Camera and Video

Photography and filmmaking are ultimately a series of decisions about how to handle light. This is the place where the basics that enable those decisions get collected.

Rather than reopening textbooks, the goal is to write short notes around the points I personally got confused on, so I can pull them out when needed.

Topics

1. Exposure — Three knobs that control the amount of light

Topics anchored on the exposure triangle.

• aperture — Size of the opening, depth of field
• shutter-speed — Time, motion blur, the 180° shutter rule
• ISO — Sensitivity, noise, base / dual native

2. Lenses — How to slice the world onto a sensor

Topics anchored on lens basics.

• focal-length — What mm actually means, why 50mm is "standard"
• crop-factor — Sensor size, 35mm equivalence
• depth-of-field — The four variables
• perspective-compression — Zooming in vs. walking closer

3. Frame rate and shutter angle — Two variables that shape the feel of video

Topics anchored on frame rate and shutter angle.

• frame-rate — 24/30/60fps, the soap opera effect
• shutter-angle — A shutter unit independent of fps
• slow-motion — High-fps capture, normal-fps playback

4. Color and dynamic range — The core of Lightroom editing

Topics anchored on color and dynamic range.

• white-balance — The trap of Lightroom's K slider
• dynamic-range — How the four tone sliders divide the histogram
• histogram — The diagnostic tool, expose to the right
• raw-vs-jpeg — Bit depth and the real reason RAW gives you room
• tone-curve — S-curve, RGB channels, teal & orange
• hsl-and-color-mixer — Splitting color across 8 channels

How these notes are written

• Everything starts as seedling. Connection comes before completion.
• Prefer rephrasing in my own words over quoting sources.
• When something turns out to be wrong, the correction itself becomes the heart of the note.