Photography Basics for Beginners

learn photography basics with these free tutorials - iso, shutter speed, aperture and more

If you’re just beginning and want to learn photography, it’s always a good idea to start with the basics. Photography basics include things such as ISO, exposure, shutter speed and other techniques photographers use to get their best shots.

Your introduction to photography should include basic camera settings for various conditions, the fundamentals on how to use a tripod correctly, photography ideas and if you’re new to your DSLR or mirrorless camera, you should know a little bit about the history of your new hobby.

I’ve written a lot of information on the basics of photography and have a number of tutorials and guides here on the site.

For those who want to learn photography with a little more guided structure, I’ve put together a free photography basics course which you can enroll in, completely free of charge. If you want to take the next step, there is a complete beginner photography course with a money back guarantee.

Here are some good resources for where to begin:

Photography basics for beginner photographers. The free course for those who want to learn more about photography but don’t know where to start.

ENROLL HERE FOR FREE

Learn Photography

The first thing you’ll need in order to learn photography is to know how the camera works.

Camera Basics

Camera Shooting Modes

ISO

The short definition is that the ISO is the level of sensitivity of your camera’s digital sensor to light. The lower the number the less sensitive, and the higher the number the more sensitive.

Exposure

Exposure has a bit of an ambiguous definition. It can be a noun that refers to taking the image as in, “I’m doing an exposure now.”. Or it can refer to the amount of time the shutter is open to allow light into the camera when you say “this is a long exposure”.

But in general, exposure means how much light is captured to create your image. It may also be referred to as the Exposure Value. Exposure value is a numerical value that quantifies the amount of light hitting the digital imaging sensor.

Read: 5 Tips for Getting the Perfect Exposure

How to use depth of field

You’ll want to know the basics of how depth of field works, what it is and how to use it to create stunning out of focus backgrounds. In a photograph, the area within the depth of field appears sharp, while the areas in front of and beyond the depth of field appear blurry and it can vary depending on camera type, aperture, and focusing distance.

Shutter speed settings to freeze or blur motion

In this article on shutter speed, we’ll take a look at how to use the settings on your camera to either freeze moving subjects or blur them intentionally. Today we’re going to talk about motion and how to use it to create the images you want

What the numbers on your lens mean

An article I wrote for Digital Photography School in which I explain what all those numbers on your lens mean.

Basic Photography Tips

Practical practice in the field

Next, and quite likely most importantly, you’ll want some practice using your camera.

Otherwise known as “Get out and get shooting!”

Sometimes it can be tricky to find something interesting to shoot or to know how to actually apply the knowledge as you start to learn the basics of photography. This is where getting out, using your camera every single day comes into play but where do you start?

I put together a 10 Photography Challenges guide for exactly this reason.

In this free guide, you’ll be able to choose from one or all of the photography challenges and start practicing with purpose. It gets an enormous amount of good feedback and helps beginner photographers find structure in their lessons.

Go ahead and get it here.

Download the free PDF E-Book, go through the challenges and share your photos in our highly engaged Facebook group.