Before you have anything to work with in the darkroom, you obviously have to make the negatives! And an important aspect of this is knowing the basics of using your camera. Most modern cameras have all kinds of automatic and priority features, so that you can get good photographs without much effort. However, you won’t always get the photograph you want with these settings, and it’s better that you know what is going on with your lens and your shutter speed even when you are using automated functions.

Ideas that make up camera basics for a manual film camera, old or new, and digital SLRs, like that brand new Nikon D90 you might have sitting on your desk, are the same. Even if you plan to never use film or a darkroom, all of these same principles apply to your digital camera, so read up on them to be the best photographer you can be!

1. The most basic element of your camera is the lens. It’s your camera’s eye and to know your lens, you’ll have to know about aperture and what those numbers like 50mm or 28mm mean. Read more about lens aperture.

2. The next thing you should read about is the shutter in the body of your camera and how its speed relates to aperture. Read about shutter speed.

3. Another important aspect of taking photographs with your camera is knowing about film speed, or ISO. When you are using film, this will be a fairly concrete idea, as in, you just bought a roll of 400 speed film and that will determine the kind of photographs you can get. When you are using a digital camera, ISO becomes a much more complex idea in that it’s up to you – so you should know what it means and what it can do for you, or how it can limit you. Read about ISO (coming soon).

These are the three most basic principles of using a camera. You could be using a Yashica LM from the 1950’s or a brand new Canon DSLR, and in either case, your worries would be the same. Other important, but more straightforward camera basics are:

-Focusing the lens - which can be tricky, but is usually something that you can determine by sight alone – read my two tips on focusing here (coming soon).
-Reading the camera’s light meter – Each camera is different, so read your manual. The idea is usually to get the needle or bars of light in the middle.