How to… Understand the basics of your camera

My sweet friend Lacy asked me to guest post on her blog about these questions a while ago but I thought it could be beneficial for everyone. So enjoy this "How To" post.

Please explain what ISO, F/stop, Shutter Speed, and White Balance?

1. ISO (Sensitivity) – Adjusts Sensitivity of the camera, “film” to the light of the subject
2. F/stop – measure of aperture
3. Aperture – diameter of the opening of the shutter. This determines how much light enters the lens.
4. Shutter Speed (ss) – How fast or slow the shutter opens. The faster the shutter speed the smaller the amount of time for light to enter the lens.
5. White Balance – Controls the temperature/color of the exposure
6. Exposure – combination of ISO, Aperature, and Shutter speed. Exposure is the outcome of these three.

From this point on, I must say all of the advice I give is going to be for manual settings. I am a firm believer that you will get the best pictures when you know how to change your settings in manual mode. Rarely do I ever use Auto. (Maybe 1-5% of the time.)

How do I shoot indoor with low lighting and without a flash?

1. First you want to check to see if you can open any windows or doors to pull in any extra natural light. Natural light is the best!!!!!
2. Then you want to check you ISO. For darker conditions you want your ISO to be higher. 800 is the lowest I will go while indoors with low light.
3. From there you will want to adjust your shutter speed. In low light conditions, you want to do lower in number. But be aware!!! If you get too low you are more likely to get blurry pictures. For my settings on a Nikon D300s I usually can’ go below 20 or 25 ss. But you want to practice by taking a lot of pictures, so you can find the limitations of your camera.
4. From there you want to adjust your F/stop. This one is more of a fine-tuning your light. I usually keep my F/stop between 5 and 7.1.
5. Then play around with your white balance. Every indoor location has different lighting. So play around and see which one gives you the best color.
6. Final thought on indoor low light: It is oksy to use a flash. Sometimes it is just needed.

Examples:

Indoor low-lighting with post-editing.

Indoor low-lighitng with post-editing.

What is the best way to shoot in direct sunlight?

1. Well my first thought is –don’t!!! Unless it is during a sunset or sunrise, it is really difficult and harsh light. Overcast days are my favorite days to shoot on. It provides great natural lighting. But if those are the conditions you are shooting in, I would suggest shooting into the sun with a reflector or your flash. This helps reduce the dark shadows on the subjects face and the squinting.
2. This is the absolute best advice I can give for shooting on a sunny day out side: FIND SHADE AND SHOOT IN IT. You can have the background highlighted with the sun and the subjects will just pop more. Again a reflector or using the flash is of benefit here.
3. Oh! And don’t forget to change your settings. ISO should go lower in number, ss will go up, and your f/stop to fine-tune.

Direct sun causes dark shadows. With post-editing.

Overcast = nearly perfect lighting. With post-editing.

Shade with sun high-lighting the back- ground and with flash. With little post editing.

How do you reduce blur?

1. Make sure your Shutter Speed is not too low. You need to have a fast ss to capture quick moving objects.
2. A steady hand or tripod is helpful.
3. Use a flash.

How do you take good close-ups?

1. It’s all about your lens. Lenses are expensive but a great investment. Macro lenses are great for close up shots. We have a 60 mm fixed lens. Meaning there is no zoom feature on this lens. But the depth of field is amazing.
2. But for those that don’t have money to spare on a new lens you can this one time use automatic settings. Switch your setting to the flower [macro]. This is the automatic setting for close up objects.

I don’t have a dSLR, so how can I maximize my picture quality with a point and shoot?

1. Find out if your camera has manual settings. Use the same principle above. As far as close up pictures there is a flower icon to signify close up shots. For fast moving object use the icon that looks like a runner. For low light use the moon icon.

This was taken with my little point and shoot. With settings on the flower icon. and the camera is in manual settings to control the flash, ISO, and White Balance. Unedited.

Finally, my 2 cents….

Learn to love editing your pictures. I for a long time used iphoto to do all my editing, which is the basic editing for any photo lover. I now use Aperture, which is professional editing software for Mac’s. There are many free services on-line to use to learn basics of editing. One that I like is Picnik.com. Editing changes good photos to great photos.

Edited. Warm color and clearer picture

Un-edited. Not as viberant color. Less appealing to the eye.

Thanks so much for reading and have a blessed day. I hope all of these tips help you understand you camera better. Have fun with it. If you have anymore questions please go to facebook.com and look up Center Point Photography page. You can ask me any more questions there.

Much love,

CPP