So, I'm playing with my camera this morning -- just working with aperture and shutter speed and their relation to each other and it occurred to me it's been a long time since I shared any camera tips so I figured I would post. Second post this morning, and yesterday didn't I just post about having nothing to write about? Sheesh.
I have a DSLR or a camera that has the ability to be manual -- leaving everything up to me...and I take advantage of that fact now that I understand it more intimately. But it wasn't long ago I was completely stumped by aperture and speed...what in the world do either of those mean, let alone how do they work together? And then throw in ISO...head spin!
Today I shot in two locations...my husband's den, which it being an overcast day, was pretty dark, and outside in "flat" light - no sun, sky is pretty white/gray. I know inside I will need a high ISO (fast "film" speed, really sensitive to light), in addition I'll need to keep the lens open for a bit to get enough light in to "expose" the image on the "film" (I shoot digital, but film is easier for me to understand, and explain).
Be careful when adjusting the ISO, when its high (high depends on the camera - for some 400 is high, for others over 1600 is high - play with it and get to know your camera) you get a little bonus called "noise" in your photo -- or better yet, your photo will have a grainy feel. Its one of the disadvantages. I have a camera that does pretty well up to 1600, but I can see the grain after ISO 800. (fortunately I have a program that reduces noise in photoshop...but that's neither here nor there).
Anyway -- so, my "film" is now sensitive to light, good! But I still need to pump up the light that comes in to the camera so my camera can detect the object I'm trying to photograph otherwise it'll just give me a black picture, :( . So, I need to use slow speed.
The speed is the length of time your lens stays open to let the light in. It also controls the speed of your objects, or I should say, captures the speed of objects. If someone is running past your camera and you are on a slow shutter speed, say 1.3 seconds (how long the lens is going to stay open) the person will just be a blur when you look at the photo. Because the lens stayed open and the person kept moving. But if the same person was running and you clicked "quick" say a shutter speed of 1/1000 of a second you would essentially "freeze" their motion. click click - open close...works great in good light with a fast moving object. But in darkness, with a still object click click means not enough light will get in and the picture will be so dark you won't see the image.
So, Harley, my dog, is 13. He doesn't move anywhere fast, and he sleeps most of the time, so he's a perfect dark-spot model. I up my ISO to 1600 and lower my camera speed to 0.8 seconds and shoot. Now the second part to shooting at slow speeds is steadiness. Not just of your model, but you. This is truly too low a speed for me to shoot hand-held. I should have had a tripod, but this wasn't serious stuff, so I braced myself and all worked well, in photo one, but in photo #2, Harley moved his eyebrows and they blurred. Bummer :(. Other than that, I was able to get a pretty well lit photo in a dark space without using any flash at all.
The other part of the success above was my aperture. Or how big I want my lens to be open. It gets confusing because the smaller the number the wider the opening. The more light that gets in. It also controls your point of focus, or should I say the things that are not in focus. A small number means things closer to you are clear, but things further away are fuzzy, middle numbers (say 14) mean pretty much everything is clear and in focus, a bigger number (say 22) means things in the back are clear, things up front out of focus.
Aperture and speed work together because the bigger the opening the more light gets in the shorter time the lens needs to be open which means less blur through movement which means clearer pictures with a little less effort...is your head spinning? Its something you really need to play with to understand better...I read and read, and until I went out and just started using what I was reading it didn't "click" (pardon the pun).
Below are samples from my practice today.
Notice on the flowers, the "smaller" aperture is more washed with light? Because the lens was opened wider letter more light in, which means I could use a faster camera speed (click click) because I didn't need much more light in - and even then it's a little "blown".
The logs represent different apertures, the small number focuses on the front of the log where the middle of the road aperture gives me more of the logs detail to about the center.
Good luck and happy shooting!
