GoingManual.com It's time to take control!    Home    Tutorials    Photography Forum  Photography Tutorial Introduction Part I – Gear The Camera  -  Focus  -  Resolution  -  MegaPixels Vs Print Size  -  Sharpening Semi auto settings  -  Aperture Priority (Av)  -  Shutter priority (Tv) Zoom and Focal Length  -  A Note About Sensor Size Other Camera Features  -  Viewfinders  -  Lens Hood  -  LCD screen  -  White Balance Extra Equipment  -  Tripod  -  Cable Release  -  Filter systems  -  Polarizer and ND filter  -  External Flash  -  Studio Lighting  -  Reflectors Part II – Capturing The Scene Your First Manual Photo  -  It's All About Exposure  -  The Light Meter  -  Exposure Explained  -  Controlling Exposure Creative Effects  -  Aperture and Depth Of Field  -  DOF Preview  -  Shutter speed Putting it all Together  -  ISO  -  Ap. & Shutter Relationship  -  Stop for a minute  -  So What?  -  The Bulb Setting Metering the Scene  -  18% of Everything Metering modes  -  Matrix  -  Average  -  Center weighted  -  Spot or semi-spot Taking Meter Readings  -  Expose for your subject  -  Sunsets and sunrises  -  Reflecting sun  -  Night Exposures  -  Moon  -  Green Foliage  -  Bright or White Scenes  -  Dark or Black Scenes Understanding Your Histogram  -  Flash Metering Composition Lead in The Viewer Eye  -  Point of Focus  -  Fill the frame  -  The Rule of Thirds  -  Moving Subjects  -  Print and frame Sizes Different Styles Learn by doing  -  Giving and Getting Critique  -  Portraits  -  Groups  -  Children  -  Shooting Outdoors  -  Silhouettes  -  Macro  -  Products  -  Landscapes  -  Sports and Action  -  Panning  -  Rear Sync Flash  -  Abstract  -  Long Exposures  -  Black and White A few Other Useful Things  -  Blown Out Skies  -  Neutral Density Filters  -  Polarizing Filters  -  Electronic noise You're Half Way There! Part III The Digital darkroom  -  Computer hardware  -  Card Reader  -  Printers  -  Mouse Post Processing  -  The Ethics of Altering  -  Choosing Your Program  -  Tutorials   Photoshop Tutorials   Photoshop Primer   Saving Your Image   Adding a Border   Using Levels   Using Curves   The S-Curve   Correcting White Balance   Improving Saturation   The Clone Tool   Correcting Lens Distortion   Blending Multiple Images   Black and White Conversion   Sepia Conversion   Reducing Noise   Cropping for Different Print Sizes   Sharpening   Working With RAW Files   The Gimp Tutorials   The Gimp Primer   Saving Your Image   Adding a Border   Using Levels   Using Curves   The S-Curve   Correcting White Balance   Improving Saturation   The Clone Tool   Correcting Lens Distortion   Blending Multiple Images   Black and White Conversion   Sepia Conversion   Reducing Noise   Cropping for Different Print Sizes   Sharpening   Working With RAW Files   << It's All About Exposure Putting it all Together >> Creative Effects Let's take some more pictures, play with the settings and see what we get. We'll need to put the camera on a tripod or flat surface as our shutter speeds will get too slow to hand hold. If you don't have a tripod yet, a cushion or small bean bag is useful. The settings you will use depend on how bright your scene is. I'm not going to give you both shutter speed and aperture as I can't know the light conditions where you are shooting. I'll give you one and using your light meter you're going to determine the other. Tip: A shutter speed of less than 1/60 is difficult to hand hold and below 1/40 is almost impossible. To avoid blur caused by hand shake keep you shutter speed at or above 1/60 for a normal (non-telephoto) lens. Aperture and Depth Of Field First let's play with the aperture. To see the full creative effect, frame a scene that has something in the foreground, middle-ground and background. Items on your desk or in your yard work just fine. When you look through the viewfinder the aperture is completely open. When you release the shutter the aperture closes to the required setting. So you won't see the creative effects until you review your picture on the LCD screen. You're going to adjust both aperture and shutter speed. If your shutter speed is below 1/60 then use a tripod, beanbag or cushion to rest your camera and use the timer (or cable release if you have one) to fire the shutter. Set it to its widest setting, that's the lowest f/number. An SLR lens is rated by how wide the aperture will go and is usually marked on the side or front. I'll start at f/1.8 although the widest setting on your lens might be f/5.6 or more. Frame your scene in the viewfinder and look at the needle in the light meter. Adjust the shutter speed until the needle is in the middle. It will probably be quite high. The actual number depends on how bright your scene is and might be different to mine. Why is explained later and usually makes your head hurt the first time you try to understand. So for now enjoy the simple art of photography, the nuts and bolts are coming. f/1.8, 1/25 sec, ISO 100 Focus on the nearest item in your foreground. Now, with your aperture at its widest setting and the shutter speed adjusted to get the needle in the middle, you can take your picture. f/8, ½ second, ISO 100 Now change the aperture to somewhere in the middle, I'll choose f/8. Again frame the same scene and adjust reduce the shutter speed until the light meters needle shows a correct exposure. Focus on the same nearest item again. f/22, 5 sec, ISO 100 Now for the final picture set you aperture as high as it will go. I'm using f/22. Set the same scene. Adjust your shutter speed, again if your shutter speed is below 1/60 then use a tripod, beanbag or cushion to rest your camera and use the timer or cable release to fire the shutter. Review and compare your three pictures. Notice how in the first one only the item nearest the camera is in focus. But in the last the whole scene is in focus. The depth of the scene that remains in focus from front to back is called the 'Depth of Field' and is abbreviated to DOF. A wide aperture (low f/#) produces a short DOF but allows for a faster shutter speed. A small aperture (high f/#) gives a large DOF but requires slower shutter speeds. Point of Focus Where you choose to focus together with a short depth of field can be used for creative effect too.   Same wide aperture, different point of focus. Wide aperture settings are used to isolate elements of your scene using blur and focus. The mid range aperture settings of f/8 and f/11 are used when all the elements of the scene are a similar distance from the camera. Aperture settings above f/16 are used when there are elements of your scene close to the camera and far away and you want everything to be in focus. DOF Preview When you look through the viewfinder the aperture is completely open. As you release the shutter, the aperture closes to the required setting. Some cameras have a feature called 'Depth of Field Preview'. Check your manual now to see if your camera has it. The DOF preview closes the aperture to the required setting so you can see the apertures creative effect before you release the shutter. Run through the previous exercise above again. This time don't take a picture, just use the DOF preview. Higher f numbers mean a smaller aperture and less light so the scene will become darker especially at f/22 but let your eye adjust and notice how much of the scene is in focus at different settings. The DOF preview is a very useful tool and it will pay off to spend time getting used to using it. Shutter Speed We've just seen how aperture can provide a range of creative effects based on depth of field. Our other main method of creative control is the speed of the shutter. Shutter speed allows us to freeze action or control the degree of blur. Blur can be use to impart a feeling of motion or action or to create an entirely artistic image that bears little resemblance to the same scene shot at a higher shutter speed. First choose your subject. Choose a scene with a constant movement such as a running faucet or street traffic. If you choose a faucet you'll get a better appreciation for the different effects if the water sprays off something. Careful not to get your camera wet though, digitals aren't very forgiving to moisture. Be careful if you go to the road side, don't get hit by a car, please! Better yet find a bridge to shoot from. Long exposures of traffic are fun in the evening when vehicles have their headlights on. If there's still a little light still in the sky to backlight the skyline, you can get some nice images. For slow settings you'll need a tripod, beanbag or cushion. I have seen people balance their very expensive cameras on precarious perches. Tripods start at about $20 and are far cheaper than the repair bill of a dropped camera. Below 1/60s you need a steady hand, below 1/40s you'll need to steady your camera on something. First a fast shutter experiment. Open your aperture as wide as it will go. Then frame your scene and increase your shutter speed until you get a correct exposure. How fast you shutter needs to be will depend on how fast the action is. Try for above 1/250s. If you have trouble freezing motion try choosing a brighter scene or increase you ISO. Both will allow you to increase you shutter speed. So with your shutter set at a high speed, your aperture wide open, frame your scene, focus and release the shutter. 1/250s, f/5.6, ISO 800 There is still a little motion blur in this example so the shutter speed could be increased to completely freeze it. Come back to this example later and see if you can work out what you should do to to maintain a correct exposure. 1/60, f/11.0, ISO 800 Now reduce the shutter speed to 1/60. This is a good speed to hand hold a short lens (less than 85mm) or when using very little optical zoom. It can freeze normal human movement. Again adjust the aperture until the needle shows a correct exposure. Frame your scene, focus and shoot. 0 .8s, f/29.0, ISO 100 Set your shutter speed to 1/4s and reduce your ISO to it's lowest setting. Slowing your shutter will allow more light in so you'll need to frame your scene and adjust your aperture. Again depending on how much you have to close it depends on how bright your scene is. If you have difficulty getting the needle in the middle of the light meter it's possible you might not be able to adjust your aperture enough to compensate. If you close your aperture as far as it will go, e.g. f/22, and you still can't get a correct exposure then leave the camera at it's highest f number and adjust the shutter speed until the exposure is correct. Don't worry if you can't get the shutter speed down very far. We have a few tricks I'll share with you later. For now just set it as slow as you can until you get a correct exposure. So you've got a slow shutter speed and an aperture setting to compensate. Frame, focus and shoot! Tip: Always do a last minute check of your light meter before releasing the shutter. It's possible light conditions changed while setting up your camera. So you've seen what we can do using a few of the settings. Aperture controls the depth of field, while shutter speed controls the amount of blur. Understanding these concepts will allow you to create the kind of photographs you have always wanted. << It's All About Exposure Putting it all Together >>

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