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143 - Does Technical Knowledge Still Matter in Photography? · The Nerdy Photographer Podcast

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  Casey Fatchett: Casey, hello there. Welcome to this nerdlet
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  episode of the nerdy photographer podcast. I'm your
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  host, Casey Fatchett, and in this episode, I'm going to talk
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  to you about the technical aspects of photography. I
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  recently saw a photographer with 10s of 1000s of followers
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  ranting on social media about technical BS and not needing to
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  understand technical elements of photography that you know,
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  basically going off about how I picked up a camera over a decade
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  ago and I took a photo on auto, and it was still great, and you
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  don't need to know all this technical stuff, and technical
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  knowledge is the least important thing when it comes to producing
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  a good photo. What do I think about that? Does technical
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  knowledge still matter in photography with, you know, all
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  of the advancements in camera technology, and you know, photo
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  editing, does it really matter? And my answer is yes, of course,
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  it matters. While I don't think every photo needs to be
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  technically perfect, and I don't think that technical elements
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  are what necessarily is going to make or break a photo, they
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  definitely make you better, and they make you more consistent
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  having knowledge of things, of how the exposure triangle, that
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  is, quote, unquote technical, Bs, if anything is the exposure
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  triangle, understanding the exposure triangle is going to
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  make you so much better as a photographer, and you're going
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  to be able to do so much more on a market like consistently.
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  Isn't that what it's about? Sure, I can set everything to
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  auto and let the camera do all the work, but what if things go
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  wrong do? What if I want to do better? What if I want to be
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  more consistent? What if I want to shoot manually? So because,
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  you know, my camera can't figure out what's going on, that's, oh,
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  I better know some technical BS, because if I don't, I'm not
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  going to, you know, be able to consistently create images no
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  matter the situation that I'm in. And one of the things I
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  mentioned this about, I've done articles and videos about it, is
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  the metering system in your camera. So many people don't
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  understand how metering, how your camera metering, works.
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  I'll go and do a shoot, and I'll pull out a, you know, my light
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  meter, and, like meter, a few different spots on my subject.
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  And you know, these other photographers were there for the
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  workshop, or whatever. They're looking at me, and they're
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  going, why are you doing that? Why don't you just use the meter
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  in your camera? And I have to explain to them how the metering
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  in the camera works. Your camera is, you know, while it can do a
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  lot of things very quickly, and, you know, auto focusing and
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  metering and etc, it's also dumb. It does what you tell it
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  to do. It doesn't just figure things out on its own. And you
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  are the creative element here, like you are the creative person
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  here, you want it to expose a certain way, you have to know
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  how the metering works. There's, like, I don't know one. They
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  have, usually, like, five different metering modes.
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  There's, you know, evaluative of the whole scene, center weighted
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  spot metering, you know, whatever, like, there's a bunch
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  of different ones, if you and to know how those each of those
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  different modes, meters the scene helps you understand what
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  kind of photo you're going to get. Because I can set all I can
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  take the picture on, you know, aperture, priority or whatever,
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  and change those metering modes and get take a picture of the
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  same scene in each different mode and get a different
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  exposure every time. Guess what? Without all that technical
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  knowledge, you're not going to get the same types of exposures
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  over and over and over again. You're going to get wildly
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  different varieties of exposures. So it's good to know
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  the technical stuff and things like how flash works, the the
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  inverse square law how you need like, if you have your subject
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  is twice as far away from the light, you need quadruple the
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  power to like. That's having those that knowledge and being
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  able to have that technical backstop there is what helps
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  you, again, create images, no matter what the situation is.
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  Otherwise, you're at the mercy of the universe, and like your
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  camera, making decisions for you. You are not the creator,
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  driving the photo, making the photo. You're letting other
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  things make the photo for you. If you don't understand
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  technically, how these things work, the more you understand
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  those things, the more control you have. And you know that's
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  that's the lesson for today. Folks, keep that in mind. When
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  you start thinking there, you're like, Oh, this is boring. I
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  don't want to learn this stuff. You learn these things. You
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  acquire. This knowledge, it is a tool in your toolbox. I always
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  say that, like, you know, people say, like, oh, Flash. I don't
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  need flash. I'm a natural light photographer. Well, there might
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  come time when the photo you want to make isn't possible to
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  be made with natural light. And if you're like, for example, if
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  you're trying to do a shoot. If you're trying to do headshots
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  for a corporate a corporate headshot session, and you've got
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  to do 40 people in the same day, you're not going to get
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  consistent lighting for every person. If you're using natural
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  light, it's just not going to happen. There can be
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  fluctuations throughout the day, even if you're getting sun
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  pouring in through the window all day long. You know, forget
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  about like, even a cloud going by. But even if you have, like,
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  direct sunlight all day long, and you're getting like, you're
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  still going to have fluctuations. So if you want
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  consistency, you need to learn to know how to use lighting to
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  create consistent images. Otherwise you, like, I said, You
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  are at the whim of nature, or whatever your camera, whatever
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  you are, not the one controlling the camera. The camera is
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  controlling the photo, unless you know the technical BS behind
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  those things, and also stuff. Like, I don't need to know what
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  an F stop means. I don't know? Like, yeah, maybe you don't
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  know. Need to know what it means, but it'll help you
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  understand why you can't have, you know, a 300 millimeter, you
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  know, f1 lens. There's a reason, and maybe that's a topic for
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  another conversation. But please don't think of the technical
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  knowledge as boring and unimportant. The technical
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  learning in photography gives you tools to use your
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  creativity. Using those tools to make images, throwing that out
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  of the way, like I said, is offering up your creative
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  ability, your knowledge, your creativity is just you're just
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  sacrificing your creativity by saying, Oh, well, my camera does
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  it on its own, or does this, or does that, and I don't need to
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  know these things, you are less involved in the process, so
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  please take that with you, and I hope you enjoyed this nerdlet
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  episode. Be sure to subscribe and tune in and follow us on the
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  social media at the nerdy photo and until next time, stay safe
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  and stay nerdy. You.