Since you're shooting outside during the day, there is plenty of light present in your scene. This allows you to shoot with the lowest possible ISO to get the highest-quality image. Most cameras begin at 100 ISO.\n\n[[My ISO is set to the lowest possible setting.|isolowest]]
[[Begin shooting!|Begin]]
Your camera's ISO is the sensitivity of the digital sensor to light. <span>Setting your ISO</span> is always the first step in exposing an image, but will never only be one step.\n\nTo set your ISO, determine what it is you are shooting and what light conditions are present. Make an estimation about what your ISO should be. For outdoors during the daytime, drop your ISO to 100. For shooting distant stars in the middle of the night, boost your ISO to about 1600.(Your guesses will get better over time as you learn from doing.)\n\nAfter you've made your initial ISO guess, adjust your [[aperture|aperture]] and [[shutter speed|shutterspeed]] to achieve your desired visual effect. Then, revisit your ISO and adjust it so that your image is exposed how you want it. Try keeping the ISO as low as possible at all times so that no unnecessary grain is added to your images.\n\n\n
<span>Shutter Speed</span> is the <span>amount of time</span> that light entering the lens (aperture) will be absorbed by the sensor (ISO). It is measured by fractions of a second and depending on your camera ranges from around 1/4000 of a second to 30 seconds. Longer shutter speeds can be made possible by setting your camera's shutter speed to Bulb mode and the use of an <span>Intervalometer</span> which will allow you to take the shot without touching the camera at all and can hold each exposure for as long as you want.\n\nIn <span>long exposure phtographs,</span> a three-dimensional scene (of reality/fantasy) is reduced to a two-dimensional plane (into a photography of reality/fantasy) in which impressions of light expressed in time give a static form to the ever-unfolding fourth-dimension (time, which rules over all). Like your camera the longer you take-in a scene you will see it transform before your eyes.\n\nEarlier we talked about the dangers of shooting with shutter speeds slower than 1/60 of a second <span>handheld</span>, but depending on how steady your hand is one can get down to 1/20 of a second handheld <span>without producing visible blur.</span> This is certainly not a safe strategy but it is possible and sometimes necessary when shooting in dark conditions when your aperture is already as wide as it can be to get as much light as possible yet maintain focus, and you don't want to raise your ISO any higher or it will get too grainy and distorted.\n\nAn <span>on-board flash</span> allows for some new and interesting possibilities when shooting in dark settings. With a flash you are able to close down your aperture for deeper focus shots as well as speed up your shutter speed for less motion blur. Photos taken with an on-board flash look like they were taken with an on-board flash, so as long as the formal intention is somewhat there then go crazy. \n\nIn addition, an on-board flash allows for shots that combine of still-image photography and long-exposure photography in a single frame. This is accomplished by using an on-board flash combined with a slow shutter speed of roughly 1 to 5 seconds. The on-board flash goes off at what I call the <span>Initial Moment</span>, right when you release the shutter. The immediate flash creates a frozen light impression of whatever (or whoever) you decide to photograph, and then for the rest of the shot the still-exposed sensor will continue to absorb any present light, including both sources of light which leave distinct traces over an image, or sources of reflected light such as the color of the walls or skin which leaves a color texture over parts of the frame they occupied. \n\nThese types of shots can porduce wildly different visual effects depeding on wether or not you use a tripod, if you're panning or not during the exposure, or if you're shooting handheld and dancing around to create an organic, experiential formal quality. Let me just say I've captured some amazing moments using a 4-second shutter speed and an on-board flash. Many Canon cameras come with a Night Mode which fires the flash and holds the exposure for a few seconds automatically. You won't have full control over every variable to get things perfect but it is a good place to get familiar with the process and the general settings. It also recommends you use it with a tripod, but like rules recommendations only go so far in this world. \n\n[[Go to the last step.|last]]\n\n
First things first, set your camera to Manual exposure for full control over your camera. Auto-exposure has its advantages as well as its limitations, but the only way to get the image looking exactly how you want is to control every setting.\n\n[[My camera is on Manual.|manual]]\n[[I only shoot on automatic settings.|defiance]]
Since you're shooting inside during the day, it is in your best interest to use as much available natural sunlight as possible by opening windows and doors. You may also want to control how much light is present in certain areas, so feel free to limit light coming from outside and use artificial sources of light to your advantage.\n\nWhen shooting indoors, you may find that there is not enough light to shoot at the lowest ISO for the highest-quality image, and you will have to bump up your ISO somewhat to adjust for the lack of available light.\n\nAnother way to change how much light is visible to your camera is to adjust the aperture of your lens.\n\n[[What is aperture and how does it work?|aperture]]
Adjusting the "aperture" <span>of your lens</span> will not only adjust how much overall light is being let into your camera, but how much of your image will be in focus.\n\nThe wider your aperture is, the more light is being let into your camera, but the overall focus will be shallower.\nAn example of a wide-open aperture would be about f2.\nA wide aperture allows for blurring backgrounds or 'bokeh' (the unique appearance out-of-focus sources of light).\n\nThe more closed down your aperture is, the less light is being let into your camera, but the overall focus will be deeper.\nAn example of a closed aperture is f32.\nClosed apertures allow for images in which everything appears in focus, often seen in landscape and architecture photography.\n\nBecause changing your aperture alters how much total light enters your camera, you can adjust to the loss or abundance of light by changing your Shutter Speed.\n\n[[What is Shutter Speed?|shutterspeed]]\n\n[[Review on setting the ISO.|isoreview]]
HOW TO EXPOSE THE BEST POSSIBLE IMAGE ON ANY CAMERA
Hold your horses! Before you take the picture, you have to understand how your lens actually sees an image, and how you can change how your lens sees by adjusting your lens' aperture.\n\n[[What is aperture?|aperture]]
Since you're shooting outside at night, there is most likely not a ton of light present, which means you can't be afraid to bump up your ISO but be weary that a high ISO number can bring about unwanted grain in your images.\n\nWhat exactly are you shooting outside at night? More importantly, where is there light that you want to capture?\n\n[[I'm shooting the stars|astro]]\n[[I'm shooting people in the city|nightlife]]\n[[I'm shooting the city lights themselves|citylights]]
Since you're shooting indoors at night, it is in your best interest to explore your available lighting options. The more available light you have, the more felexiblity there will be in adjusting how your image appears. One way to adjust how much light you can capture is by changing your aperture.\n\n[[What is aperture and how does it work?|aperture]]\n
Because you're shooting astrophotography, it is equally important that the "aperture" or "f-stop" of your lens is relatively wide open to get as much light as possible.\n\n[[What is aperture?|aperture]]
Your image is overexposed. You can adjust how much light enters into your camera by adjusting your lens' aperture.\n\n[[What is aperture and how does it work?|aperture]]
When youre done throwing a fit, let's get down to business.\n\n[[I'm ready to shoot.|Begin]]
<span>Shutter Speed</span> controls how long your camera will open the internal shutter to expose an image. In the most literal terms, it is how much time you're taking a picture of. \n\nFast shutter speeds are used to freeze motion by only caturing a a teeny-tiny impercievable amount of time. Fast shutter speeds are most often used in sports and action photography.\nExamples of fast shutter speeds would include 1/100 of a second to 1/4000 of a second.\n\nSlow shutter speeds (often referred to as long-exposures) take a relatively long amount of time and lays it flat in a two-dimensional image. Slow shutter speeds are most often used in landscape and astrophotography and can create light trails.\nExamples of slow shutter speeds would include 1/10 of a second to 30 seconds.\n\n<span>A good general rule is not to shoot any slower than about 1/60 of a second when shooting handheld, as anything slower will produce blur from the camera itself moving in your hands. The addition of a tripod allows for slower shutter speeds to be used without having motion blur.</span> \n\nNow that you have a basic understanding of how ISO, aperture, and shutter speed work individually, let's see [[how they work together.|together]]\n\n[[Review on setting the ISO.|isoreview]]\n[[Review on setting the aperture.|aperture]]
Now that your ISO is at the lowest possible setting to get the highest-quality image, point your camera at what you want to capture and frame it how you would want to frame it. What do you see?\n\n[[My image is too bright.|overex]]\n[[My image is too dark.|underex]]\n[[My image is just right.|justright]]
The final <span>and most important</span> step in creating a photograph is to have a concept of what you want to accomplish with your image. <span>All of the skills and tools in the world cannot give you a great idea, but to understand how to use them can make it possible for you to execute your great idea by honing your skills and understanding your tools.</span>\n\nIt is also equally imperative to <span>establish an awareness of power relations inherent to photographic representation while understanding and respecting your place within these existing systems of power which operate to limit the power of marginalized communites by preserving the power of others.</span> A historical, theoretical, or aesthetic approach to the photographic form (as well as a technical one) will yeild new ways of understanding what a photograph can really do and why context is so important. Not only your context as an artist, but the context of the subject as a subject and most importantly the context of the spectator who will view the artwork. The best way to understand context in a grand scheme is to study the history, and to never stop theorizing and questioning what you already know.\n\nI hope this will be of value to you and other artists in both inspiring and complicating the creative process. Thanks for reading, and follow me for more cool stuff! \n\n
Your image is underexposed.You can adjust how much light enters into your camera by adjusting your lens' aperture.\n\n[[What is aperture and how does it work?|aperture]]
Now that you're on M, let's start shooting.\n\nThe first thing you want to do is to set your "ISO." \n(Or "ASA" for the dying breed of analog film shooters!) \n\n<span>Your camera's ISO is the sensitivity of the digital sensor to light.</span>\n\nIn order to shoot in dark indoor settings, high-ISO technologies make it possible to see more light. However, the higher the ISO or ASA number goes, the more grain is present in the image. High-ISO/ASA capabilities allow for faster shutter speeds for things like action/sports photography where every fraction of a second counts, but we'll get to that when we talk about Shutter Speeds.\n\nTo set your ISO, determine what it is you are shooting and what light conditions are present. Are you shooting:\n\n[[Outside during the day|outday]]\n[[Outside at night|outnight]]\n[[Indoors during the day|inday]]\n[[Indoors at night|innight]]
\nIn simple terms, <span>aperture</span> is how much light flows in at once and <span>shutter speed</span> is for how long it flows in for. \n\nIf you want more light to flow in at once (opening your aperture), you'll need less time for it to flow in (speeding up your shutter speed) to have the same total amount of light as when you started.\n\nEvery time you adjust your aperture or shutter speed by one setting, you alter how much light is entering you camera by one "stop" of light. \n\nA "stop" of light is a relative measurement, therefore if you have a perfectly exposed image and you want to close your aperture down two "stops" to get more in focus, you must slow down your shutter speed two "stops" to allow more time for light to enter the smaller opening. Aperture and shutter speed have in inverse effect on each other in regards to the presence of light, yet completely different visual properties.\n\nIn review, aperture not only changes the amount of light entering the camera, but it also adjusts how much of the image will be in focus and what will be blurred. Shutter speed also changes the amount of light entering the camera but in terms of time, while allowing for time's traces to be rendered visible or non-existant.\n\nMost importantly, all of these rules should be understood in order to know when and where to use them to your advantage (in the case of finding perfect exposure) as well as when and where to break them (in the case of wanting to achieve unique visual effects). For more on breaking the rules, continue on to my advanced explinations.\n\n[[Advanced Aperture|apadv]]\n\n
Because you're shooting present light sources as your subject, you have the freedom to close down your aperture to get more of your image in focus without having to worry about losing any light.\n\n[[How does aperture work?|aperture]]
Sinc'e you're shooting nightlife in the city, it is important you are familiar with aperture, how it changes your images and when and how to use it to your advantage.\n\nStreet photography especially demands a constant adjusting of camera settings for sudden changes in lighting conditions as well as unpredictable movement of human or non-human subjects.\n\n[[What exactly is aperture?|aperture]]
<span>Soft-focus</span> is the dreamy effect of using a wide-open aperture setting, even the widest a lens can go. The dangers of opening the lens all the way is sacrificing what's in focus, as it gets very difficult to find it at all.\n\nPortraits are most often taken using soft-focus because of how it softens the background to make the in-focus subject stand out.\n\n<span>Deep-focus</span> is the hyper-real effect of using a closed-down aperture to shoot a scene. The problem with using a closed-down aperture is that not a lot of light is able to enter into the camera at once, so slower shutter speeds must be used to compensate for the lack of immediate light. \n\nDeep-focus is most often used by landscape or street photographers, yet landscape photographers tend to use longer exposures to capture nature scenes and susnsets while street photographers have to use faster shutter speeds to freeze the motion of cars and people. Using a source of light such as an on-board flash allows for faster shutter speeds to be used with closed apertures because they flood scenes with light. This also allows for ISO settings to be much lower as an abundance of light may be cast upon any scene.\n\nHowever, added flash can get tricky when shooting with slower shutter-speeds, as available light sources as well as reflected light will continue to be absorbed even after the flash has dissipated as long as the shutter stays open.\n\n[[For more on Advanced Shutter Speeds|ssadv]]
Jake Lutz