Exposure question

[NickD]

I just finished the first chapter of Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs and Bryan Peterson is talking about the fact that each time you set-up for a shot, you should take 6 exposures and choose the "most creative one".

Example :

1/500 : F/4
1/250 : F/5.6
1/125 : F/8
1/60 : F/11
1/30 : F/16
1/15 : F/22

What do you guys think about that ?

 

[SLRJoe]

I often take multiple shots of the same scene, but as I'm not often using the tripod I don't go below 1/125. I therefore often keep 1/125 as the baseline and then work up the shutter speeds, varying the aperture as I go. I also try a number of different ISOs for the same scene when it's low light conditions.

 

[Big Mike]

What do you guys think about that ?

It's called bracketing and I think it's a great idea, especially when you are trying to learn.

This was a pretty common practice when shooting film because you couldn't see the results right away...and especially with slide film, because the exposure latitude is rather narrow on slide film.

 

[gsgary]

What do you guys think about that ?

It's called bracketing and I think it's a great idea, especially when you are trying to learn.

This was a pretty common practice when shooting film because you couldn't see the results right away...and especially with slide film, because the exposure latitude is rather narrow on slide film.

Thats not bracketing, they are all the same exposure but you will get different depth of field

 

[Big Mike]

Doh!

You could call it DOF bracketing...rather than the more typical exposure bracketing.

 

[gsgary]

Doh!

You could call it DOF bracketing...rather than the more typical exposure bracketing.

:thumbup:

 

[Pugs]

DoF bracketing, shutter-speed bracketing, exposure-bracketing... Different tools for different jobs.

DoF bracketing for trying to hit the right depth for the composition.

Shutter-speed bracketing for moving subjects to hit the right amount of motion-blur or stop-action or both.

Exposure bracketing to make your HDRs FTW!! :lmao: Or... for making sure that you nail the exposure in uncertain conditions... but that's not as fun...

 

[gsgary]

Does Brian Paterson explain that those settings will give you the same exposure but with different DOF if not this book does not sound as good as people make out because there have been a few questions on here because people don't understand what he is saying

 

[ann]

perhaps for a beginner it can be a productive exercise. With that said, sometimes unexperience photographers have a diffcult time seeing the differences unless they are extreme.

try it for yourself and see if it is helpful for you

 

[bazooka]

Gary, about a third of the book is about how to choose the aperture, with a strong emphasis on DOF differences.

 

[JAFO28]

His video might help.

 

[Derrel]

Sure, why not try different "equivalent exposures" in order to see which one you like best? Especially when you are learning--since the different equivalent exposures will create different effects. The wider-aperture, higher shutter speed photos will show shallower depth of field and more potential to free object motion, while the smaller aperture, slower shutter speed photos will have deeper depth of field and will tend to allow a bit of motion blur to be conveyed on moving subjects.

On something like a large scenic waterfall, you might not like the 1/500 second at f/4 photo's rendering of moving water, but you might really,really like a shot done at 1/60 second. At a youth soccer game, I can almost guarantee you that a shot made at 1/15 second at f/22 has a good chance of looking like garbage, but a shot done at 1/500 second at f/4 will probably look much better as a stop-action photo.

 

[SoonerBJJ]

Does Brian Paterson explain that those settings will give you the same exposure but with different DOF if not this book does not sound as good as people make out because there have been a few questions on here because people don't understand what he is saying

Yes, Peterson explains the concept very well. It can be a difficult one for the uninitiated to grasp but read it over a few times and play with your manual settings and it will make perfect sense.

"Understanding Exposure" is an excellent book and should be required reading for anyone that want to understand their camera and take better photographs.

 

[fokker]

This is a question somewhat related to the topic - If you are shooting a still scene and you use a different combination of ISO and shutter speed, would you expect the photo to look exactly identical, ignoring the effects of noise/softness from higher ISO's? I guess the reason I ask is that long exposure night shots always have a certain 'look' to them caused by the lengthy exposure, is there actually any difference in how light is portrayed in a shot due to varying shutter speeds? I hope that makes sense...

 

[gsgary]

His video might help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEfL6t4MZfI

Won't help me i don't need help
I'll be posting up some Paul Carrack in concert from last night in one of the other forums