Urgh, irritated. Help?

HHudgins · Sep 7, 2011

Hi everyone,

BRAND new to this forum, so hopefully I don't repeat an obvious question...
I have a Nikon D70s, use a Sigma 28-70mm and a Sigma 70-300mm. I also have a Nikon SB-600 AF Speedlight.

I have two main interests in photography: equine sports photography and portraits (of people, horses, & other animals).

The issue I am having is this: I am trying to learn more about aperture, shutter speed, etc. so I can get better quality in the pictures I'm taking. I've been reading for the last few hours, and I've tried so many different techniques to no avail. I;m extremely flustered and wanted to see if any of you pros can help a newbie out?

I understand that the smaller the aperture, the more light I get.
The slower the shutter speed, the more light.
What I WANT in portraits is a shallow DOF but a fast enough shutter speed to catch CLEAR and CRISP shots of animals and people (I can't very well tell a dog not to lift his eyebrows, and I keep getting blurry pictures with a slow shutter speed). I've messed with a bunch of different settings and techniques suggested on other forums, and I've yet to find something that works for me. If I get the DOH the way I like it, the shutterspeed is so slow that everything is blurry. If I manually alter the shutterspeed and leave the aperture the same, I get nothing but black. If I adjust the aperture to make up for it, I lose the DOF I wanted in the first place.

UGH! SO, I am irritated and about ready to throw this camera through the wall. >.< Can anyone help me?
I really want to take as many photography classes as I can, but right now it is not financially possible. Anyhow, I'd love any suggestions.

Thank you!

H4X1MA · Sep 7, 2011

Most people throw this link, I actually just bought it and only got through the first chapter so far but I already learned something I didn't know >.<

Amazon.com: Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera (9780817439392): Bryan Peterson: Books

eUgalde13 · Sep 7, 2011

^^ I second that

No matter how much we as newbies search on the Internet it will never be the same than getting that book. On a quick tip that you'll learn in the first pages is that you wanna keep the on camera light meter near the cero mark

Sent from my iPhone using PhotoForum app

Eva D · Sep 8, 2011

I agree with everyone on this one. I am a newbie and only serious about photography for about four months and just bought my first DSLR in June. I was recommended Understanding Exposure about a month ago and immediately bought the book. It taught me a lot that I couldnt understand when my photo instructor was explaining it. I have been learning as much as I can I am sure there is improvement, however, i do not see it.

Here is an image from my very first photoshoot ever

This image is from my most recent shoot

Forkie · Sep 8, 2011

^^ Now there's an improvement! Keep improving like that and you'll be on your way!

dericcainphoto · Sep 8, 2011

Just as a quick tip, what is your ISO set at? That is the third element in obtaining a correct exposure. For instance, if you are at f/5.6 and 1/125th shutter speed with your ISO at 200, then you may need to bump your ISO up to 400 or 800. If you bump it up to 400 you can adjust your shutter speed to 1/250th. If you bump it up to ISO 800 then you can raise your shutter speed to 1/500th of a second. You have to keep in mind that the higher you raise your ISO the more noise you are going to introduce in your image. You should still be able to take very usable pics at ISO 800. I hope this helps.

StringThing · Sep 8, 2011

Another :thumbup: for that book. I am about 3/4 through it and have learned so much. You will NOT be sorry if you get and read that book.

jaomul · Sep 8, 2011

To the op, I'm sure you know this but its the bigger aperture that gives you more light ( smaller number,you stated smaller aperture but I'm sure just a typo ). Just in case this may be where things are going wrong for your shots. Smaller number ap equals more light.

addicted2glass · Sep 8, 2011

If the aperture of the lenses you have are not low enough you may be shooting forever with them and never get the effect you are looking for.
The first lens I had a 18-135mm went down to I think 3:5f and I was rarely ever able to get the background effect I think you are looking for.
Try on a 50mm f1:8 it was the least expensive lens at the time.

kmoser · Sep 8, 2011

the smaller the aperature number (e.g. f/2.8) the less depth of field you have. 2.8 means everything around the focal point is in focus and then it falls off from there. An f/22 is more depth of field and you can use that for scenics.

KmH · Sep 8, 2011

HHudgins said:
Hi everyone,

BRAND new to this forum, so hopefully I don't repeat an obvious question...
I have a Nikon D70s, use a Sigma 28-70mm and a Sigma 70-300mm. I also have a Nikon SB-600 AF Speedlight.

I have two main interests in photography: equine sports photography and portraits (of people, horses, & other animals).

The issue I am having is this: I am trying to learn more about aperture, shutter speed, etc. so I can get better quality in the pictures I'm taking. I've been reading for the last few hours, and I've tried so many different techniques to no avail. I;m extremely flustered and wanted to see if any of you pros can help a newbie out?
I understand that the smaller the aperture, the more light I get.
The slower the shutter speed, the more light.
What I WANT in portraits is a shallow DOF but a fast enough shutter speed to catch CLEAR and CRISP shots of animals and people (I can't very well tell a dog not to lift his eyebrows, and I keep getting blurry pictures with a slow shutter speed). I've messed with a bunch of different settings and techniques suggested on other forums, and I've yet to find something that works for me. If I get the DOH the way I like it, the shutterspeed is so slow that everything is blurry. If I manually alter the shutterspeed and leave the aperture the same, I get nothing but black. If I adjust the aperture to make up for it, I lose the DOF I wanted in the first place.

UGH! SO, I am irritated and about ready to throw this camera through the wall. >.< Can anyone help me?
I really want to take as many photography classes as I can, but right now it is not financially possible. Anyhow, I'd love any suggestions.

Thank you!

To keep the same exposure, if you change one of the exposure triad: shutter speed, lens aperture, image sensor ISO, you also have to change one or both of the others becuase they are all inter-related.

To that end, photographers use the concept of a 'stop'.
A stop is a doubling or a halving. For instance, changing the shutter speed from 1/100 to 1/200 is a stop, and at 1/200 the shutter open for half the time it is open at 1/100. Being open half as long, the shutter only lets light be recorded by the image sensor for 1/2 as much time (in effect less light), but at 1/200 the camera can stop motion better than it can at 1/100.

But, the photo will be darker too, unless we also open the lens aperture a stop so it is letting in more light. However, we can also get more light by changing the ISO, instead of changing the lens aperture. Or we can change both the lens aperture and the ISO in any combination that adds up to a full stop.
So, we can change the aperture by 1/3 of a stop and change the ISO by 2/3 of a stop and get the full stop we need to offset the change we made to the shutter speed.

Note that for shutter speed and ISO you can divide by 2 and multiply by 2 to calculate a stop - ISO 200 is one stop from ISO 400. A shutter speed of 1/500 is one stop longer time wise than 1/1000.
However, lens aperture is about the area of the lens opening so we have to multiply by the square root of 2 (1.4142) instead. So, f/2.8 is a stop larger lens aperture than f/4. By the way f/4, like all lens aperture numbers, is a fraction, so f/4 is a smaller number than f/2. The f is the focal length the lens is set to..

Depth-Of-Field (DOF) is controlled by 4 factors:

lens aperture
lens focal length
focus point distance
focus point distance to the background

One of the keys is that if lens aperture is unchanged, as focal point distance from the camera increases or decreases the total DOF also changes. The further from the camera the focal point gets, the deeper the DOF becomes, and the closer the focal point is to the camea the shallower the DOF becomes. Remember, the lens aperture is staying the same.

So when shooting something like equine sports there is a lot more variability in focus point distance and the photographer has limited control of the distance. Doing portraits is much easier because the subject is usually not moving which reducs the variability considerable.

By the way, it's not a good idea to use a low contrast text color when you post, and consider that TPF chose the default font and color, because they both promote readability.

Eva D · Sep 9, 2011

Thank You! I dove head first into photography knowing nothing about the technical side and been learning since then. Like I said I am a newbie and I have far to go in improvement.