Basics of Photography: The Complete Guide

The LifeHacker 5-parts videos provide the tips and tricks on the basics of photography.

Part I: Understanding How Your Digital Camera Works
With so many cameras available, figuring out how all the specifications and options translate into your everyday use is complicated. For our first lesson in the Basics of Photography, we learn how cameras work and make sense of what that means in terms of choosing a camera to buy and how that choice affects your photographs.

Part II: Your Camera's Automatic and Assisted Settings
In this lesson we take a look at your camera's various assisted and automatic settings.

Part III: Your Camera's Manual Settings
In this lesson we take away our handicap and jump into the fun stuff: manual mode. We look at the details of shutter speed, ISO, and aperture, as well as how those settings affect your photos.

Part IV: Composition and Technique
A well-composed photograph is really a matter of opinion, but there are a few tricks that tend to result in better pictures. That's what we take a look at in this lesson.

Part V: Editing Images in Post
For our final photography lesson, we look at the final step: editing your images. We try different kinds of techniques for color correction, touch ups, and a few other fun effects.

On top of that, LifeHacker is nice to provide all of these lessons in a printable PDF file. (Note: The photos in the composition lesson were cropped because they didn't fit, so visit the original post to see them in their entirety.)

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