Im a beginner, I need a bit of tips..

J

JaackBrown

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Jack
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Hey, so I got / getting my first DSLR for christmas, the Canon EOS 600D with the lens kit. All I want to know is a bit more information on the ISO, Shutter speed and aperture.. I know the basics of it, I just need a little more information, like when use what setting, what they do etc.. If its not too much to ask for of course. I have watched some videos, but I prefer to read about it than watch someone else do it, Im a quick learner so It shouldnt take too long.

Thanks!
 
I'll take shutter speed.

The camera shutter is the mechanism which opens and closes the light going in, based on the light available, it will either operate at a fast or a slow speed.

Essentially, everything to do with a photograph is the amount of light that gets to the sensor. One way is shutter speed, or, keeping the shutter open longer in order to get more light onto the sensor.

The shutter speed is the most important part as the only thing we can't sort out in the editing stage is blur - caused by a the camera shutter not being fast enough to capture the detail.

In most situations you will want the fastest speed you can get away with in order to freeze action or capture detail without blurring.

For fast moving action like sports or cars etc you will want a speed upwards of 1/500th for stationary subjects where you are not using a tripod you will get away with mum slower speeds: 1/50th or even 1/10th when you turn your IS on which is on your lens. IS will counteract the effects of a slower shutter speed and allow you to use slower speeds handheld.

Best thing is to put your camera on manual, change the speeds and just try it out to see how it effects the exposure (light) value.

Remember: do everything you can (that's in your control) to get the shutter speed you desire.

There is much more to know but I hope that helps.

Phil.
 
Last edited:
Phil Young said:
I'll take shutter speed.

The camera shutter is the mechanism which opens and closes the light going in, based on the light available, it will either operate at a fast or a slow speed.

Essentially, everything to do with a photograph is the amount of light that gets to the sensor. One way is shutter speed, or, keeping the shutter open longer in order to get more light onto the sensor.

The shutter speed is the most important part as the only thing we can't sort out in the editing stage is blur - caused by a the camera shutter not being fast enough to capture the detail.

In most situations you will want the fastest speed you can get away with in order to freeze action or capture detail without blurring.

For fast moving action like sports or cars etc you will want a speed upwards of 1/500th for stationary subjects where you are not using a tripod you will get away with mum slower speeds: 1/50th or even 1/10th when you turn your IS on which is on your lens. IS will counteract the effects of a slower shutter speed and allow you to use slower speeds handheld.

Best thing is to put your camera on manual, change the speeds and just try it out to see how it effects the exposure (light) value.

Remember: do everything you can (that's in your control) to get the shutter speed you desire.

There is much more to know but I hope that helps.

Phil.
Click to expand...

Thankyou Phil! You've been a great help since I joined the forum and I couldn't thank you enough!:)
 
JaackBrown said:
Hey, so I got / getting my first DSLR for christmas, the Canon EOS 600D with the lens kit. All I want to know is a bit more information on the ISO, Shutter speed and aperture.. I know the basics of it, I just need a little more information, like when use what setting, what they do etc.. If its not too much to ask for of course. I have watched some videos, but I prefer to read about it than watch someone else do it, Im a quick learner so It shouldnt take too long.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I'll have a go at Aperture.

The Aperture is the hole in the lens that lets the light in and it's measured in stops and expressed as a F number marked on the lens. For example a 17-50mm zoom lens could be marked as f3.5-5.6. Here it's the maximum aperture at 17 and 50mm that is stated and in this case the lens can achieve an aperture of f3.5 at 17mm and f5.6 at 50mm. The smaller the number the larger the actual hole and f3.5 represents a larger hole than f5.6.

The actual size of the hole in mm at any f number is related to the focal length of the lens and a 50mm f2 lens will have a different sized aperture to a 100mm f2 lens (aperture diameter in mm = focal length divided by f value. A 100mm lens with an aperture of f2 would have an aperture diameter of 50mm, a 50mm f2 lens will have an aperture of 25mm.) They are given the same f value so as to provide a method by which the exposure can be standardised from one lens to another. For example an aperture of f2 together with a shutter speed of 1/100 second will gave the same exposure no matter what focal length your lens is even though the actual size of the aperture in mm will be different depending upon the lens focal length.

As a large aperture (large hole, small f number eg f2) will let more light in than a small aperture (small hole, larger f number eg f8) in any given time frame we can therefore achieve a good exposure faster with a large aperture than with a small one. Being able to achieve a good exposure faster means that we can use a faster shutter speed and/or a lower ISO setting when we use a wide aperture.

As well as affecting the exposure the size of the aperture also affects what appears to be within the depth of field. This is what appears to be acceptably sharp, from the nearest thing to the furthest away thing in the image. For example in an image your primary subject may appear sharp and the background may appear to be diffused to one degree or another. Or alternatively everything may look sharp. This is affected by the aperture that you choose. A wide aperture can give you a reduced depth of field and a small aperture can give you an increased depth of field but remember that to achieve a greater depth of field we'll need a smaller aperture and that'll let less light in and we'll therefore probably need to use a longer shutter speed and/or a higher ISO setting to achieve a good exposure.

Other than that... lenses are usually at their very sharpest at one particular aperture and often this is a couple of stops or so smaller than the widest aperture. For example an imaginary 50mm f1.4 lens may be at it's sharpest at f4.
 
Have a look on YouTube for some video tips, there's plenty available out there that are worth watching. Also, it might be a good idea to download an electronic copy of the manual from Canon and have a good read of it so you can hit the ground running on christmas day. Have some fun with it.
 
I'd forgotten about camerasim but someone linked to it and reminded me of what a good learner's tool it is.
Have a play about with it and it will give you a good feel as to how what you do affects the camera's automatic decisions to try and ensure proper exposure.
You'll see that as you decrease the size of the aperture to create more depth of field, the camera compensates by slowing the shutter speed and vice versa.
You can also put it in fully manual which means you control all the parameters, the camera makes no decisions of it's own. :thumbs:
 
Suprised we don't have an ISO explaination yet.

Jack, ISO is the sensor's sensitivity to the available light (which comes into the camera body).

The higher the ISO, the more exposed the image will be.

So ISO is good for that because when you can't get more light in through the lens and don't want to lower your shutter speed, you will be able to "boost" the light by raising your ISO number.

There is a price to pay for this boost. The price comes in the form of noise (grain) which comes into the image and that ultimately starts to degrade sharpness and detail. Dynamic range also suffers, which is the cameras ability to bring detail out in the dark and light areas. The higher the ISO the worse the image will look ultimately.

Cameras nowadays are very good at maintaining detail even at very high ISO numbers. This is good because there are not many situations that you can't take an image with a lens that has a fast aperture (low f-number).

So when exposing an image you should first determine your minimum shutter speed and this really is the last thing to be lowered if you can't get more light from the priority list below:

-Use a lower f number.
-Use a higher ISO.
-Add flash.

If all else fails, then you have the option to keep the shutter open for longer (slower shutter speed).

So in conclusion for light and exposing an image:

Aperture: the amount of light that is allowed through the lens.

Shutter speed: the duartion of the the shutter is exposed to light.

ISO: the sensitity of the sensor to both of the above.

The books mentioned above will go into a lot more detail so definately recommend reading them. Hopefully this is enough to give you a better understanding.

Phil.
 
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