Which ISO value do I use?

Knowing is half the battle, and practicing is the perfection of the skill. With this, read on...
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Which ISO Setting Should I Use?
By Dr. Mark Clayson

What ISO setting should you use for everyday photography?

There is no simple answer, but have a look at the following responses to decide what is best for you:

"I usually use ISO 100, but if I realise I can't hold the camera still I increase the ISO or use a tripod"

"I most usually shoot at ISO 100, 200 and occasionally ISO 400. It annoys me that there is slight noise when I zoom on the PC. In reality you won't see it"

"I start at 100, and work up until I get a reasonable shutter speed that I feel I can cope with"

"I set the camera at 200 in good weather and 400 in bad"

"In bad light I don't go below 400"

"Inside, I start at 400, then go to 800 or more when needed. Outside I start at 100"

"If I tend to get camera shake I increase the ISO till everything is OK"

"In fully automatic mode my camera does this itself"

"I find I use 100 rarely. I prefer to go for a higher ISO to get faster shutter speeds"

So, you can see that the ISO setting is dependent upon the conditions and upon personal preferences. Experiment to find the settings that work best for you.

Eric Hartwell runs the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and the associated discussion forums as well as the regular weblog at http://thephotographysite.blogspot.com

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Which ISO Setting Should I Use?
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Basic Photography Terms You Should Know

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If there are 3 pillars in photography that you should know, then there are basic photography terms that you should know as well.

Here, the author cites the number as 10, so there are 10 photography terms that you should know, to help you in your SLR photography journey.

Here goes:

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10 Photography Terms You Should Know

Terminology is key to any form of photography. Know your terms and what you can do with those functions or features and your photographic world opens up to you. Terms are easy to learn. What is a challenge is to make use of what these terms describe.

Getting to grips with your terminology really frees you up to grow on your photographic journey. It may not seem necessary but join a group of avid photographers and you will soon realise your lack. So let's have a look at my top 10 terms you should know.

1. Aperture

Aperture is the size of the lens opening that determines how much light reaches the digital sensor or film in an SLR camera. It is measured in f-stops ranging from f1.2 to f32.

2. Shutter speed

How fast the shutter opens. It also determines for how long the sensor or film is exposed to the light.

3. ISO

This is the sensitivity to light of a digital sensor or the film in an SLR camera. The higher the ISO, the higher digital noise in a digital image or the grain in a film image.

4. Exposure compensation

When a camera light meter sets the exposure on a camera, it is sometimes not 100% correct. It either overexposes or underexposures. In order to correct this there is a setting called exposure compensation which allows you to change the exposure by stops of a third to half to a full stop.

5. Depth of field

This is the depth of focus of an image. When you look at an image and see the area that is in focus in front of and behind the subject it's called the depth of field. How much of it that is in focus is called either a narrow or wide depth of field. This is controlled by the size of the aperture setting. A small aperture gives a wide depth of field while a large aperture gives a narrow depth of field.

6. F-stops

These are the individual aperture sizes that help control the depth of field and regulate the amount of light that is allowed to reach the sensor or film.

7. Fill in flash

This is a very useful way of filling areas of shadow with flash especially outdoors in the full sunshine when shadows fall across a person's face.

8. Aperture priotity

When set to this setting the camera allows you to choose the aperture while it automatically chooses the correct shutter speed.

9. Shutter priority

This is opposite to the aperture priority. The camera chooses the aperture while allowing you to choose the shutter speed.

10. Rule of thirds

This is one of the basic rules of composition. Imagine a tic-tac-toe or noughts and crosses grid superimposed over the image. Where these lines intersect is where you place your focal point or subject creating a wonderfully balanced image.

Learn these ten terms and the principles, functions or  settings they represent and you will dramatically improve your photography.

Do you want to learn more about photography in a digital  world? I've just completed a brand new e-course delivered by  e-mail. Download it here for free by clicking here:  http://www.21steps2perfectphotos.com/. To learn how you can  take your photography from ordinary to outstanding click  here - http://www.21steps2perfectphotos.com/21steps.htm.


Wayne Turner has been teaching photography for 25 years and  has written three books on photography.

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Taken from Ezine article directory:
10 Photography Terms You Should Know
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Really Basics of DSLR Photography

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If you are a beginner in DSLR Photography, you'll have the dilemma of having a good piece of equipment, and not knowing how to use it. Much less, to play with it!

Not to fret; all hope is not lost.

You already have your camera. The other thing you need is a picture viewer/editor, one that has the function or capability to show the camera settings when the picture was taken. Good candidate: Picasa. Hey, this one is free; just search and download from the web.

OK, so where do we go from here?

Since we are beginners, let us crank that dial on the camera, and use and try and use and try those automatic modes. Let the camera teach you. Let the camera's computer technology guide you.

1. Set the dial to each automatic mode and take pictures.
2. Upload the pictures to your computer.
3. View each picture, and study the values that the camera set for each auto mode.

Based on those data, you may take note of what value the setting was for:

• ISO
• Aperture
• Shutter Speed
• etc.

First three are of utmost importance. if you have read a book or two, go back to the book and how it explains on the 3 settings. If you haven't read a book, now is the time to do so.

Study how the 3 settings are used, and when. Basically, analog or digital, SLRs are making use of these 3 settings the most - they are the pillars of creative photography.

Having said that, here's now what I learned:

• To control or capture motion, shutter speed priority is the main setting.
• To control or define depth of field, aperture priority is the main setting

Enjoy afterward!

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Shutter Speed: Showing the Blur or Stopping the Motion

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In my previous post I mentioned that the Aperture Setting is what we use to control and define the subject's DOF (depth-of-field), which is used mainly to make the background blur, or blur the surroundings, and keep only the main subject tack sharp.

That is most applicable when the background is distracting, and is taking away, instead of adding, to the subject being photographed.

Or, as in many wildlife photography cases, having the background surrounding just at the right degree of blurring boosts the subject matter being photographed, and brings the viewer's attention to the subject matter - and fixes it there!

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Shutter speed

Speeding cars, a cheetah's leap and bounds, a baby's quick moves shot continuously, and rendering the silky look of the water on a waterfall, or capturing a drop, and many others -- these are all done using the shutter speed setting.

As has been mentioned, the shutter speed setting is on an inverse relation with the aperture value: a fast shutter speed mandates an open wide aperture, and a slow shutter speed allows a small aperture opening.

A silky-smooth water on a waterfall requires about 2 seconds and above for the shutter kept open.

A drop of water, to be frozen in mid-air, requires a 'fast shutter speed', which is about 1/200 of a second, and above.

These are not empirical values, but are guides.

What can affect the settings?

The speed of the subject being photographed, or course. An F1 race definitely requires, as I've heard, something like 1/30,000 of a second shutter speed to 'catch' the speeding car still - and usually, only the car is sharp, and all others in the frame blur.

And this is a skill that you learn with each camera unit that you use. I would say this:
All cameras are made equal, but some cameras are more equal than others.

So which one is your camera-mate?

 

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Main use of Aperture Setting: Depth-of-Field Control

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What I have learned from all my book readings and my experiment with my camera is that the main use and function of the aperture is to control the depth of field of your shots.

Having said that, do note, however, that the correct exposure, or should I say, the desired exposure of your subject, is still dependent on 3 settings in your camera:

1. aperture value
2. shutter speed
3. ISO

ISO can be set independently, while shutter speed is an inverse function of your aperture setting: the bigger aperture opening (smaller f value), the faster you shutter speed can be, and vice-versa.

Again, this is a beginner's knowledge, but a fundamental one, -- it is but a foundation of all the other skills that you will ever learn later on.

Leave your comments - they are most welcome.

Till then!

 

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Tips from the book: 500 Digital SLR Hints, Tips and Techniques (Part 3)

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I think this will be the final part of my review, and what I can recommend, or to be precise, what I want to remember from that book.

Once again, that is 500 Digital SLR Hints, Tips and Techniques by Chris Weston

Read on...
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from page 54:

Top 10 tips for choosing lenses

• Quality - Always buy the best lenses you can afford. It's better to have less expensive camera body and a quality lens than vice versa.
• Zooms - Zoom lenses provide the greatest flexibility in composition, allowing you to alter the focal length exactly as needed. When choosing a zoom lens, try to avoid extreme zooms (e.g., those that have a very wide range, such as 7-500mm or 28-300mm), as the quality of the optics is compromised by their versatility.
• Primes - While being less versatile than zoom lenses, prime lenses (lenses of a fixed focal length) are generally of better optical quality. With extreme focal lengths, such as very wide-angle lenses and super-telephoto lenses, image quality will be noticeably better when using prime lens.
• AF lenses - Not all auto-focus (AF) lenses are as good as each other. If focusing speed is important to your photography, it's worth testing AF performance before you buy the lens.
• Inside job - Internal focusing enables lenses to be more compact and lightweight in construction than lenses where the barrel extends outward when focusing.
• Aperture - The maximum aperture of the lens will, to some extent, dictate the level of control you have over exposure settings. For example, in low-light conditions with a "slow" lens (a lens with a maximum aperture of f/5.6 or less), you may not be able to attain the shutter speed necessary to freeze motion or capture a sharp image.
• Zoom issues - With some zoom lenses the maximum aperture can vary depending on the focal length set. This system is used to reduce the size and weight of the lens but, again, can limit your options when it comes to setting exposure. If possible, always opt for a zoom lens with a fixed maximum aperture.
• Glass - Lenses that use low dispersion glass help to minimize chromatic aberration, a type of image and color dispersion that occurs when light rays of varying length pass through optical glass. In so doing, they improve sharpness and color correction.
• ALEs - Lenses with Aspherical Lens Elements produce better image quality by eliminating the problem of coma (distortion at the edge of the image) and other types of aberration, particularly prevalent in wide-angle lenses use din conjunction with large aperture.
• Stability - Increasingly, lenses are being produced with some form of optical stabilization. These lenses make hand-holding the camera at slow shutter speeds more practical, and reduce the likelihood of image blur caused by camera shake. They are widely used in sports and wildlife photography.

Metering Modes, and when to use them

• Multi-segment metering - Matrix metering by Nikon, Evaluative metering by Canon and Honeycomb by Minolta. All but referring to multi-segment metering. Takes from many areas around the frame, then average the result. Usage: General-purpose photography or difficult lighting conditions
• Center-weighted metering -usually the subject is occupying the frame large, about 75% or more. Usage: Formal portraits of people and animals; backlit subjects (except silhouettes).
• Spot metering - the camera takes in about 2-3% of the frame only; what to say, it is for precision metering! Usage: Photography of high-contrast scenes or scenes of multiple tones, like landscape photography; critical exposures; assessing the subject brightness range (SBR).
• Manual metering - as it says, this is manual metering. There's help in the camera. An analog meter display in the camera's viewfinder, with 2 arrows pointing and moving right and left. Bar stops at middle, or '0', to say that camera meter reading aligns with the exposure setting as you adjust the aperture and shutter speed. Usage: creative photography that is not governed by the auto or preset settings.

The sunny f/16 rule:

• When taking pictures in bright sunlight, the high level of contrast can sometimes confuse a camera's internal meter. To avoid inaccurate exposures in these conditions, set the lens aperture to f/16 and the shutter speed equivalent to the ISO setting. This is known as the 'sunny f/16 rule," and is remarkably accurate.

The sunny f/22 rule:

• When photographing predominantly white or very light subjects in bright sunlight, a variation of the sunny f/16 rule is the sunny f/22 rule. The process for assessing exposure is the same, except that f/22 is used as the base aperture. By stopping down by one stop, you avoid overexposing the highlights.

When photographing in moonlight:

• When using moonlight as the main light source, set a shutter speed of around 4 min when the moon is full and the sky clear. Double the amount of exposure when the moon is partial. To photograph the moon itself, use a long telephoto lens and set an exposure of around 1/1000 sec @ f/8 with an ISO of 400.

Streaked lighting:

• To create streaks of light from moving cars, set the camera on a tripod, manually focus the lens, and set an exposure of between 10 sec and 20 sec at f/22 (ISO 400). Use the Bulb (Time) setting if necessary, and activate the shutter using a cable release.

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I think that that is all that I want to cover. It doesn’t mean that there are no more that can be derived from the book. On the contrary, there are a ton of useful tips and tricks from that book. What I am saying is that go and grab a copy of it, whether that means buying your own, or borrowing from the library.

Enjoy!

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Photography 101 - How to Understand Camera Aperture and Shutter Speed

Image by Juliana Coutinho via Flickr

An Ezine article original, this is something is worth to be known by beginning photographers like me. Aside from reading books that I borrow from the library or buy from the bookshop, I still manage to sneak in some web reading, and what better way to share the knowledge than to share the same article that I read? So learn with me. Read on...

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Pre-set modes like "Sports" and "Night Portrait" make it easy for us to just point and shoot. If you're new to photography, two of the most important things to learn are aperture and shutter speed settings as these will give you a lot of creative control. If you're not sure which cameras have these types of settings, some compact digital cameras have them but most bridge cameras and all DSLRs have them.

At first it may seem it a little confusing using manual camera settings, but the improvement in the quality of your pictures wil be well worth it.

Photography 101 - Learning About Camera Aperture

The aperture of a camera works a lot like how the iris of a person's eye works. Just like your irises widen or narrow to let in more or less light through the pupils, the camera's lens diaphragm widens or narrows to let in more or less light through the lens. The aperture is the size of this lens opening.

Aperture lets the photographer (or the camera's exposure computer if it's set to automatic) increase or reduce the amount of light that gets through to the sensor, thus helping determine how bright or dark the picture will be.

The aperture also controls the depth of field of the image.

To get a good idea of what this means, make a fist, holding it in front of your eye. Then gradually open your fist. Notice when the opening in your hand is small everything you see is in focus? But when your fist is open wide, the object closest to you is sharper than the background?

A small aperture is good for taking pictures where you want it all in focus, like a landscape.

When you use your camera's Aperture Priority setting you can set the aperture to whatever f-stop number you want. These numbers represent ratios, and the larger the f-stop number, the narrower the aperture. So when the f stop setting is larger on your camera, then there will be a larger depth of field.

The reason for the "Priority" in the setting's name is that when you set the aperture, the camera does its best to set the shutter speed so that the exposure is right (not too dark or too bright). Another way to look at it is, the aperture setting will have priority while the shutter speed plays a secondary role.

Photography 101 - Introducing Shutter Speed

While the aperture controls how much light at one time falls on the image sensor, the shutter speed controls the length of time the camera allows in the light.

If you've ever seen really old pictures, you'll notice that they are rarely smiling. Shutter speeds used to be so slow that people would have to remain very still for several minutes in the early days of photography. No wonder they had such a serious look!

The shutter speeds most commonly used today are 1/500th of a second to 1/60th of a second. The Shutter Priority setting lets you choose speeds (within the camera's range) specifically for the effect you want.

If you use a shutter speed slower than 1/60, you should use a tripod or some type of camera stabilizer because when the shutter is open that long, even the slightest jiggle can create fuzzy pictures.

To freeze action, set the camera's Shutter Priority to a fast speed, which is what Sports mode does. You can be a lot more selective with this manual type of setting. For example, a dog sitting quietly will require a shutter speed of around 1/125 in order to freeze the small twitch in the dog's tail. On the flip side, taking pictures at a soccer game may require up to 1/500 to freeze fast moving actions.

Using manual settings like Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority give you more creative control, which means better pictures that you can display on your wall.

Autumn Lockwood is a writer for Your Picture Frames and loves taking pictures. Shop our online picture frame selection and see our large selection of picture frames in a wide variety of styles, sizes and unique shapes like our decorative round picture frames.

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