Fancy photography

In the 1990's, she could very well have a background in film and darkroom photography, digital was pretty new. The Rebel came out in 1990 and was the first truly affordable auto-focus camera, but it wasn't digital. The first Canon digital, the DCS3, was a strange hybrid and didn't come out until 1995.

So no, a cheap digital Rebel in the 1990's isn't plausible. Cheap Rebel in film definitely is. Keep in mind that, although Kodak invented the CCD used to create a digital image in 1975, digital cameras weren't readily available until the mid-1990's and weren't in use by hobbyists and consumers until the 2000's. Film died off by 2005 and everything has been digital since. So, if your time frame is 1990's, she'll likely be using film.

As for basic photography terms and uses, there are a billion blogs, tutorials and YouTube videos to explain it to youl Or hit your local continuing ed classes for a basic photography course.

Jeff

I started with film and moved on to digital which is free to take a vast number of photos, while varying the settings a fraction to see which comes out the best. To me the most important thing about taking photos is not actually the settings - it is "framing" the picture. It is looking at the view and working out what to focus on, what is in, what is out. (At a family snap level it is making sure you've not cut off people's feet, or the right hand half of Aunty Etty. ) it is having the eye to spot interesting shadows or reflections or contrasting colours to make YOUR photo more than just a picture. It is also avoiding the classics like having a lamp-post "growing" out of your Dad's head, or spotting that the flash will bounce off a shiny object and changing your position a bit to avoid that.
In terms of camera operation - shutter speed - the longer the shutter speed, the more light you get in to the film for a given set of conditions - but the easier it is for you to shake the camera and blur the picture. I never played around with light monitors (and sometimes paid the price for that) but what many professional photographers do is actually have a light meter and take their shutter speed from that - the human eye is actually very poor at judging light levels because it is designed to give you the best view you can get and adapts to light conditions.
You can get different effects by how you focus and on what you focus - the difference between everything being in focus and the bird on the fence post being crystal sharp against a fuzzed background.
Then a level up is having different lenses and filters - but cheaper cameras do not have any place on which you can attach the filter.

In general I don't use terminology much - because I don't particularly talk about my photos. I take them because I enjoy taking them for me.

If you are going make a feature of your MC being a knowledgeable photographer, then you need to have some knowledge. Talk to someone who used film cameras back in the 90s and also knew how to develop film. See if there any clubs near you that could you help you with terminology.

Of course, you could hand wave it but be very careful to mention the technology as little as possible. There's a lot of knowledgeable amateur photographers out there!

Does it need to be digital? I got very interested in photography in this time frame too, and a cheap canon slr body and lenses could be got on eBay cheap (digital was crazy expensive in comparison). I also picked up a decent enlarger for about £100 GBP and developed my own b&w at home.

Your photographer is going to care about aperture, which affects the depth of field (how much of the shot is in focus). A low aperature is going to have a very shallow depth of field and is used to bring attention to the object in focus - most commonly used in portraiture and sports photograph. A high aperture (f16 and above) will have the entire shot in focus - most commonly used in landscape photography.

The other biggie is shutter speed. You use a fast shutter speed to capture fast moving subjects (people and sports again) and a slow shutter speed to capture stuff that doesn't move (or if you want to create a blurred effect). Longer shutter speeds also give you a richer color on the shot.

Aperture and shutter together create exposure - a small aperture lets in a lot of light to the film/sensor so if you want a short shutter speed, you usually need a low aperture to make sure you get enough exposure for the image. Vice versa for slow shutter speeds.ISO is the third factor here - it refers to the film or sensor ability to pick up light. A lower ISO needs more light (wide aperture or slow shutter speed) to get the proper exposure. Ambient light is the other factor, your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO will be different for the same shot on a bright sunny day than on a stormy one.

Lots of current photo enthusiasts probably learned the basics before moving to digital. At least, they should, in order to understand how f-stops (how big the hole is that lets in the light) work in relation to shutter speed (how much time is frozen while taking the picture).

A good photo is the balance between the two. If the f-stop, or diaphragm, is open too wide, it has less depth of field. Not everything is in focus. The smaller the hole (or the larger the f-stop number, I know it's crazy) gives you more depth of field. It means something close AND far away are in focus.

If you were taking an action picture and you don't want a blurry picture, you'd choose a faster shutter speed. But you sacrifice depth of field if it's not a really bright day.

Now, you throw in a telephoto lens, which lets in less light than a wide angle one, and also has less depth of field. For instance, you can get up close and personal to a grizzly bear down by that river while using a 300mm lens, but you won't get those mountains in the background into focus at the same time.

With a wide-angle lens, you get the panoramic effect, and you can probably get the flowers in the foreground in focus, as well as the mountains in the background. But to get that bear, you'd need to sneak up and shove the thing right up his nostrils.


Now, for quality of digital pictures, you have to think about megapixels, or how many dots fit into a square inch to give detail. When we first got a Pentax point-and-shoot camera back in the late 90s, it was 3.2 megapixels. Decent pictures, but you couldn't blow it up very large without the image breaking apart.

We've gone through a few generations of digital cameras since then. Hubby has a Nikon SLR with several interchangeable lenses, and I use a Canon point-and-shoot with 16 megapixels.

In digital cameras, sensor size is also a factor. Hubby's SLR has a sensor three times the size of my Canon. This means it process much more information, so detail and tonal gradation will be much better.

I hope this helps. Canon is great, but there are also other brands that are more "hipster," like a camera with a Carl Zeiss lens would probably give a good photographer the shivers. The good kind.

If she's born in '96 and start shooting in 2004 you could do digital or film. I think digital would be a more representative choice though as the cameras were becoming more common and prices were dropping.

If you want it to be film, where did she get the camera? Who gave it to her? Was it significant or just a random gift?

If the only reason you picked the Rebel was because it was a camera you'd heard of, and that photogs had fond memories of, let me give you another possibility.

The Minolta X 370 was a very simple 35mm SLR from the mid 80's designed to be a "teaching camera" for students and other people just getting started in 35mm photography. It had very simple controls and very simple, straightforward, functions.

The X 370 had only two modes: Aperture priority and full manual. In aperture priority mode you set the preferred aperture with a wheel on the back of the camera and, as you changed the settings, you'd see a red LED light in the viewfinder (off to the side of the subject you were looking at) that would show what shutter speed would be selected by the camera to go with the aperture you selected. You could easily tell if you needed to change the aperture to (make the lens opening larger or smaller) if the shutter speed was too slow or too fast for your desired effect. For instance, if you were talking a shot handheld and the LED indicated that your shutter speed as 1/30 of a second, you'd know that was too slow for hand held work and would likely be blurry. In that case you'd change the aperture to make the lens more open to light more light in and this would let you use a faster shutter speed.

In full "Manual" mode you would set the shutter speed and aperture both. This allowed you to use your own judgement instead of relying on the built in light meter of the camera. (There is another option called "Shutter priority" where you pick the shutter speed you want and the camera selects the proper aperture. The 370 did not have that option, but many other cameras do)

The reason I suggest the 370 is it was a basic camera designed for learning so it would both be easier for you to understand as the writer and make sense in the story as a gift from someone when she says she wants to "really learn photography." It could have been their camera. Or it could have just been an inexpensive camera to learn on.

I agree that if you are writing about a photographer you need to know more than you do now. There are plenty of film and digital camera books out there, including the "For dummies" series and tons of info on the web.

Personally, I recommend some hands on research. You can get a Minolta 370 cheap on eBay. Make sure it's being sold as a working camera. You can still get 35mm film and send it out for developing. Buy the camera, read the manual, buy some film, and shoot some photos. Get an idea of how it works, what changing the settings does, and get a feel for it. Then you can write about it with more knowledge and confidence.

In 2004 if she wanted to she could still learn how to develop film and make prints in a darkroom or have them processed profesionally. Heck, she could also split the difference between film and digital and scan developed photos into Photoshop for editing.

Here's a review I did of the Minolta 370 about 15 years ago.

http://www.epinions.com/review/Mino...era_Kit__Camera_minolta_x370s_k/31043/1211584

Yes, the X370 was a fine little camera. I remember selling a ton of those at the camera store. We gave an old Olympus 35mm manual SLR to my friend's son, who was taking photography class in high school. He was born in the mid-Nineties. I'm sure he's since moved on to digital, but he learned the basics in school. Your timeline should work with this.

Keep in mind that the closer your plot moves to present day, there will be fewer retail outlets that take film in for developing.

FeeFee said:

... I’m trying to pick out some role models for her/photographers she might admire and mention in a narrative.

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Maragret Bourke White, Dorothea Lange, Diane Arbus and Annie Liebowitz would be ones to look at as role models. Hit Biography.com for information on them.

More current women that might make a good inspiration would be Barbara Davidson, Gillian Laub and Sara Naomi Lewkowitcz. If you look these up you'll see I'm more partial to the photo journalist than commercial photographer, they're just more interesting. Look at Pulitzer winners also.

There are any number of photo blogs and info sites, my current favorites are PhotoShelter, TiffenBox and PhotographySpark. PhotographyConcentrate has decent tutorials, but not really aimed at rank beginners.

When you get to needing details and a review of your writing, feel free to PM me. Having worked as a professional photographer and taught photography from before the computer age, through conversion to digital and current digital editing and work, I'm happy to work with you but you'll need to get the basics down before you're ready for my direct input.

Jeff

FeeFee said:

Chumplet – Thank you so much for your descriptions! This is actually getting easier to visualize!

So when photographers looks at a professional photograph, are they able to critique how the photographer chose to take the picture? Do they ever think to themselves how they would have adjusted the shutter speed, opened the f-stop more, etc.? Could you tell from a photo how it was taken?

VERY helpful. I’m not sure that I want to go the hipster route, more along the lines of “cheap and accessible, but still decent quality for someone who loves the art form.” Is that possible??

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When photographers look at a photograph, they concentrate mostly on the composition, and possibly the emotional impact of the picture. I've been looking at the National Geographic "Your Shot" community (and contributing on occasion) and it's astounding how much an amateur photographer can capture in a single shot.

The shutter speed or f-stop might not be immediately apparent in the photo, but if it's an action shot, you can be sure the photographer took into account the shutter speed. If it's a close-up of a bee on a flower, the photographer probably paid more attention to the f-stop. If it's a lion in the distance, or a panoramic landscape, the photographer concentrated on the focal length as well.

I was probably too glib with the "hipster" comment, but many mid-priced non-SLR cameras have very, very good lenses, and a good photographer will certainly perk up if the lens is a Nikon or a Carl Zeiss, etc.

I often told friends I wanted my pictures to be so sharp, they could cut like a knife. I don't have that luxury these days, but those NatGeo pictures make me want it even more...

"Ohh, Minolta does sound like a good choice. I do, however, want my character to aspire to be a professional photographer. Would this camera be too limiting for that? Would she be able to purchase a newer camera and even know how to properly use it?"

The 370 was designed as a "student camera" so, in its time, it would be ideal for someone who wanted to be a pro. Not because it was "fancy," (it wasn't) but because it gave the shooter complete control over the vital elements of photography and helped them establish a strong foundation in the basics. That's necessary for anyone who wants to go pro.

You could take great photos with the 370. I know I did. It's not something a pro would use, but it is the kind of thing they would have learned on. (If not the 370 specifically than a similiar model by Nikon, etc).

During the time to the switch to digital it's not as relevant as it was during film's heyday. But it would still be something to learn the basics of exposure, lighting, composition, etc. The problem is there are enough differences with digital photography that digital has it's own learning curve of things unique to digital that didn't come up when shooting film. At some point she'd need to make the switch. But, everything she learned about the basics with film would help with digital.

One advantage is by the time of the story the 370 could be gotten cheap. She'd be able to use her money for film and processing instead. There would still be labs that could do mail order processing if not on site. And, if she has access to a HS or college photo lab or photo course, many still taught B&W film processing. (Not as many now)

Up to you what camera you want her to use. But, whatever you pick, I STRONGLY suggest you buy one and shoot some photos with it. Whether film or digital there's nothing like the hands on use to understand how to use the camera, what the settings do, find little bits of description you can use, etc. You don't need to became a great photographer, you just need to have a practical understanding of the basics and have experienced what happens when you shoot with too slow a shutter speed in certain situations, or use the wrong F stop setting when you want a deep depth of field (how much of the background is in focus) and don't get it right, etc. There's no substitution for hands on.

I had the Minolta x370 as well. Great camera. I used it for well over a decade and was more than happy with the quality of pictures I got from it and its ease of use. I also worked at a camera store at the time, sold a fair number of them, and also got a great discount on it. I bought mostly off-brand lenses - they were cheaper. As for it being an appropriate camera for a professional - yes, absolutely. The snobbish financially well-to-do professional photographers would most likely have a Nikon (great glass!) or a Canon, but Minolta's also a definite good choice.

There are camera/photography clubs pretty much everywhere. Join one and hang out with the photographers. Tell them why you're interested in learning more, and I have little doubt that they'll help you understand things better. Also, check out Digital Photography School for their oh so many tutorials. And, like someone else said, get your hands on a camera and start shooting with it. It's the best way to learn. Added bonus - film cameras can be had for pretty cheap these days.

This might help

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/the-muse-see-visual-guide-to-photography-settings/