Shutter Speed/Light

[gender bombs]

OKay. Sometimes when i take a phot, the lighting seems fine until teh picture is developed, and the photo is dark. I took a photo on 1/60 where the lighting looked fine for my eye, the subject was in the shade. If i lower the shutter speed to say...1/8-1/4, will it capture more light?

 

[K_Duffer]

Could be that your camera's metering was confused by the sunny background, especially if your subject was in a shade. If you want your subject to be properly metered, you can (1) use spot metering on the face of the subject, (2) allow for some exposure compensation, or (3) use a flash.

Just openning the aperature or decreasing the sutter speed would work if you were in manual mode. If not, your camera would just compensate and produce the same result.

 

[ksmattfish]

What camera are you using?

As K_Duffer said, if you adjust shutter speed while your camera is in an auto-exposure mode, it's going to try to compensate to get the same exposure as before. Shutter speeds as slow as 1/8th or 1/4th sec are probably too slow for hand holding if you want sharp, in focus photographs.

To increase exposure while in a manual exposure mode you can increase aperture size, slow down the shutter, or increase ISO, or a combination of any of these. Take a look at the sticky post at the top of this forum, and get a basic understanding of how aperture, shutter, and ISO are related to exposure.

It's also important to understand how your meter works, and if you have a choice of metering types (matrix, center weighted, averaging, spot, etc...).