When you start doing photography with a DSLR camera, the main problem you will face is how to expose the photo correctly under different conditions. There are various parameters in the DSLR for you to control to capture a nice frame.
What most of the beginners would do is switch to total automatic mode and let the camera decide the optimum configuration for the available environmental factors. But in that case you won’t be able to add your creativity to the picture and DSLR will become a conventional Point and Shoot camera.
If you need to click WOW frames with a DSLR, only option is to learn how to adjust ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed manually according to the available lighting conditions. It’s not so easy to learn but now you have a way. It comes with the name CameraSim where you can simulate a behavior of a DSLR camera on various different lighting conditions.
How it Works?
Click Here to go to original site of CameraSim or you can see the same application embedded below.
It simulates the viewfinder of a DSLR. There you can see information display as well including shutter speed, aperture and light meter.
Below the view finder you can see various controls which allow you to adjust the environment and camera configuration.
- Lighting: simulate behavior of environment lighting
- Distance: Distance to the camera from the object.
- Focal length: Using this you can make the view wider of narrower. In other words zoom in and out.
- Camera Mode: There you have 3 options, Aperture priority, Shutter priority and Manual. In Aperture priority mode you can set the desired aperture and camera will choose the optimum shutter speed. In shutter priority mood you set the shutter speed and camera decides the aperture. In manual mode you have to set both the aperture and shutter speed. The CameraSim says Go for Manual!
- Tripod: This will simulate whether camera is mounted to a tripod or not.
- ISO: Determines the sensitivity of the image sensor. In higher ISO ranges you will get a significant noise. Better to go with lowest possible ISO.
- Aperture: This represents the iris of human eye. It controls the amount of light coming in to the camera. In addition it controls the Depth of Field as well.
- Shutter Speed: It controls the duration which the sensor will be exposed to light. Higher Shutter speed lowers the exposure you get. And you can user higher shutter speed to freeze fast moving objects.
Finally click in the shutter button to snap photo!
All you have to do is practice photography in CameraSim in different light conditions with different configuration. You can master the entire camera configuration without even touching a DSLR.
Ex:
- Lighting: Partially Cloudy
- Distance: 3 ft (I need shallow depth of field)
- Focal Length: 55mm (Again I need shallow depth of field)
- Mode: Manual (I don’t want camera to decide the configuration at all)
- ISO: 100 (There is decent sun light)
- Aperture: f/2.8 (Yeah, I need shallow depth of field)
- Sutter Speed: Under these conditions the best shutter speed would be 1/125 sec. but I decided to go for little lower shutter speed which is 1/100 sec. With that I will get more exposure time and Image will be little over exposed, comes like a soft glow. And this will give a blur effect to the moving object as well.
Finally I will get an image with shallow depth of field (blurred background) and soft glow.
Same way you can do various different experiments with CameraSim.
More about CameraSim
The application is carefully engineered to simulate the exact depth of field, Motion freeze and exposure under given lighting conditions and camera configuration. Therefore you can trust the application to practice photography without going to field.
There is a blue circle with letter “i” at the top right corner of view finder. By clicking on that you can enable help tips for each controller.
There is an iPhone application coming for $1.99 where you can practice photography on the go.
Enjoy CameraSim and don’t forget to share your experience with us.
Tags: #Camera #DSLR #Photography