[Part five of the Photography Fundamentals series, be sure to check out all 10 posts!]
We’ve determined in previous posts that light is what makes photographs and that good photography is all about controlling that light.
The good news is that there are a bunch of controls on your camera that will help you control the light in your shot. The hard part is trying to figure out where they all are and when to change them.
Learning how these adjustments effect your image and which ones to adjust at what time is figuring out what’s called “reciprocity”. For example, in one scene you might choose a slower shutter speed and therefore have to close down your aperture (higher F-Number).
Let’s look at each control.
Shutter Speed:
Ironically, there’s not icon or universal symbol for the most adjusted control in still photography. Usually in your viewfinder or LCD display in manual mode, you will see a number from 30-1000. This number is actually telling you what fraction of a second your camera will sample (IE 1/30-1/1000), though notation may vary by camera manufacturer. Your shutter speed measures the length of time your sensor (or film) is sampling the light coming into your camera.
There are plenty of subtleties involved in picking a shutter speed, but the easiest rule to remember is, the slower the shutter speed, the more motion blur in the image. Sometimes that’s a good thing.
In video, your shutter speed has to stay at twice your frame rate (i.e., shutter speed of 1/50 for 24 FPS).
Aperture (F-Stop):
I’ve written an entire post on understanding aperture so you’ll probably want to go read that. The quick version is this: the aperture is the opening on your lens right in front of the sensor that controls the amount of light being let in through the lens.
The size of your aperture, how open or closed it is, also determines how much of your image is in focus. The more open it is (lower F-number), the less depth to the focus in your image. The more closed (higher F-number), the more depth there will be to the focus in your image.
The amount of your image that’s in focus is called Depth of Field.
A lot of great photographers will choose their aperture setting first, even before they adjust their shutter speed or ISO. The depth-of-field of an image is an aesthetic choice. But more on that later.
The F-number is typically displayed as a decimal number on your display, something like f/4.5, f/5, f/5.6, f/6.3, f/7.1, f/8 etc. Everyone loves a shallow depth of field, but getting great looking bokeh on your consumer camera might be a challenge.
Most of the time you’ll make aperture adjustments together with shutter speed to control the lighting in your scene.
ISO:
The term ISO actually refers to an old system of measuring a film stock’s light sensitivity. On your digital camera, to some degree, it still refers to the sensitivity of your sensor. Your camera probably has ISO setting between about 200 and 1000 and there’s usually some form of the three letters on your LCD display to help you identify it. The rule for ISO adjustments is simple.
Keep it as low as possible. Higher ISO means more noise in your image and most of the time, noise is a bad thing.
Crank up your ISO only as a last resort.
Manual Focus:
Whether you’re looking for a flower icon, the letters MF, or some kind of picture of a hand, there’s more than likely a manual focus setting on your camera. Focus is an extremely important part of taking good pictures. There are some photogs that passionately preach using only manual focus. I personally know several professionals who always shoot auto-focus.
On most consumer and even prosumer cameras, manually focusing is kind of a pain. I’m tempted to recommend you just leave your auto-focus on, BUT.
There are plenty of times that auto-focus fails. For instance, sometimes you want to focus on something in the image other than the subject. My suggestion is that you at least try shooting manual focus for a while and get good at figuring out when your auto-focus is meeting your needs.
White Balance:
We covered this before, but those little cloud or light-bulb icons that represent your white balance settings can be important. Try to always set yours manually if you can.
The best way to get comfortable with all of your camera settings is to take pictures all the time. The more you use, adjust, and re-adjust these settings, the more second nature they will become. Remember, most of these settings exist with the purpose of controlling the light that’s allowed into your camera. Get the light right and you get the picture right.
[Part five of the Photography Fundamentals series, be sure to check out all 10 posts!]
Phillip Gibb says
awesome post man.
I am still trying to figure out why my shutter stops at 1/60 and not 1/30 – maybe I fiddled too much with the menu :O
One way you can keep the Aperture open as wide as possible in bright conditions is to us an ND filter, just to cut off some light. Ever since I have gotten my 550D I have been blown away by what I can do, especially with the DOF and the unbelievable color.
BrianNotess says
Can your shutter go below 1/60 in stills mode? If not, then you definitely have an issue.
I did a whole post on DOF in this series. Most still photogs, I’ve found, don’t use ND filters since most of the time they can adjust their shutter speed to control exposure. Videographers don’t have that luxury.
Can’t wait to see some of the stuff you shoot with your T2i.
Phillip Gibb says
I figured out why the shutter stops at 1/60.
in 1280 x 720 50fps it stops at 1/60
otherwise at 1/30
I am thinking of trying out Magic lantern, hmmm
Eric J says
A tip i learned from philip bloom, use the digital zoom function on a prime lens to set your focus. For example set up your shot and then use the 5x or 10x digital zoom to zoom way in to what you want to manual focus on set your focus and then when you exit your digital zoom it will be in focus. This is also very helpful in low-light situations where auto focus cannot focus because focus relies primarily on contrast.
BrianNotess says
That Philp Bloom is always dropping useful hints.
What also works to help focus on a DSLR is having a big-ol’ monitor to look at instead of the tiny LCD screen.
Unfortunately I can’t afford one so I’m stuck with having to zoom in to focus.