I'd be curious to know if any beginning photographer could actually put those tips to good use. I find it odd they did not cover adjusting exposure with ISO, shutter, and aperture. Getting the right exposure, and not blindly accepting auto-exposure, is probably the most fundamental skill to develop, and is usually where most teaching starts.
The example I use as to why auto-exposure is unreliable is that most manufacturers have auto-exposure adjust to produce 18% grey (there's some variance in manufacturers). So if you take a picture of a white wall, the camera will expose it as 18% grey. If you take a picture of a black wall, the camera will expose it as 18% grey. As the photographer, it's up to you to decide if you wanted the wall to be black, or show fine differences in shade, you can't do both well at the same time.
> not blindly accepting auto-exposure, is probably the most fundamental skill to develop
Bit late to the party (why is hn so ephemeral) but this made me realize that my Samsung phone camera has literally 1 option to adjust: exposure. Sure, zooming is also default-accessible but that's selecting what to capture than photo-technical adjustments of what you're capturing. Any other such slider, you have to go into pro mode. Never realized this was the most fundamental skill but why they picked this just clicked into place!
> if you take a picture of a white wall, the camera will expose it as 18% grey. If you take a picture of a black wall, the camera will expose it as 18% grey.
That sounds like the two pictures should look the same in the end, then. If the walls are perfectly black and white and nothing else is visible, of course, but even with imperfections it should still look similar and not necessarily recognisable as a white or a black surface. Am I understanding you right?
The example I use as to why auto-exposure is unreliable is that most manufacturers have auto-exposure adjust to produce 18% grey (there's some variance in manufacturers). So if you take a picture of a white wall, the camera will expose it as 18% grey. If you take a picture of a black wall, the camera will expose it as 18% grey. As the photographer, it's up to you to decide if you wanted the wall to be black, or show fine differences in shade, you can't do both well at the same time.