moving away from auto

thanks Phil,think your spot on there. and yes I'm trying to understand shutter and apertures and their effects on an image 1st.meter reading is completely new to me but will look into that too and i took your advice and am using shutter priority now and seeing how it effects the images.im really enjoying this and am not stressed about it cus i know it will all make sense to me eventually as did the guitar and piano which seemed so complicated at 1st.
thanks again.
 
By the away Phil lived in Donny for a time,was engaged to a Donny lass,back in 1970 but also spent time with her about 4 years ago up there.
 
OK, let's have a go:

Any shot, correctly exposed, requires a given quantity of light. More light will over-expose your shot, less will underexpose.

You arrive at exposure settings of, for the sake of argument, 1/90th, f/5.6, 100ISO. Those three are your main variables in any shot.

If you now alter just one of the variables, the amount of light entering the camera will change, resulting in a poor shot.

So, if you alter one, you also need to alter one or both of the others to maintain this amount of light.

Increase the shutter speed, and you will have to open the aperture to balance this, or increase the ISO.

Our shot taken at 1/90th, f/5.6, 100ISO would also be correctly exposed at 1/180th, f/4 and 100ISO, or 1/45th, f/8 and 100ISO.

If you want to shoot in lower light with a narrower aperture, increasing your ISO will, in effect, boost the apparent amount of light available.

This is where experience comes in. If you're shooting a moving object, 1/45th may be too slow. If you want shallow depth of field, f/8 may be too narrow, so you pick a solution that will give you the result you need.

By balancing those three, you can usually find a solution that works. And once you have this balancing trick sorted, you have cracked the most important part of leaning photography.
 
jon ryan said:
If you now alter just one of the variables, the amount of light entering the camera will change, resulting in a poor shot.
Click to expand...

Changing the ISO doesn't change the amount of light entering the camera.

It essentially adjusts the sensitivity of the sensor.
 
thanks Jon and Mortimer,I understand this now in my head,i just need to apply it to the capturing of the composition .
 
mortimerhill said:
Changing the ISO doesn't change the amount of light entering the camera.

It essentially adjusts the sensitivity of the sensor.
Click to expand...

And that is why I wrote that "If you want to shoot in lower light with a narrower aperture, increasing your ISO will, in effect, boost the apparent amount of light available."
 
only been into digital photography 10 months and i shoot in any mode,
i prefer manual and if shot is not to my liking i dial up or down on cameras meter, the main thing is don't be worried about giving manual a go as long as you are learning, there are lots of components to taking pic once you understand them you will feel a lot more confident, get out and pratice enjoy
 
jon ryan said:
And that is why I wrote that "If you want to shoot in lower light with a narrower aperture, increasing your ISO will, in effect, boost the apparent amount of light available."
Click to expand...

You actually wrote

"You arrive at exposure settings of, for the sake of argument, 1/90th, f/5.6, 100ISO. Those three are your main variables in any shot.

If you now alter just one of the variables, the amount of light entering the camera will change, resulting in a poor shot."
 
mortimerhill said:
You actually wrote

"You arrive at exposure settings of, for the sake of argument, 1/90th, f/5.6, 100ISO. Those three are your main variables in any shot.

If you now alter just one of the variables, the amount of light entering the camera will change, resulting in a poor shot."
Click to expand...

Ok perhaps it might have read better as "the amount of light reaching the sensor will change" but let's not turn this into one of those sniping threads.....
 
mortimerhill said:
You actually wrote

"You arrive at exposure settings of, for the sake of argument, 1/90th, f/5.6, 100ISO. Those three are your main variables in any shot.

If you now alter just one of the variables, the amount of light entering the camera will change, resulting in a poor shot."
Click to expand...

...and I also wrote: "If you want to shoot in lower light with a narrower aperture, increasing your ISO will, in effect, boost the apparent amount of light available."

And you should have added a colon after "wrote".
 
Ok, I hope this is a relevant question here:

I think most of us have a grip on the balance between aperture, shutter and iso. (thanks to the folks In this thread).

The question for me is how do you old hands know where to start? Do you look at the vista and think "hmmmm, this seems like a f8, 100 Iso, whatever shutter speed moment" snap a test shot or two and take it from there?

Am I missing something obvious or is there a big chunk of black magic / super skill.
 
Last edited:
Ebilpirate said:
Ok, I hope this is a relevant question here:

I think most of us have a grip on the balance between aperture, shutter and iso. (thanks to the folks In this thread).

The question for me is how do you old hands know where to start? Do you look at the vista and think "hmmmm, this seems like a f8, 100 Iso, whatever shutter speed moment" snap a test shot or two and take it from there?

Am I missing something obvious or is there a big chunk of black magic / super skill.
Click to expand...

No black magic, just experience and practice. You learn to assess the scene, decide whether you need a fast shutter to freeze movement, wide aperture for narrow dof, sort of thing. You look at the dark bits and the bright bits, decide how best to frame, which focal length you want...it gets to be pretty automatic in time, like learning to drive, I suppose; when you get behind the wheel for the first time, it's all a bit confusing. But you get the hang of it in the end.
 
Ebilpirate said:
Ok, I hope this is a relevant question here:

I think most of us have a grip on the balance between aperture, shutter and iso. (thanks to the folks In this thread).

The question for me is how do you old hands know where to start? Do you look at the vista and think "hmmmm, this seems like a f8, 100 Iso, whatever shutter speed moment" snap a test shot or two and take it from there?

Am I missing something obvious or is there a big chunk of black magic / super skill.
Click to expand...

Ha ha.....I don't know how many of us are left but I still work most of my daytime shots on sunny F/16 rule....maybe I'm from jurrasic era! lol

This pretty much comes about from using old cameras film cameras that have no auto focus ( in fact you have to gauge the distances or use a rangefinder device) nor do they have any light metering system.

Sometimes I will carry an old lightmeter with me ( which basically does the same job as the metering system inside a dslr) as occassionally I struggle if the light drops particularly low but tbh I can generally judge the light value purely from experience ( usuallywell within a stop over/under).

The beauty of more modern cameras with built in metering, the whole set up is there in front of your eyes and a couple of notches on the adjustment wheel and the meter will show all is good for exposing correctly .......much faster, easier etc but it is still worth knowing the old methods....If you camera meter fails, what would you do??!!!
 
Sorry matt I've just realised that I only covered metering and not the other settings that you mentioned....as it is Jon has made good work of explaining...
 
redddraggon said:
send it in for repair :p
Click to expand...

LOL I was expecting "get a new camera"

very true that's what most of us do.

I think tbh that like Jon says it kind of comes natural after a time ....you see the shot and it kind of "tells you" what settings it demands.

If I'm honest I don't take much notice of my dslr meter....I think it's out by nearly a stop anyway...probably why my shots are c**p lol
 
Asha said:
Ha ha.....I don't know how many of us are left but I still work most of my daytime shots on sunny F/16 rule....maybe I'm from jurrasic era! lol....
Click to expand...

I'm definitely a firm believer in the "sunny 16" rule as it just simplifies things nicely and allows you to keep shooting even if your built in light meter were to fail.

I think you can even get t shirts with the various settings on them :cool:
 
lol Jon, you said it gets to be pretty automatic in time,so we're back to the auto setting but this time its human :)

thanks again for all the help.i love discussions like this and things are getting clearer :)
 
SsSsSsSsSnake said:
lol Jon, you said it gets to be pretty automatic in time,so we're back to the auto setting but this time its human :)

thanks again for all the help.i love discussions like this and things are getting clearer :)
Click to expand...

Yeah, I guess that's right. The brain is set to programme! :lol:
 
i've attempted full manual, but everythings come out over exposed. i think i'll go back to the semi auto modes again.
Though with low light stuff (for gigs) i seem to get on better with manual. I guess its all about tinkering & understanding the basics (also experience does help)
 
SsSsSsSsSnake said:
By the away Phil lived in Donny for a time,was engaged to a Donny lass,back in 1970 but also spent time with her about 4 years ago up there.
Click to expand...

I was only 6 in 1970, I've been in Donny most of my life.
 
jon ryan said:
OK, let's have a go:

Any shot, correctly exposed, requires a given quantity of light. More light will over-expose your shot, less will underexpose.

You arrive at exposure settings of, for the sake of argument, 1/90th, f/5.6, 100ISO. Those three are your main variables in any shot.

If you now alter just one of the variables, the amount of light entering the camera will change, resulting in a poor shot.

So, if you alter one, you also need to alter one or both of the others to maintain this amount of light.

Increase the shutter speed, and you will have to open the aperture to balance this, or increase the ISO.

Our shot taken at 1/90th, f/5.6, 100ISO would also be correctly exposed at 1/180th, f/4 and 100ISO, or 1/45th, f/8 and 100ISO.

If you want to shoot in lower light with a narrower aperture, increasing your ISO will, in effect, boost the apparent amount of light available.

This is where experience comes in. If you're shooting a moving object, 1/45th may be too slow. If you want shallow depth of field, f/8 may be too narrow, so you pick a solution that will give you the result you need.

By balancing those three, you can usually find a solution that works. And once you have this balancing trick sorted, you have cracked the most important part of leaning photography.
Click to expand...

Agree with this but it also obviously holds true for A or S modes, if 1/45th if too slow go to S mode and up it and let camera do the rest and same with A mode if F8 is too high.

To me, using A, S or P (with program shifting) is also manual as you are making the decision on one (or two if static ISO) of the variables. Still need to understand the differences, what happens to one when adjusting another etc,. but guessing people don't think they are manually doing things unless specifically in Manual mode?
Do they not get the 'I use manual' badge if tehy manually adjust outside of M mode :)
 
Ebilpirate said:
Ok, I hope this is a relevant question here:

I think most of us have a grip on the balance between aperture, shutter and iso. (thanks to the folks In this thread).

The question for me is how do you old hands know where to start? Do you look at the vista and think "hmmmm, this seems like a f8, 100 Iso, whatever shutter speed moment" snap a test shot or two and take it from there?

Am I missing something obvious or is there a big chunk of black magic / super skill.
Click to expand...

As an 'old hand' I start with the ISO because in the old days that was fixed when I put film in the camera. But from there I don't feel the need to second guess what the light level is, some clearly do, but it's an irrelevance to me.

So as part of the picture taking process, I'll judge what and how I'll meter. But importantly the settings will depend on what it is I'm trying to achieve.

The metering decision is split second, the more you practice, the quicker this gets. So you don't need to make assumptions about light levels, just learn to meter efficiently.
 
aidan257 said:
i've attempted full manual, but everythings come out over exposed.
Click to expand...

So your camera is letting too much light in on your manual settings,yes?

Think about it, what you need to do is make less light come into the camera, how would you do that?

Thinking these things through and finding the answer yourself can be better than having it spelled out for you, so, go on then, how do you cut the light down that is entering the camera?
 
Just an update.my understanding of and use of exposure has vastly improved from my 1st poSt and am enjoying learning more and seeing how it all effects the shot. Thanks all once again
 
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