While nothing will be like training with a camera in hand and with the lighting conditions available at that time, you’re lucky enough to have tools that can help you at any time. One of them is the photography simulator.
Because there is no denying that the practice is fundamental, I repeat for the millionth time on the blog, that it is of no use to learn the theory and terms if it is not known to apply them later, no one would think of reading a lot of books or articles related to driving and not getting behind the wheel or doing it once a year. Anyone who drives every day, even if they haven’t read a line about it beyond the driving manual to examine themselves, will do much better.
- The same goes for photography.
- No matter how much you read and study.
- If you don’t put it into practice.
- It will be forgotten and it will be a fruitless learning experience.
And yes, as I had anticipated at first, ideally, it’s ideal to train with the camera, which doesn’t mean there aren’t times when certain tools are useful. Today we’re talking about simulators.
It is a tool that you can access online and that simulates a photographic situation, giving you the possibility to practice the theory. It would be something like the airplane simulators that pilots train with, the only thing that instead of flying a plane takes a picture of you.
They are of different types, from those that simulate different focal lengths, to those that play with the triangle of light to get a suitable exposure, we will see them later.
Like I said, it’s better to shoot with your camera, of course, but what if you don’t have it handy, what if you’re recovering?Does boredom kill you in a waiting room? You’re in a place where you can’t move and there’s no light, nothing you can photograph, or you can’t find a model that’s positioned for you, or your card is full and you don’t want to delete photos.
It can also happen that you are thinking of buying a lens and no matter how many elements you have where you are told the best focal lengths for different situations, you want to see what it actually looks like, what the 200mm effect looks like compared to 85mm. For example. You can’t do that if you don’t have the lens, and you can do it with the simulator. Another utility.
There are many situations in which these tools can be useful to you, so I present them to you in this article, in the hope that they will make it easier for you to work with photo learning.
A way to test a camera without holding it in your hands. To play with different settings such as aperture, ISO or shutter speed (among others). Very useful for training with the display triangle.
Although the explanations are in English, the buttons are in Spanish, so you can do well if you do not master the Anglo-Saxon language.
It allows you to vary the light from ‘dress’ to ‘sunny’, play with the distance to the model, the focal length, the ISO value, the shutter speed and the aperture. You can take photos first at the shutter, aperture or aperture. manual and pretending to use a tripod, even if while the girl is moving, does the last option not help much either? but yes to see how well the background would go and the girl would move. Great for playing with the exposure triangle and seeing how you can compensate for one by modifying the other.
Similar to the previous one but with significant differences. You can only touch the aperture, speed and ISO. Train with the display triangle. The good thing is that you don’t need to take photos to see the result, when you move the cursor to one side or the other, the image changes, it would be like the camera function that allows you to see what the live photo is. You have three photos to test and you can “lock” the aperture or speed, if you want, to work as opening mode or shutter mode. It’s also in English and it doesn’t matter either. )
In this Canon simulator you can also select manual mode, aperture priority or speed priority, the meter indicates whether the exposure is correct or not and you can vary the aperture, speed and ISO, the good here is that the blades of the helicopter movement and you can check the effects of freezing the movement or capturing it at low speed. Something you can’t with the girl and the grinder because the girl moves all the time (of course, if you have a girl like mine, can you practice with her?).
In the upper right, it has three sections: a brochure, which takes you to a basic manual; a camera, to practice or play; and a watch, which leads you to a challenge in which you are asked for different types of results that you must achieve.
It also tells you, depending on the settings you’re changing, the effect you’re approaching. For example, when you tap the aperture (Av) first, a small arrow moves to tell you if the background will be more or less clear. In the sample image, when you select the maximum aperture, the cursor changes to the maximum sharpness (bottom right).
What I like most about this is how complete it is. If it included lighting, it would already be “the rebuke”. The bad news is that it’s not a real model, it’s a drawing and it’s not very good. But well, to understand the concepts, play with different shots, different focal lengths, calculate the focal length, etc. It’s amazing.
It is useful to be able to understand, for example, how depth of field works, how it is affected not only by the aperture, but also by the distance at which the subject is located. You can choose, in addition to the image model or background, the camera model. There are many, I’m sure you’ll find yours.
CameraSim offers us another simulator, very, very simple and at the same time very graphic in terms of exposure compensation, you can record and dodge to see the effect it has on the image.
In this case, we find simulators that allow you to train with lighting, direction, intensity, etc. This is the ideal choice for practicing lighting patterns comfortably from your computer or tablet. Prepare for your next session this way if you can’t work in a studio.
With this simulator you have the opportunity to play with a main light and an extra light, you can place them around the model from different angles, you also have another option to place the focus at different heights and see how the results change. good way to understand how different light patterns work in a portrait.
While the explanations and clarifications are in English, to play the violin you don’t need to understand it, you click on the hours (simulate the hours of a floor clock) to decide where you want to focus and you’re done. Height simulator, you will see how the focus goes up and down and you can position it intuitively (even if you don’t know that eye level means eye level).
This is another studio light simulator and is in Spanish (among other languages), it is a little more complete than the previous one, it allows you to play with up to six points of light, you can change direction, intensity, distance or add colored gels. The only thing is that the “models” are a little scary;). The look of this simulator is not the most beautiful although it does not prevent you from training, because it is its function.
Well, it’s not really a simulator, so I don’t list it, but I put it here because once you use the simulator, if you want to take notes, you have this option through which you can create the lighting diagrams you want. you want to record, instead of filming them in a role you end up losing.
Now I’ll introduce simulators that recreate different focal lengths
You choose, through the arrows, the lens, then the aperture, the zoom if applicable with a variable focal length and finally photographs (“Take Photo”). Then it shows you what the picture looked like. You can have a good time playing to see how different optics work depending on their focal length and aperture.
Yes, once the image appears, you click on the red box at the top left (“Save to light box”), then you can view the recorded images and compare by clicking under the button to take the photo (“View light box”) .
A simulator to test your lenses with which you can also see the problem of focal length. You choose which lens group you want to try (TV, macro, angular?), In some cases you will only get one image without the ability to change anything, because these are fixed goals, but in variables, you can move the cursor (I point it with the red arrow on the image) to one side and the other to see the difference in the shot, for example , at a distance of 75 mm or 300 mm. You see it at the moment, there is no need to shoot and wait for the “reveal”, the image adjusts as you move the cursor.
I leave this for the end because it seems to me that it is the one with which we best see the difference when using one focal length or another, because in the same image you can “use” a focal length of 14 mm and a focal length of 800 mm. , simply by moving the cursor. Very useful when the problem of focal length is lost and with theory, it is not clarified.
Then, you can choose different lenses, place them in different cameras and simulate their operation. Very interesting.
An additional bonus is that you can check with a single click, the difference between Full Frame (or full DX format) and FX, with the trim factor, just click the FX and DX buttons to the right of the lens selector (I indicate it with a red arrow).
Did you find it useful? If so, don’t forget to share it before you start playing with simulators or your camera, why, you’re already thinking about getting down to business, aren’t you?
Thanks for coming;).