The New Language of Digital Photography

Digital Photography was first introduced to the general public around 1989, depending in what part of the world you were during that time. Since then, people have been getting rid of their film cameras and turning them in for new DSLR’s (Digital Single Lens Reflex) which has given photographer many new options to choose from that they didn’t have with film cameras. Since DSLR’s affords so many options, unless you know a lot about digital photography, you might think that if you went out and purchased a $2000.00 camera you’d be able to take photographs just like a National Geographic photographer. But just buying an expensive camera won’t make you take better photographs then you did with your film camera. When I teach my Basic Digital Photography I tell the class that you need to first and foremost, you need to “learn the language of photography” which is not as easy as one may think. Learning how to “make photographs rather than take photographs” requires one to understand the many options that digital photography has to offer. Most people get frustrated in learning how to use their camera and just wind up setting the automatic setting on the camera which defeats the whole purpose of buying a digital camera in the first place. Because a digital camera gives more options to the photographer, what this booklet does is cut the many options down to three basic camera controls. Once you’ve learn the three controls you can move on in learning more advanced options of the camera.