Another good read – Basic Shutter Speed, Aperture and Depth of Field Underwater. The article was written with underwater photography in mind, but the information is sound even when you are on dry land. A few weeks ago, when I wanted to dust off the Minolta SLR to take some pictures, I ended up writing to Rannie for advice – I had forgotten how to use the f-stops to manipulate the depth of field within a photograph. Thanks to his help, I remember now that smaller numbers equal a larger opening, which in turn effects the depth of field. So, for example, an f-stop of 8 is a larger opening then an f-stop of 16. Huh? Well, just think of it this way – the f-stops translate to 1/8 and 1/16 in fractions – and 1/8 is larger then 1/16. See? Pretty cool.
Another cool thing I learned tonight? If I actually read the manual for my camera, I’d learn a lot of cool tricks! It seems I have macro settings and stuff like that – things I’ve never used … because I didn’t know how to do it. Oops. So now I’m off to finally read the manual!
4 replies on “More on Photography…”
I can handle the idea of apertures by itself…I can handle the idea of shutter speed by itself. It’s when I combine them together that I get all confused.
I don’t trust the light meter on my Nikon N60 SLR. So when I’m outside and not using a flash, I always adjust the Sunny 16 rule.
The Sunny 16 rule says that if you are outside in bright sunlight that is coming from over your shoulder (not ultra bright noon day sun) then you can set the Aperture (lense opening width) to F16 (F stands for fraction) and set the Shutter speed (how long light is allowed in to develop the film) to the closest setting to the film speed itself. So if I’m using some 100 speed film, I set the camera to F16 at 1/125 second.
I like to have a very fast shutter time (I’ve got notoriously wobbly hands) and a large aperture (compresses the depth of field and throws everything in the background out of focus.) SO, I adjust the f16 & 125 to f5.6 & 500. See how that works? If I adjust one upwards I have to adjust the other downwards an equal number of fractions to stay at the same ideal exposure (what’s in focus will look different but the contrast and brightness will be the same.)
Similarly, I can adjust the Sunny 16 rule if there isn’t that perfect amount of sunlight. If there’s less sunlight, I increase the overall exposure (either by stopping down the Aperture or lengthening the shutter time.) If there’s more light (high noon for example with no shade) I decrease the overall exposure.
I took a beginning photography class and learned about that stuff but I have already forgotten most of it! I’ve been using my digital camera and I need to sit down and read the manual too because there’s so much it can do and I have no idea how to take advantage of all the features. 😉
You mean manuals aren’t supposed to be stacked up in an unread pile in the junk drawer? 😉