Learning Photography in Natural Light

Learning Photography in Natural Light

Learning photography in natural light is fun and can produce some terrific results as long as you know how to get the best out of your camera. To do that you need to move off the AUTO (automatic) mode onto the M for manual mode.

Admittedly shooting in natural light can be a bit tricky as you need to play around with your cameras settings to create what you’re looking for.

If you’re new to photography you might ask why you should make this change? well, if you’re really interested in learning photography you need to learn how to use your camera as a tool. You should take control of it and get it to do what you want it to!

Ok, it may fill you with horror and dread because you’re not sure how to use your camera in manual mode, and that’s ok. So if you’re at the beginning of your learning photography journey why not take it in steps?

Take Control

Start by controlling just one element of the exposure triangle, let’s say shutter speed as that’s quite an easy one to understand.

Most modern digital cameras come with built in modes to help you take the best photos in any lighting situation. Modern cameras are sophisticated computers that take photographs so if you’re just starting out try out some of those modes, shutter speed (often seen as Tv or S on your camera’s mode dial) and aperture priority (often seen as Av or A on your camera’s mode dial) are the two I would recommend using first.

This way you are allowing the camera to make part of the decision, for instance; you might be near a river and want to capture the water flowing past to suggest movement. You could use the shutter speed mode to have a long exposure of say two seconds and let the camera make the decision of what aperture to use in those lighting circumstances.

You could also choose to freeze the water droplets by using a fast shutter speed of say one thousand of a second and the camera will set the correct aperture to freeze the water.

This is one of the best ways of learning photography. Take one setting on your camera and make your changes but allow the camera to set the others. Always make notes of what you are doing in a note book or on your phone. This way when you look at your photos later you know what changes you made and how they affected the photo.

Learning Photography is Fun

Keep playing around with that one setting until you have a good grasp of what it does. You can get really creative this way and have a lot of fun. And that is one of the biggest joys of photography, having fun doing something you love.

Experimenting with natural light is a gratifying way to practice and learn new techniques. You can get really creative this way and delight in your results. And that is one of the biggest joys of photography, having fun doing something you love.

You’ll enjoy using your camera more as you begin to understand how it works in relation to light.

One thing any good photographer does is ‘look at the light’. What I mean by this is you need to learn to look at and understand what the daylight is doing to make the most of it in your photographs.

I’ll be covering ‘looking at the light’ in my next post and if you have any questions drop me a comment below and I’ll get back to you.

Happy Snapping Everyone!