Basics of Photography Your Cameras Manual Settings. In the previous lesson we covered the basic settings on your camera. Today were jumping into the fun stuff manual mode. Well learn the details about shutter speed, ISO, and aperture, as well as how those settings affect your photos. If youre following along with your camera, be sure to set it into manual mode so you can access every setting were going to discuss. Aperture. Aperture is often the most difficult concept for people to grasp when theyre learning how their camera works, but its pretty simple once you understand it. If you look at your lens, you can see the opening where light comes through. When you adjust your aperture settings, youll see that opening get bigger and smaller. The larger the opening, or wider the aperture, the more light you let in with each exposure. The smaller the opening, or narrower the aperture, the less light you let in. Why would you ever want a narrow aperture if a wider one lets in more light Aside from those situations where you have too much light and want to let less of it in, narrowing the aperture means more of the photograph will appear to be in focus. For example, a narrow aperture is great for landscapes. A wider aperture means less of the photograph will be in focus, which is something thats generally visually pleasing and isnt seen as a downside. If youve seen photographs with a subject in focus and beautiful blurred backgrounds, this is often the effect of a wide aperture although thats not the only contributing factorremember, telephoto lenses decrease depth of field as well. Using a wide aperture is generally considered the best method for taking in more light because the downsideless of the photograph being in focusis often a desired result. Aperture is represented in f stops. A lower number, like f1. Lenses are often marked with their widest possible aperture. If you see a lens that is a 5. The aperture can always be set to be more narrow, but it wont be able to go wider than f1. Some lenses will have a range, such as f3. Youll see this on zoom lenses, and it means that when the lens is zoomed out to the widest position its f3. Learn How To Manual Focus' title='Learn How To Manual Focus' />Manual for iPhone Be better than automatic. Shoot Manual. Related Book Epub Books Ford Focus Parts User Manual User Manual Home Clarinet Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides Claims How To Collect Insurance Money Without A Lawyer. AT Frosted Lens Camera Parka sporting the Aurora Borealis Notifications logo patchThe middle changes as well, so halfway through the zoom range youll end up with a widest aperture of about f4. An aperture range is common with less expensive zoom lenses, but if you pay more you can get a standard aperture throughout the range. Thats pretty much all you need to know about aperture. The important thing to remember is that a wide aperture, like f1. A narrow aperture, like f2. What aperture you should use depends on the situation and the type of lens youre using, so experiment to see what effects you get and youll have a better idea of how your aperture setting affects your photographs. Shutter Speed. Photo by Digi. When you press the shutter button on your camera and take a picture, the aperture blades take a specific amount of time to close. This amount of time is known as your shutter speed. Generally it is a fraction of a second, and if youre capturing fast motion it needs to be at most 13. If youre not capturing any motion, you can sometimes get away with as long of an exposure as 13. When you increase your shutter speedthe length of time where the sensor is exposed to lighttwo important things happen. First, the sensor is exposed to more light because its been given more time. This is useful in low light situations. Second, the sensor is subject to more motion which causes motion blur. This can happen either because your subject is in motion or because you cannot hold the camera still. This is fine if youre photographing a landscape at night and the camera is placed on a tripod, as neither the camera nor your subject is going to move. On the other hand, slow shutter speeds pose a problem when youre shooting handheld andor your subject is moving. This is why you wouldnt want a shutter speed any slower than 13. In general, you want to use the fastest shutter speed you can but there are plenty of circumstances where youd choose a slower shutter speed. Here are a few examples You want motion blur for artistic purposes, such as blurring a flowing stream while keeping everything else sharp and un blurred. To accomplish this youd use a slow shutter speed like 13. Note This example is a good reason to use the Shutter Priority shooting mode discussed in the previous lesson. You want an overexposed and potentially blurred photograph for artistic purposes. Youre shooting in low light and its necessary. Youre shooting in low light and its not necessary, but you want to keep noise to a minimum. Therefore you set your ISO film speed equivalent to a low setting and you reduce your shutter speed to compensate and let in more light. These arent the only reasons but a few common ones. The important thing to remember is a slow shutter speed means more light at the risk of motion blur. A fast shutter speed means low risk of motion blur while sacrificing light. ISOISO is the digital equivalent or approximation of film speed. If you remember buying film for a regular camera, youd get 1. The faster the film speed the more sensitive it is to light. All of this still applies to digital photography, but its called an ISO rating instead. Photo by CNET Australia. The advantage of a low ISO is that the light in a given exposure is more accurately represented. If youve seen photos at night, the lights often look like theyre much brighter and bleeding into other areas of the photo. This is the result of a high ISOa greater sensitivity to light. High ISOs are particularly useful for picking up more detail in a dark photograph without reducing the shutter speed or widening the aperture more than you want to, but it comes at a cost. In addition to lights being overly and unrealistically bright in your photos, high ISO settings are the biggest contributors to photographic noise. High end cameras will pick up less noise at higher ISOs than low end cameras, but the rule is always the same the higher you increase your ISO, the more noise you get. How To Install Battery Switch. Most cameras will set the ISO automatically, even in manual mode. Generally you can stick with the same ISO setting if your lighting situation doesnt change, so its good to get used to setting it yourself. That said, sometimes lighting changes enough in dark, indoor settings that letting the camera set it for you automatically can be helpfuleven when shooting manually. Combining the Settings. In manual mode you set everything yourself except ISO, if you set it to automatic, so you have to think about all three of these settings before you take a photograph. The best thing you can do make this easier on yourself and hasten the decision is to give priority to one of the settings by deciding whats most important. Do you want to ensure a shallow depth of field If so, your priority is your aperture. Do you want the most accurate representation of light Make ISO your priority. Do you want to prevent as much motion blur as possible Concentrate on shutter speed first. Once you know your priority, all you need to do is set the other settings to whatever is necessary to expose the right amount of light to the photograph. In manual mode your camera should let you know if youre over or under exposed by providing a little meter at the bottom pictured to the left. The left is underexposed and the right is overexposed. Your goal is to get the pointer in the middle.