Understanding aperture, shutter speeds and exposure

[Primax]

So you've got your new camera and you wanna experiment with manual settings do you? Well before you go shoot those pics theres a few things you should know so you have some idea of what your doing and why your doing it. Most SLR's and mid to high end digital cameras have your basic to advanced manual settings. Usually these consist of choices M for full manual, A for aperture priority, and S for shutter priority.

Aperture and shutter speed are the main things you need to know in order to get the correct exposure and depth of field(dof). Aperture determines how much light hits the film and shutter speed determines how long its exposed.

On your digital camera there may be several choices of aperture settings of f2, f2.8, f4, f5.6, f8, f11, f16, f22, and f32, with f2 being the largest and f32 the smallest(yea, i know it sounds backwards). Some cameras differ and many dont have all these choices but you just have to work with what u have. Each f# is called a stop. Each stop up doubles the amount of light which is allowed in the camera. Example, f5.6 lets in double the light as f8, etc.

Besides controlling light, aperture also controls dof like i said before. This is the amount of area in front of and behind the subject that appears in sharp focus. The larger the aperture, the smaller the dof. Example, f22 may have the entire picture in focus which f2.8 will only have the subject and maybe a little area around the subject in focus.

Shutter speeds determine the time of how long the shutter is open. Most digi cams with shutter adjustment go anywhere from 1/2000second to 30seconds. Just like aperture, each speed slower, doubles the amount of light. Example, shutter set at 1/125second will be twice as bright as shutter at 1/250second. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. If you were too take a picture of a car driving by you would need a high speed of say 1/250th of a second. Maybe a little slower if you wanted that wheel in motion look. For most action anything over 1/60 will work fine. Any speed below 1/30 will more than likely need a tripod as any motion in the photographers hand will result in a blurred picture. This is exactly why a tripod is so crucial in taking night pics.

Now that you understand aperture and shutter speed, we can move on to exposure. Most cameras have automatic exposure systems which usually work perfect and provide properly exposed pictures. When these systems dont work is when there is extreme lighting conditions, such as a persons face with a bright snowy background. This sort of scenario would trick the camera into turning down the exposure for the bright snow which would result in the darkening of the main subject, the persons face. This is known as overexposure. To avoid this, you should decrease the aperture by a stop or two from what the camera tells you and maybe even turn on the flash to compensate for the dark shading.

A picture take with a dark background and a lit up face might have the opposite problem and the camera might over compensate by underexposing the image which would result in the face being too light because the camera was trying to detail the background and not the subject. To avoid this just do the opposite as you would for overexposure.

These are the basic things you need to know about aperture, shutter speed and exposure. Eventually i will try and get some pictures to go along but for now, you'll have to cope with me and i hope this helps out in learning why the camera does these things and what you can do to take better pictures. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

[5genlude]

Excellent Write up/Article. Stuck.

[civperc]

BOOYA. good stuff. very good stuff.

[MrBB6]

It's Funny. I took a full semester of B&W Photo in college and i learned more reading this little thread than i did from that whole class. Heh, Tuition money at it's finest!!

[uncle_el]

just got a digital camera a few days ago, and had been wondering how to better learn about the features in a way other than experimenting with the camera. thanks for the write up.

[5genlude]

No doubt, this guy knows his stuff, he is a very gifted photographer. Also do not forget, use your camera's manual to figure out how to change settings properly, and what modes/settings you have in your camera. Also the manual will tell you a little about shutter speeds and aperature, just in generalized form, after u read that, read this again, you'll understand it even better and maybe start off the cool hobby of photography

[uncle_el]

Originally Posted by 5genlude

No doubt, this guy knows his stuff, he is a very gifted photographer. Also do not forget, use your camera's manual to figure out how to change settings properly, and what modes/settings you have in your camera. Also the manual will tell you a little about shutter speeds and aperature, just in generalized form, after u read that, read this again, you'll understand it even better and maybe start off the cool hobby of photography

read the owners manual before reading this . one step ahead of you.
but yes, primax takes great photos, as do you- after all, your the king of sigs around here!

[5genlude]

im not king , heheh, glad u took the initiative man, alot of people leave that manual in the box and just start guessing and taking crappy pics, some people, like u , take it on their own, anyways, appreciate ur kind remarks to the thread and i, primax is the man.

aznkid also can take badass pics.

[weKILLyou]

and knowing'shalf the battle GI joe!

[testdrive]

for those who want to learn more about using their digicams, please click on the link: http://www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/enjoydslr/index.html

hope this helps!

[5genlude]

Originally Posted by testdrive

for those who want to learn more about using their digicams, please click on the link: http://www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/enjoydslr/index.html

hope this helps!

VERY VERY EXCELLENT POST, people read that site and learn it. great way to learn cameras

[tofuspeedstar]

I hab teh good Idea, we's goin to teh hooka lounge tonight.

[terrylee79]

Good write up. I learned more from your write up than the manual book they had. I Just bought the fuji A350 yesterday haven't played around with the manual settings yet. Good write up.

edit: I traded the fuji to a canon a610 so I can play with the settings more

[Tadashi_Photo]

then you can learn even more if you want.

stops work in 1/3's

here are a list of all the stops working 1/3's

1, 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, 1.6, 1.8, 2, 2.2, 2.5, 2.8, 3.2, 3.6, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.6, 6.4, 7.1, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.5, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 25, 29, 32, 36, 40, 45, 51, 57, 64, etc

hahahah


enjoy