aperture, shutter speed, iso question...

[blujeans1008]

Hi guys,

I am fairly new to photography. i have always had an interest in it and i want to learn to shoot in manual mode. I understand what each of those 3 steps do. What i need help with is how to apply those together in different situations. For example in a dark room, what do i need to set each of those on or to vs. if it is outside on a nice and sunny day. I do realize that there is no perfect setting for those 3 to be on, one may like the photo a little more over exposed or have more in focus vs less in focus, each person is different.

what i would like is just a quick reference guide that i can look at, so i can go oh ok so these are the settings i need to have aperture, shutter speed, and iso on for a great photo, then i can go and tweak it to what i prefer in my photos.

i hope my question makes some sense and i appreciate any help you guys can offer

thank you

 

[john.margetts]

If you have a perfectly good meter in your camera, why not use it?

If you must guess, you need the Sunny 16 rule. This says that in bright sunlight you need an aperture of F/16 and a shutter speed equal to the ISO. Example: aperture F/16, ISO 200, shutter speed 1/200. Or: f/16, ISO400, shutter 1/400. On a cloudy day use F/11. Dull day use F/8. Etc.

www.johns-old-cameras.blogspot.co.uk

 

[dennybeall]

Shooting in Manual Mode doesn't mean you don't use your light meter. The light meter tells you which combinations will provide enough exposure to take the photo. You adjust the settings to achieve the effect you want. If you raise the speed up 2 stops to stop action the light meter will tell you not enough light so you lower the f-stop 2 stops and now it's right again. If you have the speed up and the f-stop can't go down far enough you raise the ISO until it's right. Need depth of field then raise the f-stop and lower the speed.....................

 

[Ysarex]

Listen to John -- use the meter in your camera.

Set the camera to P(rogram) mode and the camera will select a shutter/aperture combination for you. You can swap out one combination for another buy just rotating the Program shift wheel and the exposure doesn't change.

If you don't like the set of combinations you get then change the ISO.

====================================================

OR: set the ISO to auto and then select the shutter and aperture (Manual) you want to use -- the camera meter will then handle adjusting the ISO to match. All you have to do is watch it and sign off on the ISO choice.

===================================================

If you want to shift the exposure away from the meter choice just use the EC (exposure comp.) function already built-in.

Joe

 

[weepete]

Yup, it's the meter that tells us where to put the exposure, but often there's a few other things that you'll want to consider.

A slow shutter speed can blur movement
A wide aperture also affects how much of the image is in focus (depth of field)
A high ISO can introduce noise.

So you also need to consider what you are taking a photograph of. Generally there will be what was described to me in a workshop I took with Colin Prior as the "Limiting factor".

So the limiting factor will be defined by two things:
Your shutter speed or your aperture but sometimes both.

So lets consider a few of senarios:

A: You want to take a photograph of your car, in front of your house parked in the driveway outside on a sunny day with no wind. - here the aperture is the limiting factor as you want the whole car to be in focus, and as the subject is static you can use your tripod to prevent camera shake. So you need to use a small enough aperture that will get the whole car in acceptable focus and the lowest ISO you can to prevent noise.

B: You are taking a handheld closeup shot of a floweron a sunny day, but there is a a breeze and the flower is moving slightly. You are using a long enough lens and are far enough away from the subject that you know your depth of field will cover the flower even at the widest aperture (because you've checked it with your handy depth of field app) - here the limiting factor is shutter speed. Too slow and you wont freeze the motion of the flower (inded slow enough you will get shake from hand holding). Again you want to use a low ISO to make sure you don't get unwanted noise

C: You are shooting some mountain landscapes from a boat. - here the limiting factor is both. You need a small enough aperture to get the whole scene in focus (a deep depth of field) but you also need a shutter speed fast enough to freeze any motion of the boat so you don't get a blurred landscape. So we set the shutter speed and the aperture and use ISO to get a properly exposed shot

D: You are shooting some pro basketball in a badly lit arena - You are screwed. Buy a 1DX or D4 and a 200mm f2.8 and pray that there is just enough light to get your shots just this side of acceptable.

 

[Derrel]

Joe

LOVE this graphic! Is this one you've made? This is soooooo much better than the "exposure triangle" graphics we've seen singe the digital SLR came about.

 

[table1349]

This is a job for Bryan Peterson. Start here: Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera: Bryan Peterson: 0884798534707: Amazon.com: Books

Then go here: Bryan Peterson's Exposure Solutions: The Most Common Photography Problems and How to Solve Them: Bryan Peterson: 9780770433055: Amazon.com: Books

 

[Stradawhovious]

This is a problem that will be fixed by reading the above books and pressing the shutter button about 20 thousand times.

It's similar to asking people "how to drive". We can tell you until we're blue in the face, but until you get a large handful of hours behind the wheel with the knowledge you gained from reading and talking to people who are experienced, it will be difficult to effectively put into practice.

 

[Ysarex]

Joe

LOVE this graphic! Is this one you've made? This is soooooo much better than the "exposure triangle" graphics we've seen singe the digital SLR came about.

Thanks, yep I use it in my class notes. I'm not 100% happy with it and sometimes I add a box to the left labeled ambient light, but at least it's not directly misleading like the "exposure triangle." I don't recall when digital cameras were invented that the definition of exposure was officially altered. So I still teach it the old fashioned way. Exposure = ambient light + shutter speed + f/stop. ISO plays an important role but it's also important that ISO is not a variable in that equation -- more so now with digital cameras than it had been with film.

Joe

 

[Ysarex]

Joe

LOVE this graphic! Is this one you've made? This is soooooo much better than the "exposure triangle" graphics we've seen singe the digital SLR came about.

Here's the other version I sometimes use. I don't like vertical words, but seems best option here.

Joe

 

[Dave442]

I think these things become subconscious, like driving a standard shift car. Looking at this excellent graphic from Joe my thinking is that I usually do the selection in the following steps:
Looking at the ambient light I am adjusting the ISO to get me in the ballpark for the Shutter Speed and f/stop that are manageable.
Then looking at the motion in the scene I decide a Shutter Speed, based on that I check that my ISO selection was reasonable for that selection.
Then I fine tune the exposure with the f/stop. If I want to use a larger aperture then I will just do a quick movement of both the shutter speed and aperture, keeping the same exposure.
If I need more DOF, smaller aperture, then I'll check if I can lower the shutter speed, or if I feel that it is at its lowest limit then raise the ISO unless I am also at that limit.

To not be caught too far off it helps to just keep making adjustments as things change while holding the camera, but not looking through the viewfinder. That is sort of like the shifting the car into the right gear, you don't start to pass a car and then downshift. Same with the camera, you will already have the ISO where you want it before starting to take the shot.

I think it is helpful to know the stops so that for example you were outside at ISO 100 and 1/100 and f/16 like noted by John, and you wanted to take a picture of your kid on his bike and you what to stop motion with 1/500 shutter speed you know immediately to go to f/7.1 or stay at f/16 and go to ISO 500, or any other combination that would give the same exposure.

A lot of the old camera manuals I had that came with cameras that did not have light meters included guides on shutter speed and aperture for some fixed ISO for different scenes. Most photography books include this information somewhere in the first few chapters.

 

[robbins.photo]

I think these things become subconscious, like driving a standard shift car. Looking at this excellent graphic from Joe my thinking is that I usually do the selection in the following steps:
Looking at the ambient light I am adjusting the ISO to get me in the ballpark for the Shutter Speed and f/stop that are manageable.
Then looking at the motion in the scene I decide a Shutter Speed, based on that I check that my ISO selection was reasonable for that selection.
Then I fine tune the exposure with the f/stop. If I want to use a larger aperture then I will just do a quick movement of both the shutter speed and aperture, keeping the same exposure.
If I need more DOF, smaller aperture, then I'll check if I can lower the shutter speed, or if I feel that it is at its lowest limit then raise the ISO unless I am also at that limit.

To not be caught too far off it helps to just keep making adjustments as things change while holding the camera, but not looking through the viewfinder. That is sort of like the shifting the car into the right gear, you don't start to pass a car and then downshift. Same with the camera, you will already have the ISO where you want it before starting to take the shot.

I think it is helpful to know the stops so that for example you were outside at ISO 100 and 1/100 and f/16 like noted by John, and you wanted to take a picture of your kid on his bike and you what to stop motion with 1/500 shutter speed you know immediately to go to f/7.1 or stay at f/16 and go to ISO 500, or any other combination that would give the same exposure.

A lot of the old camera manuals I had that came with cameras that did not have light meters included guides on shutter speed and aperture for some fixed ISO for different scenes. Most photography books include this information somewhere in the first few chapters.

Well sticking with the car analogy most DSLR's come with a wonderful automatic transmission feature called auto-iso. I use it quite a bit myself, even in manual mode. I don't often have time to adjust all three variables, so what I do instead is set the auto-iso on, and since i know my camera can produce images with acceptable noise up to about iso 6400 I set the max iso to.. you guessed it, 6400.

In manual mode one of my command dials controls the shutter speed, the other controls the aperture - I let the camera pick the ISO needed to get the correct exposure. If I want a lower ISO, I can decrease my shutter speed or increase my aperture or both. This allows me to be able to grab the camera and be ready to shoot more or less at a moments notice without having to press the ISO button and adjust that value for proper exposure.

In situations where I have time I can always manually change the ISO as well, but for the most part I find that this method works great for the kind of photography I do.

 

[astroNikon]

The concepts are simple, but as mentioned above you have to practice it.
Understanding Depth of Field/Aperture you have to test it (hopefully with a f/1.8 lens to compare teh different f stops.
Then lay with shutter speed on various speed subjects.
then play with ISO

I understood the concepts but until I really tested everything did I really actually understand it.
Watch you meter inside your camera and practice. It's a digital camera so it's free to practice.

 

[Didereaux]

SUNNY 16 learn it, USE it. you really don't need much else.

 

[SCraig]

I think you might know what those three values DO but not necessarily what they MEAN. If you knew what they mean you would have phrased your question differently since the goal of any properly-exposed photograph is to balance those three values with the amount of light available. When you understand the reasoning behind why, when and which to change, then start thinking about shooting in manual. Otherwise all you're going to do is miss a lot of photographs.

I find it ironic that for years I would have given anything to have a meter built into my cameras so I didn't have to shoot every single photograph in so-called "Manual Mode" whereas now people have intelligent cameras with built-in metering and microprocessors controlling everything, and the majority of them want to start out in the mode many of us would have loved to get away from.

There is a time and a place for most of the mode settings on your camera; aperture priority, shutter priority, and full manual. Use ALL of them as the situation dictates.