Its an art // part 2

 

 

 

 

In this post I want to cover some basic camera settings and for those of you who own a dslr (aka one of those fancy cameras that you can change out the lens) I want to cover the manual settings (ISO, aperture, shutterspeed).

 

Lets dive into the overall "basic" camera settings.

You have several settings on your camera each with a little image or some even have letters as well.

 

Lets start with the one that looks like a

 

woman's face- This is a portrait setting, so headshots an mainly upper body shots.

 

mountain's with a cloud- landscape, which when I used my parents point and shoot I used this when we were visiting a town, so buildings etc..

 

tulip looking flower- This is your macro setting which would be for up close shots (leaves, details, etc...)

weird running man- action setting. When I was first trying to figure out my parents point and shoot I used this setting for EVERYTHING, because I detested blurry photos. Not that this settings purpose should be used for that its great for games and those days of family picnics and everyone's running around.

 

head and shoulders with a star- This would be your night time setting that pretty much involves a bright flash. ;)

 

Most point and shoots ( a camera that's usually pretty small and the lens doesn't come off.) have an option in each setting for either flash, no flash or auto.

 Don't compare or be afraid to start practicing with a camera that may not be a big or fancy one.

Back when I started I used my parents little point and shoot to practice and used for blogging.

It took me over a year (homeschooled stay at home daughter here) to official save and buy my first dslr at age 16-17 it wasn't even that nice and most girls who weren't even into photography that much and just have been blogging owned ones like these, but for a girl like myself it was a giant splurge of my savings and toby (my camera ) was my pride and joy! But I worked developing an eye for photography using the little point and shoot.

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I am going to jump into the giant 'M' aka the Manual Setting.

 

Learning manual is a little adventure in it own. It's not just a setting you put it on, just like a manual car isn't just put into drive ,there are little aspects of it that play into this setting that changes the way you drive or shoot in our case.

 

 The 3 aspects (ISO, Aperture and shutterspeed) are what make up the exposure of your shot.

 

Lets start with ISO- Your light sensitivity the higher the more light, but also grain in your images. I usually try to keep mine around 200 and no lower then 100,but it has been needed to be changed for different circumstances.

 

Aperture aka F/stop- Your depth of field. The lower it is the more of a blurry back ground you will have,but the higher the more will be in focus.

Example; 

This 1st picture has a larger number in my aperture setting (which I don't remember what I had it at) as you can see most of the foliage is in focus along with the subject.

The 2nd picture I believe I had my setting at the aperture of 1.8 which is the lowest my 50mm lens will go. You can see how the sparkler is in focus while the bride and groom are blurred.

 

When buying lens mine for example is a 50mm it will usually have f/1.8 with it so when online searching for a lens to buy mine would read 50mm f/1.8 which is much cheaper then a 50mm f/1.4 because aperture is different which is a whole other subject of discussion.

 

 

Shutterspeed- This is the length of time your camera sensor is exposed to the light or in a less nerdy wording would be, how long it takes the camera to takes the picture. The lower the number the slower and more blurry your pictures will be. Many people use a low shutter speed on a tripod for night time photography or wedding photography with sparklers (you know when it looks like a fairy went spinning around them) I haven't had much practice at all with this, but I hope to take a day to learn more about this aspect of photography. For me personally I try to keep mine at the higher end of the setting as much as possible for shoots to help in insuring less chance of a blurry shot.

 

Well, there you go the 3 aspects of exposure while shooting in manual mode.

 

Each of these play into the details of your shot and its results.

Mastering Manual is a long journey that I still haven't conquered or even come close I am just wading in its vast ocean hoping to become an Olympic swimmer in it,but it is a fun adventure with lots of trial and error that is in the end oh, so worth it. Once you start to grasp and dip your toes into dslr cameras and shooting all the aspects of Manual you should start to see results/changes in your images to make you smile.

 

Don't get discouraged and don't compare,

but rather get inspired and go for the gold.

 

 

Something I have found is pinterest is greatly stocked with cheat sheets for these 3 aspects of the manual setting.

Ones I've found particularly helpful for starting off are;

This one, my buddy here, and this dude

 

 

 

Questions or other thoughts feel free as always to leave a comment below! :)

Have a fantastic weekend!!