So what have we learned?

LIGHT is king! Cameras cannot hold a candle to your human eye. As a matter of fact, you can think of a camera as having sunglasses on. The amount of light that gets sprinkled onto a camera’s electronic sensor is determined by your lens, or ‘Aperture’ of your lens.

ISO – Even though the hole is sooo small, cell phones are getting better and better, mainly because the ability of a sensor to pick up light gets better every year thanks to technology. (and Sony, I cant believe I am saying this because I have never been a huge fan of Sony’s Business tactics. but it is true. Just about every camera you can think of has a Sony created sensor)

Shutter Speed – During the day we have plenty of light to play with, this is why even older DSLR’s with less sensitive sensors can bust out crisp vibrant images at noon. But who likes light saturated photos with no depth? You will need an Instagram filter to give it some depth. A great deal of photographers will wait until the golden hour, dusk or dawn. When there is less overall light traveling to the sensor on your camera, it will take longer for your sensor to create an full high quality image no matter what camera you have. How does your camera regulate how much light gets to your sensor over time? It finishes the shot with a click, or light-blocking ‘shutter’ to cover the sensor when the shot is complete.

Aperture – FINALLY! Congrats if you made it here from the beginning! This is where most people get crossed eyed because there are soo many ways to make a salad, so hang in there and try to remember that Aperture at its core is basically one thing. THE SIZE OF THE HOLE.

So the last step of the whole process is to focus or pinpoint the light onto the sensor properly. This is where a good lens can flaunt its advantages. Aperture is literally how big the opening of your lens is. Some huge lenses let a lot of light in, are heavy and expensive. These are called ‘quick’ lenses. These are great for low light situations because they allow your little turd of a sensor to get slammed with as much light as possible in as little time (quick shutter speed) as possible. ‘Fast lenses’ Otherwise known as Low F-Stop or Large Aperture.

So if a large hole or Aperture is called a fast lens, then you should automatically know that a high f-stop or ‘slow lens’ has a small opening allowing less light in. There are many variables like glass quality, amount of glass, and surface coatings that make a lens ‘fast’ but the size of the opening is the most important to remember therefore at night you want a ‘fast lens’ and during the day you can get away with a ‘slow lens’ I plan on writing an article on why you would not just use a fast lens all the time, there are plenty od reasons why but one of the largest reasons is that because a large point is focused onto a small point, it creates a shallow depth of field. This is good for buttery out of focus backgrounds but horrible for group shots where you need multiple people in focus.

As you master the Triangle (Shutter Speed, ISO, & Aperture) You will find favorite start-up settings depending on your lens, the amount of light available, and environment. (what you want to keep in focus)

QUICK SETUPS

1. If there is a lot of light available (Maybe a studio where you have access to multiple lights) Then you will want to start with the best ISO your camera has available. (200 on my camera) Since you have plenty of light, set the shutter speed to as fast as possible so you don’t end-up with a shot-ruining blur when people move at the last second. Now you can set your aperture to be a small hole since you have a lot of light, or you can get creative and slow the shutter speed to accommodate for a larger hole (low fstop) to create beautiful bokeh rich portraits.

2. If you are inside walking around and limited light, then you will want to start with a high ISO sensitivity setting to pick up as much light as quickly as your little sensor can handle. Since your sensor still can’t pickup light as fast as the human eye, you will need a long shutter speed as well as a large hole to let as much light as possible through. (Low f-stop setting) In this setting, since you are walking around, you will want to experiment to find a short enough shutter speed that doesn’t blur images but long enough to take rich photos. Some DSLR’s will require a tripos to keep the camera still as well as a still environment at night. This scenario shows off the true nature of your camera. Once you understand how limited a sensor is, you will then be able to exploit its limitations in a creative way to create engaging unique master pieces with the click of a button.

Aperture or f-stop is a decision you will need to make before the shot but do not be afraid to experiment. In most scenarios you might not even need Manual mode, but you need to know the triangle to be a successful photographer. If I am trying to control depth of field, (what is and isn’t in focus) I put my camera in Aperture Priority mode (Av on my camera)- and allow the camera regulate the shutter speed. If I am trying to stop any action or try to get creative with motion blur then I will use Shutter Priority Mode. (Tv on my camera)

Try to always remember that a camera is like you wearing sunglasses at night, it cant see much of anything the moment the sun shifts over the horizon. You might need to find creative ways to light up the main attraction of your photo.

TIP: Photography captures light from a single micro-moment. A true photographer will use the light available to him/her even if they have to reflect it, this is one of the biggest difference between a beginner and old soul. (Simple example: Someone offered to take a photo of you and your loved one at night in front of your favorite pizza place. You see a towering light post as the main source of light for the area so you immediately ask to move over 4 feet and shift direction slightly so the light is at a 45-55 or so degree angle to light up your faces in an otherwise seemingly dim environment.)

We just learned that a DSLR sensor needs an exact amount of light to make an image, and that shutter speed is the only way to increase or decrease the time light hits the camera sensor.

ISO is not used very often but important none the less. Remember how you need to give the sensor the exact amount of light it requires? Well as technology increases so does a sensors ability to pick up light. ISO is a measurement of the sensitivity of your sensor. It is like a dimmer light switch knob in your home. It is very exact and the lower you twist the knob, the darker it is. ISO is also like the volume knob on your car stereo. The higher you turn it, the louder it gets, but noise or static is introduced making it displeasing.

So why would you want the sensor to pick up light faster (high ISO) if it introduces noise into the photo? Well some photographers take advantage of the grainy look for a certain style. But it is barely used for this. It is mainly used so you do not have to take a tripod out with you when you take photos in dark lit environments. I have personally experimented with low lit handheld shots, and I can tell you my hands are not as steady as they once were. All of my photos turn out fuzzy or blurry because the slightest movement during a long exposure shows overlapping light information. (shutter is open for a second of more) Turning up the ISO (or sensitivity of the sensor) allows you to have a faster shutter speed resulting in a sharper night image.

There is practically no reason to turn up the ISO during the day unless you require a certain effect. You will always want a relatively low ISO so your images are not grainy. I personally experimented and took several images with a different ISO and pixel peeped so I know what I am dealing with when I adjust the ISO. Internet images don’t really matter since they are resampled smaller removing most grain, but if you are looking to frame some photos for the wall or print for any reason, I would highly suggest a low ISO.

Please take the time to look at your results from experimenting with the ISO, way too many photographers are afraid to turn up their ISO when they could get crisper images (faster shutter speed) if they did.

In the comments below, please tell me what camera you have and the highest ISO you pixel peeped to be ‘good enough’ for most quality situations.

By the way, if you made it this far, the next post completes the exposure triangle. So you should be able to finally switch to manual mode with confidence like I just recently did.

Next up > Aperture, Why should I care how big the light hole is?

First off, I will be 100% honest and let you know I just recently had an ‘ah hah’ moment about how photography works.

This information is based from the perspective of not knowing what to do in any of the advanced modes and mostly relying on auto when it was an important shot. I just recently figured out how the triangle works and why it is important to have manual modes on a DSLR Camera.

Sooooo… this is the boring part, but if you understand the next couple of paragraphs, then you just might have your first ‘ah hah’ moment. We cannot use anything to its full potential unless we know how it works.

DSLR cameras are no where near the quality that our human eye can see, we have to use the absolute latest technology to even come close to the quality our naked eye takes for granted.

All DSLR cameras have an electrical sensor, this sensor is square and thin like a piece of paper, it is about the size of your thumb nail. The cheaper the camera, the smaller this sensor is. This sensor turns light into pixels, the more pixels the better the image. The problem is how these sensors pick up light. Without a lens to ‘focus’ the light, a sensor will pick up a nice huge image of the same color, only producing solid black, grey or white images. The longer the sensor is exposed to light, the more it will produce a blank looking pure white image.

Now lets imagine we put a lens in front of the sensor that focuses light perfectly on the lens, we still have an issue with pure white images because we have no way to stop the light from hitting the sensor. On a bright day, we might want the light to hit the sensor just a fraction of a second because the light overwhelms the sensor, but at night the sensor cannot get enough information to make anything but a black image. So at night, we have to let the light hit the sensor longer so the sensor gathers enough information to make a photo, maybe a whole second or two even.

A sensor is absolutely useless to us with out a way to time how long light hits it. This is what photographers refer to as a shutter, or shutter speed. It is literally a little black cover that opens up for however long you tell it to let light hit the sensor and quickly covers the sensor back up. So it would be fair to say the faster the shutter speed, the more intense light the sensor requires to contruct an image.

So lets say you have experimented enough to know that you need a slower shutter speed when you go into the city at night to take photos of buildings. You will absolutely 100% need a tripod. Why? Because if that little bitty sensor moves around even a tiny bit while it is collecting light information, you will see it in the photo. The buildings will ghost in the direction of movement of the camera. A tripod allows the sensor to sit 100% still to absorb the light evenly across the photo it is creating over the span of 1-2 seconds.

Now lets say you go to a park in the middle of the afternoon to take photos of the family, will you need a tripod? That is right, no, not unless you want to be in the photo and take timed photos. This is because light from the environment is so bright and overwhelming that the little sensor can only handle a fraction of a second of it to make a full blown beautiful photo.

So the little turd of a sensor is not so amazing in terms of versatility, it has needs, and if you don’t fulfill those needs, it wont fulfill your needs. DSLR Cameras are based on early cameras, there are only 3 ways to manipulate the light traveling to the sensor.

Shutter Speed (camera) – ISO (sensor) – Aperture (lens)

Next up, ISO. Why should we care how sensitive the little electronic sensor is?