365 Challenge #150

A little bit about aperture, ISO, and shutter speed:

Aperture
When I shoot in Manual, I first set my aperture according to what depth of field I want (blurry background or clear background).
-A low aperture number means:
      ~a larger opening in the camera which let more light inside      
      ~a blurrier background
-A high aperture number means:
      ~a smaller opening in the camera letting in less light
      ~a more clear background
I generally prefer more light coming into my camera and a blurrier background, so I set my aperture at f5.6 which is the lowest aperture number my camera lens will let me use while being zoomed in all the way.

ISO
After setting my aperture, I set my ISO according to how much light there already is in my setting. A lower number lets less light in and a higher number lets more light in, so:
low = less light in the camera and is needed when there is a lot of light in the setting
high = more light in the camera and is needed when there isn't a lot of light in the setting

I just make an educated guess when setting ISO. For a bright sunny day, I set the camera at ISO 100. For a dark room where I don't want to use my flash, I set it at 800. For night time lit only by the moon, I set it at 3200. But I really try not to go over ISO 800 because my camera doesn't handle that high of an ISO very well, and my picture becomes fuzzy (noisy). 

Shutter Speed
I then leave ISO and aperture alone and only adjust the shutter speed (unless the lighting changes significantly and I need to adjust ISO). The faster the shutter speed, the less light can come into your camera. As I'm taking pictures, I adjust the shutter speed dial on my camera according to how light (i.e. how exposed) I want the picture. You'll see in the following pictures that only the shutter speed changes.

ISO: 800
Aperture: 5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/80s

See how this picture is well exposed (the sky is almost too exposed, but Nate is lit up nicely).

ISO: 800
Aperture: 5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250s

Ok, this picture was taken just a minute after the last one. The shutter speed is faster, so less light came into the camera, and the picture is less exposed (not as light). This is a good option if you want your picture to be clearer (the faster the shutter speed, the clearer the picture), if you want a silhouette picture, or if you want the sky rather than the subject to be better exposed (more on sky pictures tomorrow).

Here's the sepia version edited in Picasa.

ISO: 800
Aperture: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/640s

Whew, that's a fast shutter speed....not much light got into my camera, as you can see. Again, this picture was taken only a minute after the previous one.

So, there you have it....I'm still figuring all this camera stuff out....it's very interesting!

"Just give me a second....I'll get the ball through the hoop"