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John Watson is the original founder of Photodoto. If you're interested in what John has been up to, you can browse his personal blog.

Understanding exposure: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO

By John Watson
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When your camera is set on automatic, making a photograph is as simple as pressing the shutter release button. Somehow, the camera magically records just the right amount of light to render an image of the scene before it. But what is really going on? How does the camera know how to do that?

Read on to find out how a little knowledge about what goes into making an exposure can open up new worlds of creative possibilities.

… Continue reading Understanding exposure: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO

How to Capture Action Reliably and with Style

By John Watson
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If you’re anything like me, you’ll be spending holidays with family and friends, eating, laughing, and, of course, making lots and lots of photographs. At our annual holiday gatherings there are an abundance of children.

children playing on grass

And children make great subjects for photography except for one problem: they don’t sit still. A moving target is one of the most difficult things to photograph. Read on for some tips that should help make things a little easier.

… Continue reading How to Capture Action Reliably and with Style

Creating trails of light with a long exposure

By John Watson
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Have you ever seen photographs of vehicle lights on the freeway or abstract images of beams of light? They’re both examples of what is called a “long exposure.” That is, a photograph with a slow (long) shutter speed. You just need two things to make these kinds of photographs:

  • a camera that allows you to manually set the shutter speed (called “Shutter Priority” mode, it is sometimes noted on cameras with the symbol “Tv”) and that allows shutter speeds longer than 1 second.
  • a stable platform to hold the camera steady

… Continue reading Creating trails of light with a long exposure

Using fill flash to enhance natural lighting

By John Watson
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Many people avoid flash photography because of the unnatural and unflattering look it can create. The problem comes from several factors which I’ll talk about in more detail in future articles. For now, I want to talk about a way to use your flash that can not only enhance the natural beauty of a scene, but no one will even be able to tell that a flash was used.

… Continue reading Using fill flash to enhance natural lighting

Camera modes

By John Watson
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If you want to get good photos, learning how to use your equipment is a must. And that doesn’t necessarily mean digging out the the owner’s manual and poring over it line by line (although, I do recommend you read it at least once). You can learn about your camera by using it. Camera modes are a great place to start.

You may be thinking to yourself, “But I have a fully-automatic compact camera.” You may be surprised to find out that many compact cameras have more than one mode and many of them even have a manual mode that gives you fine-grained control over the exposure.

… Continue reading Camera modes

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