Photography Tutorials: Shutter Speed, Aperture, & ISO

[Phoenix1]

I was camping this weekend with a few people and we got into a conversation about photography. One of the people is totally into the hobby, but isn’t too well versed with the technical side of things yet. She takes awesome photos and has a really good handle on composition and lighting, but tends to use the “helper” modes her camera offers. You know, the sports, landscape, portrait and whatever other mode the camera’s got. They’re all on one side of the dial, sitting nicely together. The little flower, man running, mountain, etc…

When we began talking, I tried to persuade her to move away from those easy modes and to explore the more serious modes, such as shutter priority, aperture priority and full manual mode. It was then that I realized that she didn’t have as good a grasp on the exposure triangle as I did. She needed to get caught up to speed. Not a problem, as I love talking about photography. Actually, I was probably somewhat annoying because I didn’t shut up for half the night.

Anyway, I thought I’d share a quick post here that covers what I told my friend the other night. I tried to break things down in the most simple way I knew how. I suspect I did a fairly good job of it because she seemed to understand what I was saying. I did realize though that the topic is confusing for someone who is a beginner, so I didn’t include any bells and whistles with what I was telling her.

Here’s what I told her:

There are three primary parts of a camera’s exposure. and by exposure, I mean light hitting the camera’s sensor to create a photograph. Each of these parts controls light as well as offers an effect. Each is a trade-off with another. If you want one thing, you’ll likely have to give up another. Here’s what I mean.

Shutter speed controls how much light hits the sensor, but it also controls how much blur is incorporated into an image. Basically, you’ve got your camera’s sensor sitting there behind the shutter. You go into shutter priority and tell the camera how long to hold the shutter open. The longer the time, the more light that’s allowed to enter. So, if you need a lot of light, having a long shutter speed is a great way to go. The only problem with that is that with long exposure times (long shutter speed times), you get a lot of blur if the camera isn’t held completely still. While the shutter is wide open letting all that light in and you move the camera, you’ll see trails when looking at the final image. Conversely, if you have a super fast shutter speed, not much light at all will be let in. You won’t get any blur, but you also won’t get much light. There’s your first trade-off. Light versus blur.

The aperture (hole in the lens that lets light through) in a lens is another apparatus that can control light that’s entering the camera. When you change your camera to aperture priority mode, you’re essentially telling your camera how large you would like the hole in the lens to be. Obviously, large holes let lots of light in and small holes don’t. The thing is, large holes also create a shallow depth of field, meaning there will be a lot of blur in the foreground and background of your photos. If you’re taking a portrait of someone on a bright sunny day and you shrink your aperture down so it’s very small to compensate for all that light, you’re creating a deep depth of field as a byproduct. This means that the foreground, subject and background of your image will be sharp. This is highly distracting in portraits, so many people either use a sun filter or a fast shutter speed to cut the light and then open up their aperture to get that blur they’re after.

Finally, ISO controls how sensitive the camera’s sensor is. Low ISO values make the sensor less sensitive and high ISO values make the sensor more sensitive. If you wanted a high exposure image, you could set the ISO value in your camera to something high, but then you run the risk of introducing grain into your images. Low ISO values don’t produce a lot of grain (noise), but high ISO values do. See? There’s another trade-off. So if you want a high exposure image, you’d probably want to keep the ISO value under 800 and either open up the aperture or set a longer shutter speed, depending on what your goal is.

Well, that’s what I told her. I knew it sounded confusing to a beginner, but I promised that the idea behind everything would come together the more experienced she became. I hated that I couldn’t make it more clear, but it is what it is.

Do you have a better way to explain the exposure triangle as it pertains to photography? If so, please let me know below. Thanks!

 

[Phoenix1]

How Do I Use ISO, Shutter Speed & Aperture Together?​

When you’re setting your camera’s ISO, shutter speed, and aperture manually, you’re in, well…Manual mode. You have to be. You wouldn’t be able to set those options otherwise. And really, Manual mode isn’t as scary as it seems. You can begin by setting what you think is correct for whatever type of shot you’re going for and adjust as you proceed. That’s the beauty of owning a digital camera. You can test things out with as many photos as you’d like and not have to pay for any film or developing.

I’ve written some pretty good posts on how these three aspects of the photography triangle work and I’ll discuss their concepts below. To keep your interest with something new in this post though, I thought I’d offer you a few scenarios and then tell you how I’d set my camera if I were shooting in them. I’ll leave out the specifics and focus more on where I’d direction these settings. This way, you’ll get a good idea of what you may need to do if you ever find yourself in similar situations. Or, at least you’ll have a starting point.

For the first scenario, let’s say I’m standing outside on a clear day at either just before dawn or just after dusk. They call this the blue hour. The air is still, so nothing is moving. There’s very little light in the atmosphere, but there is some to work with. I’d like to take a landscape photo of a valley full of trees and fields.

Because there is hardly any light, I’ll need to set my aperture to the largest setting as possible. I’ll need as much light as I can possibly muster going through that lens. I will need to be careful of my depth of field though, so if there’s anything in the foreground that I’ll want sharp and in focus, I’ll need to keep that in mind. If there is, I’ll reduce the size of the aperture until appropriate.

The nice thing is, since there is no movement in the scene, I can lengthen the time of the shutter speed as much as I want to obtain the exposure I’m after. And because I can take liberties with both the aperture size as well as the shutter speed, I’ll leave the ISO down at 100 or less. I won’t need to compensation for that. So really, it’ll be a balancing act between the aperture and shutter speed primarily, depending on how I have to set the aperture due to the depth of field issue. When a scene is still like this, shutter speed is key. Use all the leeway it gives you to compensate for the other settings.

For the second scenario, let’s say I’m standing on the side of a soccer field taking photos of the players. The action is fast and there’s lots of sun outside. I’d like to get close ups of each player that contain no blur. This is definitely an advanced type of shooting, so here goes. Let’s start with the obvious first. The goal is to take photos of the players close up and with no blur, so we’ll need to set the shutter speed so it’s very fast. To stop motion, the shutter speed will need to be about 1/1000th of a second. Fast shutter speeds like this don’t allow a lot of light through. To compensate, I’ll need to open up my aperture. The aperture size will depend on how far I am from the player I’m taking photos of and how much depth of field I’d like in my shots. If I want lots of depth of field, I’ll open up the aperture wide. If I don’t want lots of depth of field, I’ll shrink it down some. To compensate for the amount of light the aperture is letting through, I’ll adjust my ISO. A big aperture will most likely need a low ISO value and a smaller aperture will need a higher one.

For the third scenario, let’s say I’m at a night birthday party or some sort of an indoor party where there’s movement and not a lot of light. Again, since I definitely don’t want motion blur, I’ll need to start off with an appropriate shutter speed. Since parties might not have as much action and movement as soccer games would, I’ll set the shutter speed to 1/500th of a second. The next thing I’ll focus on is aperture size. Again, I’ll want lots of light to hit the camera’s sensor, so I’ll adjust the aperture as wide as it’ll go. If the exposure is still low after these adjustments, I’ll increase the ISO value. Actually, I’ll probably leave the ISO value set to Auto so the camera can figure out the correct exposure. It’s oftentimes a good idea to keep ISO set to Auto in cases like these.

Obviously, there are many more scenarios, but these demonstrate how you’ll need to start off with what’s most important and then work backwards from there. I like Auto ISO and adjusting the shutter speed and aperture. This gives me lots of freedom and control.

Comment: Thanks for explaining ISO and shutter speed techniques. I had some confusion, but it’s been cleared up. I normally just like to use auto ISO and auto shutter speed. Not because I know how to do it manually. I am a beginner and would like to know everything slowly.

Reply: Agreed. Slowly is the best way to learn photography. Another great way to learn is to get out there and practice. As you take lots of photos, you’ll discover various necessities. You’ll ask lots of questions for how to do this or how to do that. Bring a notepad or something and write down all your questions. Then, come back here or another photography forum or blog and ask those questions. We’d be happy to help you.

 

[Phoenix1]

Working With the Exposure Triangle to Adjust Scene Brightness​

I’ve been involved with photography for over 30 years. I began in the old days while working with my very first point and shoot camera and have evolved with the changes in the industry every step of the way. Talk about how time goes by. I can remember hanging out with my fiends, taking photos of all sorts of things.

Anyway, back in those days, because the cameras were so different and because we used film, we had to really learn photography and we had to make sure we applied what we learned as to take proper shots and not waste the film that cost us so much money. There was very little experimentation and what experimentation we did engage in was usually by accident. Supplies got expensive here and there, but we eventually picked up on how things worked and I became pretty good at my craft.

I want to share a bit of basic knowledge with you today because I think it may be helpful for folks who are new to photography. What I’d like to talk about will save you a lot of time down the road and hopefully it’ll help you by removing some of the struggle we all feel when we’re just starting out.

Basically, there are three primary parts to exposure in photography. Those parts are shutter speed, aperture and ISO. Shutter speed is the duration of time that passes when your camera’s shutter moves to allow light to strike the sensor. The longer the shutter speed, the more light. Aperture is the hole inside of your lens that has the ability to grow and shrink. The larger the hole, the more light that’s let through. And finally, ISO is the sensitivity of the sensor itself. ISO is like an amplifier. It can take whatever light that’s being let through and amplify that light so it’s viewed much more profoundly than it actually is. The higher the ISO value, the more sensitive the sensor.

When I talk about exposure, I’m referring to the brightness or darkness of a photograph. A properly exposed photo is one that looks just right. An overexposed photo is one that appears to be too bright and an underexposed photo is one that’s too dark.

The big question is how to control exposure in photography. As I alluded to above, there are three primary methods we can employ. We can adjust the shutter speed, aperture and/or ISO. The issue is, each one of these methods comes at a price. You’ll need to negotiate with your camera in order to produce a satisfying result.

Shutter speed controls not only how much light makes it through to the sensor, but it also controls how much blur appears in a resulting photo. If the shutter speed is very fast, you’ll get a sharp, clean photo that contains very little, if any, movement at all. If you have a slow shutter speed and there are moving objects in your scene, you’ll end up with blur in your image that appears like movement as well. It’s these two areas that you’ll need to decide on as you’re out shooting. Brightness or darkness as well as motion blur.

When it comes to aperture, not only does the hole inside of the lens let more or less light through, it also controls what’s referred to as depth of field. Depth of field is what makes some photos look soft in the foreground and background and sharp right at the center. The larger the aperture, the more light that’s let through. With that, though, comes a shallower depth of field. Smaller aperture sizes offer a deeper depth of field. So if you’re looking for a photo that’s sharp from front to back, you’ll need a very small aperture size, but just remember that the cost for that sharpness is light. Small apertures don’t let much light through to the sensor at all.

Finally, we have ISO. If you keep your ISO value low, your sensor will be of average sensitivity. If you boost up the ISO value, you’ll make the sensor much more sensitive to the light that’s let through, giving you more leeway when it comes to darker, less lit scenes. The cost for that leeway is noise in your resulting image. The higher the ISO value, the more grain that’s introduced. Again, this is the dance we must partake in as photographers. If we’re dead set on keeping as much grain out of our photos as possible, we’ll need to set that value to 100 (or lower, if possible). Then, we’ll need to decide on where we’re going to get our light from. A large aperture or a slow shutter speed.

If we don’t want any blur at all in our shot, we’ll need to keep the shutter speed very fast, but then we’ll need to decide where we’re going to get our light from. Either a large aperture size or a high ISO value.

And finally, if we want a deep depth of field in our shot, we’ll need to decide if a higher ISO value is better than a slower shutter speed. While this seems cumbersome right now, as you get used to considering the attributes and limitations of each piece of the exposure triangle, you’ll become so well versed that you won’t even think about it anymore. I promise.

I hope this helped someone out there. Please let me know if it did and also let me know below if you have any questions.

 

[Phoenix1]

What is Shutter Speed? How Does it Work?​

I talk to a lot of newer, less experienced photographers and whenever we get to the topic of the different priority modes on a camera, shutter speed comes up as one of the most popular. While many budding photographers have heard of shutter priority mode, many don’t quite grasp what it does or what it’s capable of. With this in mind, I thought I’d write this post to help explain a few things.

Shutter priority mode is the mode that controls the camera’s shutter speed. On my Canon Rebel T7i, the indicator on the dial is Tv. The shutter itself is one of the mechanisms in a camera and lens setup that controls how much light enters onto the camera’s sensor. It also controls how much potential blur or sharpness a photograph will include. I’ll get to that in a bit.

As I just mentioned, to access shutter priority mode on my Canon Rebel, I would turn the dial on top of the camera to the Tv (Time Valuation) setting. On many Sony DSLR cameras, the setting says S. This is also true for Lumix and Nikon. As for Fuji cameras, things are a bit more complicated. You’d have to turn your lens to a particular setting and then turn the dial on the top of the camera to a designated shutter speed, which, in effect, activates shutter priority. Please check your camera’s manual for specific model instructions.

Okay, so what exactly does the shutter inside of a camera control again? Well, the shutter is the mechanism that blocks light from getting to your camera’s sensor. When light makes it’s way to the sensor, it’s recorded as an image and there you go. You’ve got a photograph. If the shutter moves out of the way for a very, very brief moment of time, only a tiny bit of light will make it to the sensor. This can create dark images, but also, since the shutter movement was so fast, there won’t be much blur at all in the photo, even if the camera or the subject was moving. It’s sort of light blinking your eye very quickly or moving under a strobe light. Things will be clear, but they may be dark.

If the shutter moves out of the way for a longer period of time, much more light will make its way to the sensor, but more blur might be introduced into the photo. This is why people suggest using a tripod to keep your camera still if you’ve working with a slow shutter speed. Although, there may be times when you actually want blur, as in when you’re panning a subject like a motorcycle racing around a racetrack or if you’re going for light trails or something.

Let me give you some examples of what you might want to use a faster shutter speed for. Since fast shutter speeds essentially freeze time, you can capture an action as it’s happening. Have you ever seen those photos of hummingbirds that have their wings perfectly still? In mid air? Those shots were taken using a shutter speed of probably around 1/1000th of a second. This type of shot can go up to 1/8000th of a second, depending on what you’re taking a photo of. Hummingbirds are great. So are flying insects. Very interesting photographic styles. Fast shutter speeds basically freeze time so you can see exactly what was happening that split second.

Conversely, slower shutter speeds allow us to see what was going on over a longer duration of time. Think about all of those silky waterfall photos you’ve seen. Those may have been taken with a two second shutter speed or even slower. If you’d like to take that picture of the motorcycle racing around the track and you’d like to show off how fast it was going, you may want to set your camera to a 1/4 second shutter speed and track the motorcycle and then snap the photo. Doing this will show the bike as clear, but the background as blurry. That shows a lot of movement. Also, if you set the shutter speed for an even longer duration, such as 30 seconds, you’ll be able to capture tail light trails on passing cars. Or if you want to go even longer than that, you can capture star trails in the night time sky. As you can see, shutter priority mode can truly open up a world of creativity.

When it comes to dealing with too much or too little light, shutter priority mode can help as well. I’ve photographed on very bright, sunny days and I’ve had to set a faster shutter speed, just to cut down on all that light that was coming through my lens. If I didn’t, my photos may have come out over exposed. As for darker environments, slower shutter speeds may help to let in some of that necessary light. So there’s a lot to think about when it comes to photography in the way of movement and creativity as well as how and how much light is going to make it to your sensor for a proper exposure.

I hope I explained some of what shutter priority mode is when it comes to photography. I know this is sort of a big topic, so I’m happy to answer any questions you might have on it. Just ask my down below. Thanks!