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My camera fallacy that twisted valid with practice

By Erick Diang’a

In as much as I consider the camera to be my eye, it would be of little worth to disregard its

correspondence to a gun or a portable working tool.

A gun is to soldiers so is camera to photographers. Guns exist in different forms and sizes depending on task. Both camera and gun have viewfinders, are aimed at subjects and both shoot. Despite the similarity, guns shoot to kill or scare while cameras shoot to reveal glamour, wonders, elegance, moods and realities of life. 

I love peace thus when Mr Conscience subdued me to critical evaluations, I grabbed the camera and matched to the scene without a vocal. 

Let me desist from judgements and assessments. Reason? I had never been to any law class. Anyway, may I show you how misconceptions engulfed my knowledge  in photography 3 years from 2010?

Born to a man who still practice photography at 75 due to infatuation, I couldn’t have seen the other end of the digital generation without passing the rite of ‘like father- like son’

Proving ignorance on blog would count nix to me given that man is neither omniscient nor an island.

When I initially started as an amateur, I perceived squatting or bending a statute for any photographer. Little did I know that angle of elevation is determined by camera lens distance to the talent not by how you choreograph your body. My hypothesis was rendered null by the resulting images that looked taller than real talents. Shame!

The F-stop in layman’s language is the size of lens opening. Some years past, I thought f-stop could change picture size. It does not; rather it allows adjustments to varying light sources. This is how it works; low light will require f-stop of 2 or 1.4 while bright conditions will do best with 11 or 16. Most cameras have the least f-stop as 22. Why 22 the smallest f-stop? Mmhh according to grade scale, the wider the lens opening, the smaller the number. My friend, this is because the formula that determines f-stop results in a fraction.

It will be impeccable to note that depending on whether one is moving up or down the scale, the amount of light permitted is either doubled or halved eg 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6…..up to the intelligence capacity of your camera. I hope you heard me right- Double; not square.

Lens enigmatic- even if I never stepped into a kindergarten, my answer to questions 
concerning performance of long funnel-like lenses would be that they view all field events in a single shot. My unprofessional judgement would still construct my imagination into thinking that short lenses can only view the goalkeeper. Consider the above and ruin your picture making comprehension! The long telephoto lens provides a large image of an object that is far from the camera lens. It includes a few elements in a shot because they measure between 80-300mm and have angle of view of between 12-18 degrees. They are best in executing zoo shootings where grisly animals are the subject.

 The second is Wide Angle lens-it takes a wider view than a normal lens. The subjects it views appear smaller than they really are. The subjects are normally closer to the camera lens and numerous in a single shot.  The lens ranges from 18-35mm and the viewing angle ranges between 64-84 degrees. If you wish to include a church choir in a single shot, engage the wide-angle lens but bear in mind that dollying in and out is a necessity.

 My parting shot revolves around manual and automatic setting of a camera. Desist from auto setting before you buy that camera of your choice. Imagine failing to take shots in a delegates’ conference meeting because of impulsive blackout in the hall. Before you take shadows for photographs to a media station, play with the buttons manually to build a rapport with your camera. Working on auto compelled me to double a task. Tiring!

I did dumb down but notwithstanding the message has gotten home. You may leave a comment to help both of us develop camera wise. It starts small, with you.