Could someone help me figure something out?? Understanding Exposure.

Memorymaker

Memorymaker

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Nicola
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Hi

I bought the book understanding Exposure on recomendation of some Talk photography members. It is a good book and has helped me understand more of what my camera does.

I only have a bridge camera (fuji s8000 fd) but refuse to use the auto anymore and really want to get into using the manual mode and doing it right. So last night I attempted the excercise in the book about creative exposure.

I went into the garden, focused on a flower against the grass and did as it said changing the apperture and shutter speed for each photo, but if I'm honest all of the images looked the same? According to the book they should have been different?

Does anyone know what happened? or how I can improve? If it helps the lowest appeture on my camera is 4 and the highest 8?

Many thanks

MM
 
What focus mode is it set to? Also, what range of apertures did you try? Are you sure it only goes up to F8?
 
A bit of a guess but I'd say that with the really huge depth of field that you get from the very short lenses compact and bridge cameras use, you'd need to move the flower closer to the camera to see the effects. :)
 
One thing compacts and bridge cameras are rubbish at is depth of field.
Click to expand...

Well that depends on what you mean by rubbish. They are not great at shallow DoF but for near to far sharpness, you can get shots totally impossible with an SLR.
 
The OPs query is about exposure not DoF

If the camera suggested f8 at 1/125th sec and the shot was fine; changing BOTH the aperture to f5.6 and the shutter speed to 1/250th would look the same exposure as it IS the same exposure; as is f4 and 1/500th

If one goes up a bit and the other down by the same ratio, the exposure (i.e. how light/dark it is) remains the same

To test the exposure changes, you'd need to move EITHER the shutter speed or aperture not both

However, I could easily have missed the plot and you could mean DoF as the others have taken it - in which case the DoF at f4 and f8 on a small subject like a flower (assuming you're not after a macro?) would extend enough in front of AND behind the point of focus for it all to be sharp - hence you'd see no difference on DoF either

Hmmmm - having re-read that - I'm not sure it helps???

:shrug::shrug::shrug:

DD
 
That camera is capable of f/2.8, not when its zoomed though.
I'm sure you'll see a marked difference on a flower close-up with background, between f/2.8 and f8.
It must stay at the same focal length for both shots, once you zoom a bit max aperture will get smaller than f/2.8

for clarity - f/2.8 is a bigger hole than f/8, the bigger the number = the smaller the hole = the more depth of focus = the more light required for correct exposure.
 
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