Camera Basics (continued)

Shutter speed

• A faster speed lets less light in

• A slower speed is more likely to result in blur of moving items or overall blur if the camera moved

Lens focal length

• A “longer” lens captures a smaller angle, allowing far away objects to  be brought close or smaller elements of a scene to be focused on

• A “wider” lens captures a wider angle

Exposure

Captured Light	Film  Speed	Aperture f #	Shutter Speed in seconds
More	1600	2.8	1/30
	800	4	1/60
	400	5.6	1/125
	200	8	1/250
	100	11	1/500
Less	50	16	1/1000

Each setting in each column captures twice the light as the setting below it.  Each setting in each column capture 1/2 the light as the setting above it.

1/60s @ f8 = 1/125s @ f5.6 (1/125s is 2x as fast as 1/60s and lets in 1/2 the light, but the f5.6 lets in 2x the light as f8 so overall, both sets of exposure conditions let in the same amount of light)

In automatic, the camera decides aperture and shutter speed (& film speed with digitals)

For flowers, try aperture priority mode. Manually set the aperture (to control depth of field) and let the camera set the shutter speed. Keep the film speed as low as possible as long as the shutter speed stays faster than 1/250 second to avoid blurring.

As long as your camera is not in full manual, it will try to get a combination of aperture, shutter speed and film speed that yields the proper AVERAGE exposure

Images with lots of dark or light elements or a mix of very dark and light elements can be too much for the camera to handle

Review your photos to make sure that the most important elements are properly exposed.

Use exposure compensation as needed (+ compensation makes photo brighter)

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