could mean the amount of light reaching the sensor or how sensitive the sensor is made to the light that is reaching it.
So, for example, to reduce something a stop, I could go from ISO 800 to ISO 400, or I could go from a 1/500 to 1/1000 shutter speed, or I could change ...
23
An alteration of 1 stop either halves or doubles the exposure of a photograph. And you're right, it's exactly the same thing as an f-stop.
Imagine you've pointed your camera at a scene and it's recommending the following settings:
A shutter speed of 1/100s
An aperture of f/5.6
A sensitivity setting of ISO 400
We could make the photo appear twice as bright ...
20
There's only one distance that is in sharpest focus. Everything in front of or behind that distance is blurry. The further we move away from the focus distance, the blurrier things get. The questions become: "How blurry is it? Is that within our acceptable limit? How far from the focus distance do things become unacceptably blurry?"
What we call depth of ...
17
In "classic" cameras systems exposures varied by a factor of two between adjustment steps and by a factor of 2 with standard aperture number changes. The aperture f numbers usually provided vary by a factor of square root of 2 as the aperture is proportional to the square of the diameter and stop numbers relate to the diameter.
ie aperture is an area ...
17
Depth of field depends on two factors, magnification and f-number.
Focal length, subject distance, size and circle of confusion (the radius at which blur becomes visible) jointly determine the magnification.
Depth of field does not depend on lens or camera design other than the variables in the formula so there are indeed general formulas to calculate ...
17
Dynamic range is not measured in f-stops, it is measured in stops. A stop is often used to refer to a change that doubles the value or, in the case of cameras, the amount of light. Changing the aperture by one f-stop doubles to amount of light allowed in, so in the case of aperture, a stop is an f-stop. Similarly, cutting the shutter speed in half is a ...
17
if I use the auto-focus, does it adjust the lens focus, or is there a secondary lens in the body that gets adjusted?
No, there's no secondary lens. The lens attached to the camera contains a motor that moves the lens elements as required by the autofocus system.
Same with the aperture settings, is this changing on the attached lens, or is there another ...
17
If you're on a tight budget and want to get the best "bang for the buck" you need to select the phone that has a camera with strengths in the areas you need them the most while letting go of other features or capabilities that won't affect the kinds of photos you wish to create. Which is more important, sensor size or focal length? Image stabilization or ...
17
why does shutter speed modify picture sharpness/detail? Why do pictures get darker with faster shutter speeds, and brighter with slower shutter speeds?
These things happen because the light sensor in the camera doesn't measure the intensity of light instantaneously, but rather measures all the light received during the entire exposure. You could say that ...
16
Those cameras are only limited by the fact that they lack a reflex mirror to form an image through an optical viewfinder. By the same token, DSLRs are limited by the fact they need a reflex mirror in the optical path.
What does that mean?
In terms of image quality, nothing. There are currently mirrorless cameras using the same sensors as DSLR. Even those ...
16
It's the photographer that makes the picture, not the camera, lens or lighting equipment.
The reason for the advice to invest in lenses is that for most cases the cheap DSLR bodies are good enough and you simply won't use the features of the more advanced bodies - while you will see the difference with the better lens.
My advice is to find the factor ...
16
Constant-Aperture Zoom Lens.
16
A normal lens is one who's focal-length is equal to the diagonal of the sensor or film.
This is said to give a natural perspective similar to that of a single human eye.
On a full-frame DSLR, it is usually a 50mm lens. On a cropped-sensor (APS-C) DSLR, a normal lens falls around 35mm but from 30 to 55mm, it would still be considered normal. For Four-Thirds ...
16
Entry-level is relative to current competition.
A few years back, semipro/professional level cameras were lacking many features that even entrylevel cameras have now; for example auto-ISO, sensor cleaning mechanisms etc.
Here's a list of classic entry-level features that's remained more or less true for since around 2003 - when the worlds arguably first ...
15
Background blur, as an intrinsic element of a lens, is related to the physical diameter of the aperture as observed through the front of the lens. This is often called the "physical aperture", however it is more appropriately termed the entrance pupil. The size of the entrance pupil is really what determines how blurry OOF content will be, as it is the ...
15
Applying manual controls allows one more freedom to enhance, manipulate and master applied photographic applications. By understanding the interaction of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO speed, photography — identified as "drawing with light" — can be utilized to its fullest potential.
Full creativity with the use of manual control can then be used to ...
15
You wanted the math, so here it goes:
You need to know the CoC of your camera, Canon APS-C sized sensors this number is 0.018, for Nikon APS-C 0.019, for full frame sensors and 35mm film the number is 0.029.
The formula is for completeness:
CoC (mm) = viewing distance (cm) / desired final-image resolution (lp/mm) for a 25 cm viewing distance / enlargement ...
15
I consider the cheapest DSLR from a particular manufacturer during a point in time to be their entry-level model.
It is as easy as that. I don't agree with any further detailed description. The same logic can be applied to just about anything, such as an entry-level car in the Ford Motor Company's lineup which is currently the Ford Fiesta in North America. ...
15
Pragamatically speaking, entry-level means the cheapest camera any manufacturer currently offers. It can also mean the category of all such cameras — and as such, it would be theoretically possible for a company to make all or no entry-level cameras, even if they had different options. I don't know of anyone who has decided to leave the higher models off the ...
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