Just beginning

[ElizabethRose]

I'm new too and im really glad i came across this thread. all of these posts have really helped

 

[Zrock]

My boss is a professional photographer, and we have gone out for a few lessons. I think the single most important thing he taught me was this:

Focus on aperture at first.

To expand on that:
- Set your camera to manual mode
- Set your aperture based on your desired depth of field effect (low F number = shallower depth of field = more blurring. high F number = sharper, wider depth of field)
- When you do that, your camera's exposure meter is going go off the charts, and you need to adjust your shutter speed to accommodate. The goal is to get that meter zeroed out like this:

- Take your picture. You now have a properly exposed photo.




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This works the best in a well-lit scene, which is what I'd suggest you stick with while you're learning.

- Aperture will not only affect depth of field, but also how much light is hitting your sensor. Think of aperture like your eye, when it's dark your pupils grow to let more light in. When it's bright, your pupils shrink to let less light in. This is exactly the function of aperture. Depth of field is a side effect of this.

- Shutter speed will affect how long light is allowed to be exposed to your sensor

- The higher your ISO, the more sensitive your sensor will be to any light hitting it. The downside to this is that having your ISO set high, will increase noise in your image. You want to try to keep your ISO at 100-200 and use the other settings available to get a proper exposure. But if you simply don't have enough light to work with and you're getting motion blur in your pictures, feel free to kick up the ISO a bit to compensate. You can always put your photos through noise reduction software later.


Always keep an eye on your camera's meter. The game changes when you start getting into flash photography, but for now, this information should get you far.

I don't always rely on the exposure meter. If im in the house trying to take a pic of my baby girl with ISo set at 400 and aperature set at 5.6 the camera is telling me to shoot at 0"5. Well at that setting it is way to slow for a moving baby. I have to bump the shutter speet up around 1/60 in order to get a good shot but then the exposure meter is off the charts. This frustrates the heck out of me.