How To Use Manual Settings Of A Camera ISO Speed, Shutter Speed, everything you need

[Niklas 0]

For almost every setting of a camera there is a combination of a downside and an upside and vice versa. For instance the aperture:

-the higher the number the smaller the aperture

-the smaller the aperture the less light gets in

-the higher the aperture the more depth of field you have

-the lower the aperture the less depth of field you have

Examples:

the classic flower shots usually have a very low number(aperture), because then it just focusses on the flower and the rest looks blurry.

Pictures:

Aperture of 5:

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Aperture of 32:

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Ok, next one:

 

ISO Speed:

You can explain this so much better with the analogue cameras, even though it works the same with the digital ones.

Either way, analogue camera film:

To sort of 'catch' the light there are little crystals on the film. The smaller the crystals the less light they catch. The bigger the crystals the more light they catch. A film has always the same size, so if you increase the size of the crystals, you have to decrease the amount of crystals on the film. The amount of crystals stands for the quality of a picture. The higher the ISO the less quality, the more photosensitivity.

 

To sum up:

Higher ISO:

-higher photosensitivity

-noisier, grainier(or is it 'more grainy/noisy'? )

 

Lower ISO:

-lower photosensitivity

-higher picture quality

 

As you can see for both cases there's an upside and a downside

 

Shutter speed:

The time the camera disposes.

 

Again, the upside/downside combination:

 

Short shutter speed:

Sharp pictures, catches few light

 

Long shutter speed:

Blurry pictures, catches much light

 

It's not always that simple, but that's the general idea. Furthermore a few tips and hints:

 

-You should know the longest shutter speed that you can take good pictures with just using your hands(meaning not a tripod). I don't have very steady hands, so it's around 1/100 for me.

 

-This is of course basic maths and I'm not underestimating you, but just repeating it:

Usually you see shutter speed in fractions, this means the higher the denominator, the shorter the shutter speed. Don't get it wrong with the high numbers

 

-What is bulb?(The shutter speed option that comes the last when you turn towards longer shutter speed) Bulb is a setting that allows you to dispose as long as you press the release down.(Not suggested for short shutter speed shots)

 

-If you experiment with long shutter speeds, don't forget:

An area of the picture that already turned white due to light will not turn dark again.

Example: Let's say you dispose for 30 seconds, in the first 5 seconds you hold a bright lamp towards the objective. Result: The image turns white. The following 25 seconds you dance in front of the camera. Since you're dancing is darker than the light that was held beforehand, you will not appear on the picture.

I don't know if this is explained thoroughly, just ask if not.

[rayzoredge 2]

Seems to me that this is a very dumbed-down explanation of the many manual settings and tweaks that you have to your disposal on a camera such as a dSLR... which works for me and I'm sure for most people, considering that I can agree with most of everything you've lain out here. A lot of the terminology and the power behind having manual settings to a camera can and will be very confusing to people who are just starting to delve into the more advanced techniques and controls of photography, so I can thank OP for actually making the terminology and components of the settings available to you easier to digest. Just to touch up on a few things, aperture value should be set lower for macro shots (such as flowers, as deemed the case by the example given by OP) to give more of a focused effect on your subject, and the opposite holds true for imagery that you want to capture multiple depths (such as landscape photography).ISO speed can be a godsend or a recipe for grainy photos, as easily learned by fiddling with your own camera. You will notice that a higher ISO (nearing the 1000's) will yield you quicker captures, allowing for better pictures at night, but at the sacrifice of introducing unwanted grain in your photos. In there lies the predicament of choosing what ISO speed you will need for your night-time photography, since you want to be able to actually take pictures at night without throwing picture quality out the window.Finally, to add to shutter speed characteristics, a longer shutter speed will not only allow more light to be captured for an image, but also capture the movement of light and can be utilized to generate effects "on film." For example, setting your shutter speed duration to be longer can create the "flowing water effect" that you see in most landscape photos done by "professionals," allow for time-lapsed photography that you've seen with the example of beams of light traveling on a highway, or even capture the movement of stars as the Earth rotates and makes its orbit.

[onscreen 0]

The first one is called depth of field. More aperture means more depth to play around. Most DSLR have a depth of field button located on the right of the body, beside the lens ring. Pressing the button will "darken" the viewfinder and allow you to measure the DoF you wanted.Adding details to rayzoredge's long exposure paragraph. Longer shutter speed not only allow more lights to be captured to the image but also "records" more movement to it as well. The effect is call onion skin, its blurry ad transparent all together.

[rnichilo 0]

awesome info! i just got a nice camera and am still getting used to it, great explanation about aperture, thanks for sharing the knowledge!

[BCD 1]

Nice posts. Let me add some info on how actually these settings work.

 

Aperture: Aperture allows us to adjust the amount of light falling on the sensor. Literally, aperture means an opening or a gap. When it comes to cameras, it's the opening or the diameter of the opening through which the light passes behind the lens and then on to the camera sensor. Without an aperture, the sensors or film inside your camera would not receive an input at all. An aperture is like a human eye. The aperture is nothing but a mechanical iris. The iris of your eye has muscle that adjust the size of the pupil to regulate the amount of light entering the eye. When your eyes are open more, more light is allowed through the lens. Similarly, when the aperture of a camera opens up wide, more light is permitted from the lens to sensor.

In cameras the size of the aperture is called as f-stops which is measured in f-numbers like f/2, f/8 etc. They are actually gradations that let you adjust the quantity of light or exposure for a particular shot. Technically speaking an f-stop number is the focal length of the lens divided by the diameter of the aperture. As f-number increases, the diameter of the aperture decreases, allowing only half the amount of light as the previous one.

 

ISO rating: It is basically the rating of the film to the reactivity to light. In film camera days, typically a slow film with low ISO rating was supposed to give you better quality images and a fast film with a high ISO rating gave was suited for poorer lightning conditions and poorer quality. But now in digital camera era we still have ISO. We can change it, its like changing the kind of film we are using.

 

Shutter Speeds: Basically it is the duration that the shutter stays open. They are measured in fractions of second like 1/8th second, 1/100th second.