shutter speeds, and ISO??
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rdh
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Sunny 16 rule is always useful as a guide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_16_rule
You'll get used to it yourself over time, so get out there and shoot
Don't forget there are many equivalent 'correct' exposures, you don't need to stick with the apetures shown (otherwise how would you get decent bokeh outside on a sunny day)!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_16_rule
You'll get used to it yourself over time, so get out there and shoot
Don't forget there are many equivalent 'correct' exposures, you don't need to stick with the apetures shown (otherwise how would you get decent bokeh outside on a sunny day)!
hey, dont know if this is in the right place or not.
looking for info on shutter speeds/use's?? and ISO levels??
whats the ideal start settings(mostly for MX pics) for bright/dull/rainy days?
any info would be ideal?
cheers
They say use a shutter speed at least 1/focal length. So with a 50mm lens use at least 1/50th of a second. And ISO (I'd say) as low as possible to reduce 'noise', but keeping in mind the shutter speed. It's all a balancing act, which becomes like second nature with time and (lots of) practice
rdh
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It's quite out-dated really, DSLR's are - generally - very good at getting good enough exposures.
Just a good way to get you thinking about the balance of the three.
What do you mean by MX? Motor Cross? If so, some handy tips:
- Anything coming towards/away from you = 1/250
- Anything moving up/down left/right at speed = 1/1000
Setting the shutter will obviously mean your apeture has to change.
Another thing, make sure the shutter speed is equal to, or greater than the focal length. I.e. if you're shooting at 120mm, your shutter should be at least 1/125. At 400mm, use 1/500 etc.
desantnik
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The most important thing in motorsport is keeping a sense of speed, the shutter speed is the main thing you want to concentrate on...
Wheel blur and flying muck (in motorcross) are what you are trying to achieve.
Assuming you have a fairly decent camera, try shutter priority at 1/500 and adjust the ISO to give you whatever aperture value you desire (~F9 for everything in focus and F5.6 or wider to try and get some funky DOF blur). If the light conditions are fairly constant, try that setup, look at what the camera metering is telling you and then go into fully manual mode with those settings. This will avoid problems with dark backgrounds, dark coloured bikes against blue skies etc etc - might take some minor tweaks to get it right if the camera's own metering was a bit naff to start with.
That "Sunny 16" thing is all about normal photography when you haven't got things like metering and shutter/aperture priority and the ability to review exposure immediately in graph format!
What you will need to do though is to understand what shutter speed, aperture and ISO do and how the three relate to each other. I could write a pile of words on it, and no doubt someone else will in a minute, but its quite simple when the penny drops - honest!!!
Wheel blur and flying muck (in motorcross) are what you are trying to achieve.
Assuming you have a fairly decent camera, try shutter priority at 1/500 and adjust the ISO to give you whatever aperture value you desire (~F9 for everything in focus and F5.6 or wider to try and get some funky DOF blur). If the light conditions are fairly constant, try that setup, look at what the camera metering is telling you and then go into fully manual mode with those settings. This will avoid problems with dark backgrounds, dark coloured bikes against blue skies etc etc - might take some minor tweaks to get it right if the camera's own metering was a bit naff to start with.
That "Sunny 16" thing is all about normal photography when you haven't got things like metering and shutter/aperture priority and the ability to review exposure immediately in graph format!
What you will need to do though is to understand what shutter speed, aperture and ISO do and how the three relate to each other. I could write a pile of words on it, and no doubt someone else will in a minute, but its quite simple when the penny drops - honest!!!
could u explain what these do, and relations to each other?? would prob help my understanding.....
thanks very much
The shutter speed tells you how long the shutter is open for (the longer it's open, the brighter the image will be, because more light hits the sensor). 1/200th is relatively fast, 1/3 quite slow.
ISO tells you how sensitive the sensor is to light. Generally goes from 100 to 1600 or more. The higher you go, the brighter the image will be, but the more 'noise' or grain a photo will have. (ISO 100/200 will generally give no perceptible noise on a DSLR, whereas even the best cameras show signs of it once they get to 1600/3200)
The aperture, or opening, can be adjusted to let in more or less light. The smaller the F-number, the wider the aperture. F/1.8 is very wide open and lets in lots of light, while F/22 is more closed and lets in very little light. Furthermore, a wide aperture gives a narrow 'depth of field' and so background blur, ideal for isolating a tiger from the expanse of safari park behind him.
(If a lens is described as being "f/2", then that is the maximum aperture.)
Once you've understood that, it's just a case of balancing the three to get the effect you want. If you want to use a fast shutter speed to freeze the motion of a speeding car, then you should use a wider aperture and/or higher ISO.
If you want to get the fluid motion of a river and use a slow shutter speed, set the ISO down and close the aperture a little. F/16, ISO 100 and 2 second shutter speed might get you a nice effect. (Using a tripod of course to eliminate camera shake!)
Hope that helps. It's hard to tell how much you know already!
Yeah, that would be me
ISO tells you how sensitive the sensor is to light. Generally goes from 100 to 1600 or more. The higher you go, the brighter the image will be, but the more 'noise' or grain a photo will have. (ISO 100/200 will generally give no perceptible noise on a DSLR, whereas even the best cameras show signs of it once they get to 1600/3200)
The aperture, or opening, can be adjusted to let in more or less light. The smaller the F-number, the wider the aperture. F/1.8 is very wide open and lets in lots of light, while F/22 is more closed and lets in very little light. Furthermore, a wide aperture gives a narrow 'depth of field' and so background blur, ideal for isolating a tiger from the expanse of safari park behind him.
(If a lens is described as being "f/2", then that is the maximum aperture.)
Once you've understood that, it's just a case of balancing the three to get the effect you want. If you want to use a fast shutter speed to freeze the motion of a speeding car, then you should use a wider aperture and/or higher ISO.
If you want to get the fluid motion of a river and use a slow shutter speed, set the ISO down and close the aperture a little. F/16, ISO 100 and 2 second shutter speed might get you a nice effect. (Using a tripod of course to eliminate camera shake!)
Hope that helps. It's hard to tell how much you know already!
Yeah, that would be me
The shutter speed tells you how long the shutter is open for (the longer it's open, the brighter the image will be, because more light hits the sensor). 1/200th is relatively fast, 1/3 quite slow.
ISO tells you how sensitive the sensor is to light. Generally goes from 100 to 1600 or more. The higher you go, the brighter the image will be, but the more 'noise' or grain a photo will have. (ISO 100/200 will generally give no perceptible noise on a DSLR, whereas even the best cameras show signs of it once they get to 1600/3200)
The aperture, or opening, can be adjusted to let in more or less light. The smaller the F-number, the wider the aperture. F/1.8 is very wide open and lets in lots of light, while F/22 is more closed and lets in very little light. Furthermore, a wide aperture gives a narrow 'depth of field' and so background blur, ideal for isolating a tiger from the expanse of safari park behind him.
(If a lens is described as being "f/2", then that is the maximum aperture.)
Once you've understood that, it's just a case of balancing the three to get the effect you want. If you want to use a fast shutter speed to freeze the motion of a speeding car, then you should use a wider aperture and/or higher ISO.
If you want to get the fluid motion of a river and use a slow shutter speed, set the ISO down and close the aperture a little. F/16, ISO 100 and 2 second shutter speed might get you a nice effect. (Using a tripod of course to eliminate camera shake!)
Hope that helps. It's hard to tell how much you know already!
Yeah, that would be me
thanks mike, i dont know very much, just had a couple of goes at moto x events recently... only had my camera bout 1 or 2 months.
ill have a go at changing settings next time, to see what works.
would settings or 1/1250 and ISO 400 be ok for motorsports? i think the aperture is auto just now.
Little Man
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If it's a nice, bright day, i'd try and keep the ISO as low as possible to retain as much image quality as possible fella. Keep it at ISO 100, you should still beable to fire shots off at 1/1000 on a nice, clear day without any problems I should imagine.
I've never shot motocross, but i'm gunna take a stab in the the hope that someone will back me up in saying that 1/1250 shutter speed might be a bit too fast, totally freezing the action and not giving any sense of movement. That's fine, if that's what you're wanting to achieve?
If you want to give some essence of movement, try taking the shutter speed down a bit, maybe by half. Try firing some shots off at 1/500th, see how that looks. If they're too 'still', take the shutter speed down a bit further until you start to see something you're happy with, and then stay around those settings.
I've never shot motocross, but i'm gunna take a stab in the the hope that someone will back me up in saying that 1/1250 shutter speed might be a bit too fast, totally freezing the action and not giving any sense of movement. That's fine, if that's what you're wanting to achieve?
If you want to give some essence of movement, try taking the shutter speed down a bit, maybe by half. Try firing some shots off at 1/500th, see how that looks. If they're too 'still', take the shutter speed down a bit further until you start to see something you're happy with, and then stay around those settings.
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These statements are very misleading and don't actually address the question asked, which is the relationship between shutter speed, aperture and ISO. It doesn't matter how long the shutter is open or what ISO speed is used as long as shutter speed, aperture and ISO are balanced to maintain the same exposure value.
Think of it as a small column of light (small aperture) hitting the sensor for a long time (long shutter speed) or a wide column of light (large aperture) hitting the sensor for a short time (fast shutter speed). They should both admit exactly the same amount of light to maintain the same exposure assuming you've metered correctly and both shots will look identical as far as levels and contrast are concerned.
Every time you decrease the aperture size by one stop (say f5.6 to f8) you halve the amount of light, so you need to increase the time the shutter is open by the same amount to keep the same amount of light hitting the sensor to maintain correct exposure, so if originally your shutter speed was 1/125th of a second, you'd decrease it 1/60th of a second to double the time the shutter is open, which makes up for the fact that you halved the size of that column of light when you decreased the aperture to f8.
That's really all there is to it- whatever size of aperture and length of shutter speed you use, you maintain exactly the same amount of light hitting the sensor to maintain correct exposure, even if you use every combination of aperture and shutter speed on your camera, providing you meter correctly.
Fortunately ISO numbers work just the same as apertures and shutter speeds in that a doubling of the ISO number makes the sensor twice as sensitive to light and halving it makes it half as sensitive.
So in a situation where you were shooting at 100 ISO at 1/125th at f8, changing to 200 ISO, would double the effective speed (sensitivity) of the sensor which would mean that you'd need to EITHER... increase the shutter speed to 1/250th, OR decrease the aperture to F11 to maintain the same amount of light hitting the sensor to maintain correct exposure based on your original reading.
It's always desirable to shoot at the lowest ISO we can to avoid noise in our shots, but sometimes light levels are so low we have to up the ISO anyway to keep a fast enough hand holdable shutter speed, or alternatively, set the camera on a tripod to avoid camera movement during long exposures.
Think always of that thin or thick tube of light hitting the sensor for either a short time or a long time. The thing to grasp is that you're always striving to get the same amount of light hitting the sensor. Regardless of how it gets there, you should end up with the same sized dollop of light hitting the sensor. If you want to be more posh about it, there's a name for that dollop - EV or Exposure Value.
Hope that helps.
S
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CT, I think you should put that post in the tutorials 
it would have explained things very much more quickly and easily for me when I started!
it would have explained things very much more quickly and easily for me when I started!Very sorry if I misled anyone. On my camera, a higher ISO will - all else being equal - give me a brighter image. As will a slower shutter speed. And a wider aperture.
I generally shoot in full manual mode (maybe should've made that clear). I see it as a balancing act between the different settings to land at the desired exposure. That's just how I understand it. Didn't mean to confuse anyone. :|
desantnik
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Well done for the words CT.... of course a proper tutorial will also include not only the relationship between the three variables and how that effects exposure, but also discussion about how each of them also brings different effects into play (action freezing/blur, dof and grain)...
To be honest, there are enough books out there, people should really go read.... forums are good for specific questions but wider questions and background knowledge are best learnt from the experts in considered published writing (not that I am knocking you CT, you do know your stuff!) rather than a hurried forum posting...
To be honest, there are enough books out there, people should really go read.... forums are good for specific questions but wider questions and background knowledge are best learnt from the experts in considered published writing (not that I am knocking you CT, you do know your stuff!) rather than a hurried forum posting...
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I couldn't agree with you more actually. The real reason I haven't written that tutorial is that it's a major undertaking and it's already been done so many times - the books are out there - hundreds of 'em.
I'd really advise anyone who wants to fully understand the principles of exposure to get a book on the subject which you can read and fully digest as many times as you need to to grasp the principles. It will be far quicker and easier than trying to pick it up via the internet and your progress will be all the quicker for it.
Anyone who buys something as complicated as a modern DSLR with no prior knowledge of exposure has a real hill to climb, and the understanding of exposure needs to come early on to make progress. I always advise getting that book, but the fact is that most people don't. They'll get there in the end but it will be a long and often confusing journey. :shrug:
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On the topic, I actually could use some experienced advice myself...
Using a Canon 400D I often photograph motorsport events that include moving cars (on circuits, drag strips etc). As an amateur I use the 'TV' mode and basically adjust the shutter speeds until I nail a focused shot with motion blurred background. This is about as far as my inexperienced knowledge stretches so any suitable tips or recommendations that'd help improve my shots would be hugely appreciated.
Using a Canon 400D I often photograph motorsport events that include moving cars (on circuits, drag strips etc). As an amateur I use the 'TV' mode and basically adjust the shutter speeds until I nail a focused shot with motion blurred background. This is about as far as my inexperienced knowledge stretches so any suitable tips or recommendations that'd help improve my shots would be hugely appreciated.
desantnik
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Well, you already know faster shutter speeds will yield more sharp shots but you want to keep some wheel blur in there too. The shutter speed at which wheel blur is seen in the shot will depend on a whole host of things:
* track speed of the subject
* size of the wheels
* style of wheels(!)
* focal length (or so I am told)
On some things I have shot 1/320th will freeze the wheels, on other things (such as DTM the other week) 1/640th still was giving me blur...
It really is shoot and review... work out how fast you can get away with and use that.
* track speed of the subject
* size of the wheels
* style of wheels(!)
* focal length (or so I am told)
On some things I have shot 1/320th will freeze the wheels, on other things (such as DTM the other week) 1/640th still was giving me blur...
It really is shoot and review... work out how fast you can get away with and use that.