Photography NotesRevisionas of Sunday, 26 July 2026 at 23:46 UTC

Assorted notes from me trying to teach myself Photography.

The Triangle

It’s a balance between Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO.

Metering

Your camera will try and advise you. People used to use light meters for this. It will say its a good exposure if it is “18% Gray” which is what light meters were historically calibrated to (the caps on Kodak film and the insides of dedicated camera bags are this gray too.)

The Histogram

  • Luminance value on x-axis and pixel count on y-axis.
  • Leftmost edge is Luminance of zero, Rightmost is Luminance of one. Any pixels touching these edges are lost information, they’re just crushed out of existence. You can use Zebra stripes to tell you which parts of your image are/will be “blown out” in either direction.
  • You section it into, say, five equal portions. From L-R, you are looking at blacks, shadows, midtones, highlights, and whites.

Usually you want a histogram that looks like a mountain or is kinda balanced out but depends on what you’re trying to do, the look you’re going for.

On Aperture

Measured by f-stop. “f/2” means you take the focal length and divide it by two.

“f/8 and Be There..” Like be there. Your camera primarily exists to take pictures of things and events.

On ISO

See this video. TLDR: This is tricky so let the camera figure it out.

Tripods

  • Cheap, Stable, Light —- pick two. But don’t be cheap. You’ll change cameras before tripods.
  • Read this thoroughly.
  • Components are: Legs, Head, Plate, Bag
    • Each component may be purchased separately.
    • Buying a head doesn’t necessarily include a plate.

Presets and LUTs

For Photomator/Pixelmator

Other

Lenses

There are Prime lenses (fixed focal length) and Zoom lenses (can be wide, normal, and/or telephoto lenses).

Prime lenses teach you a lot about photography because they make your lazy ass move and explore a scene: distances and angles.

Other