Michael Langford's 35mm handbook [antikvár]

Introduction This book is a concise, practical guide for anyone with a 35 mm single lens reflex or compact camera, or thinking of buying one. The contents concentrate on advice and tips to improve your camera expertise, expand your range of picture taking, and help you obtain greater enjoyment from this fascinating subject. Use this book as a "pocket wisdom" - broader and less biased than an instruction manual, a source of teaching and reference, but most of all as a collection of commonsense ideas that you can pick out easily and quickly. Cameras are under-utilized One of the problems with photography is that people simply do not use their cameras enough. Modern equipment allows results under such wide-ranging conditions, it deserves much greater use. No one would agree that owning a car and driving it only three or four times a year is getting good use from it. Yet this is the average number of times most family cameras are utilized. The less you use something the less sure you become about its controls and possibilities, and so it becomes more effort. The opposite is also true - experience makes you less preoccupied with the mechanics of the camera, and more able to look through it and relate to the scene and the final picture. Give yourself the chance to experiment with the full range of controls offered by your camera. For example, slow shutter speeds and time exposures are a way of introducing movement and abstraction Interpretative approach The type of picture above can be taken with a quite basic camera, provided it will give a shutter speed of 1 !30 or longer. Streaks and blurs, caused by moving the camera to follow the action while shooting, add greatly to the atmosphere. Close-ups Larger-than-life images and restricted focus (left) are possible with a simple close-up lens. Night conditions Modern equipment allows you to photograph whatever the eye can see, as in this time exposure shot (facing page).