Feeling Exposed
Disclosure: I have not been compensated or sponsored in any way for any mentions in this post. I just f*ing love them.
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress”
Picture it…you have your fancy camera, your pumped to capture MAGIC!! But what are all these fancy dials and buttons for??
Welcome to the EXPOSURE TRIANGLE.
There will be many more technical write ups on exposure and camera settings all across this wide-world of the internet. This is not so technical, but more a meandering saunter through the prism of how I understand things.
Careful, it could get trippy.
US Botanical Garden 2023
Taken by Clara Connell @frequentlyunfiltered.com
ISO: [International Standards Organization] — too technical, can’t compute!
Basically, ISO is how sensitive your camera sensor “acts” to light. But, what does that mean?
Low ISO = low sensitivity to light = darker image
Every camera has it’s own ISO range. Commonly from 100 to 1600. The lower ISO, the less sensitive to the light. Low ISO (100) is what you could choose on a bright shiny day. You would choose the higher end of the ISO range (1600) if you were shooting in a dark space or shooting outerspace.
You might also choose a higher ISO based on subjects in motion, but more on that later when we talk about the exposure triangle…ba…ba….BAHHHH!
All things in life have a trade off, and ISO is no exception.
The higher you set your ISO, the more noise your image contains. And I’m not talking about the sweet, sweet noise of a shutter click — I am referring to your image looking like an old school TV screen after midnight or in that creepy movie The Ring. No one wants that. So keep it as low as you can get away with.
Aperture: [F stop]
This is the “iris” of your lens.
It affects the depth of field in your image (i.e. how much of your image is in focus). For example, you are taking a snapshot of one flower. Great! F 1.4 or F2 can handle that and give you a beautiful blurred background. Now, you’re taking a shot of a bouquet of flowers. F 4 and up will be a better bet to capture all of the flowers in focus.
This is where I feel like Charlie in the chocolate factory: this concept of F stop/Aperture is a slippery one for my brain. We are on the chocolate river and going through the tunnel now, hang on.
The bigger the F number, the smaller the “iris”, the less light is let in, but the GREATER NUMBER OF THINGS ARE IN FOCUS (deeper depth of field).
The smaller the F number, the bigger the “iris”, the more light is let in, but the LESSER NUMBER OF THINGS ARE IN FOCUS (shallower depth of field).
Did I lose you?
Here’s my tired brain version: low number means yummy, yummy bokeh. high number means more in focus.
Your camera lens is the star of the aperture show. The best thing I ever purchased was my Nikkor 50MM F 1:1.4 prime lens. The pictures it gave me were almost effortlessly artsy and I love them to pieces.
The trade off: Low aperture means shallow depth of field - not ideal for multiple subject pictures or landscapes.
Additionally, if you’re in a darker space with a need for a deeper depth of field, you need to compensate. How? We will get there in just a bit.
Shutter Speed:
This one is a bit easier to digest for my brain. This is the “blink” of your camera’s eye.
Higher speed = long blink (eyes shut longer)= less light. Lower speed = short blink (eyes open longer)= more light.
Think of your eyes after you just wake up. You squint or scrunch your eyes shut when you see a bright light. More scrunching means less light in, a relief for your sleepy eyeballs.
Hope I didn’t lose ya.
Trade offs:
You need a high shutter speed if you want to capture a speedy subject without the blur of motion.
You also need a stabilizing factor for your slower speeds when your “eye” is open longer. Unless you have an incredibly steady hand, you’re gonna need a tripod.
Exposure Triangle Interpretation. Taken by Clara Connell @frequentlyunfiltered.com
And now, the much awaited, EXPOSURE TRIANGLE
This is a visual explanation of the relationship that your camera settings have to one another. There are many versions, but this is the one that works for my gray matter.
Underexpose….straight to jail. Overexpose….also….jail.
What does all this MEAN? I think of underexposed as Spooky-Awesome and overexposed as UFOs. If you’re looking for dark and moody images, underexposure can be your artistic friend. If you are looking to portray an AREA 51-type image, overexposure might be the best route.
It’s about how much light you let in to your camera’s lens—-> and that is where all of the ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed come into play.
Example: Want dark and moody with an outdoorsy feel?
I set my ISO first, as low as I can go. So I set it at 200. I don’t want noise, but I still want that moody-dark-academia-in-the-forest-vibe. I set my F stop/Aperture next because I want that romantic looking shallow focus, I set it at F 1.8. THEN, I remember that shallow focus is LOW F stop which lets in MORE LIGHT! Ack! So, to compensate and give me my botanist/dark-fairy-of-the-forest look, I need to speed up the shutter speed to 1/4000 sec pronto. And voila!
The more you play with the settings, the more comfortable you will become with the manual mode on your camera. I suggest a low pressure situation: nature, statues….things that don’t move too much while getting comfortable. Then when you feel you have some mastery, THAT’s the time for the family photos/sports shots. And if you find that you are not quite getting the shots you want, auto mode or aperture priority mode are there to lend a hand. Ain’t no shame in that game.
Thank you for taking this Willy-Wonka-esque journey with me to learn more about your camera and photography.
I would love to hear about any mental gymnastics you have had to go through as you learned about cameras and settings.
Cheers.
Clara