Tips to get a nice SHOT

Understanding the Exposure

Exposure is the light amount collected by the photo sensor in the camera during a single shot.  If the photo is too long exposed the photograph will be washed out. If is exposed too short the photograph will appear too much dark.  All modern cameras have *light-meters which measure the light in the given photo and set an ideal exposure automatically in standard cameras.  Most people depend on the light meter which is more accurate, but if  you know how use the camera exposures you can get some specials and better pictures.



You can be wonder why there is not just a constant shutter speed or a constant aperture so that you would only have to worry about one control.  The reason is that even though they both control the amount of light getting to the sensor they also control other aspects of the picture.  Shutter speed for example can be used to freeze subjects in midair with a fast speed or it can be used to blur water with a slow speed.  Aperture controls the depth-of-field which is what is in focus in the picture.  Aperture can be used to draw attention to one subject (like the flower on the right) by blurring the background with a wide aperture (low f/stop).  Aperture can also be used to focus everything in a picture with a narrow aperture (high f/stop).

The camera use two basically controls for exposure are shutter speed and **aperture.  Shutter speeds are measured in seconds and more commonly fractions of a second. (1/1600 of a second is very fast and 2' seconds is so slow).  Apertures are measured in something called f/stops ( f/2.8 is a very wide aperture and  f/19 is a very small aperture).

On most digital ***SLR's today you can even change the sensitivity of the sensor when collecting light which is called the ISO (ASA)  speed.  The common span of ISO speed is 60 to 1600.  The higher the ISO speed the faster the camera collects light but it also adds more noise to the photograph than the lower speeds.  For example:

If you take pictures in dim light without a tripod you might want to raise the ISO speed in order to get a picture that's not blurry.  Most of the time you should keep it at a lower ISO speed if there is enough light, but it makes a big difference when there isn't.

* Photometer
** The size of the lens opening that lets light into the camera
*** Single Lens Reflex