How to take a great picture Carolina Molinari
Hmmm, that’s not what we want, is it?
Today’s digital cameras do a lot for us,
but there’s no replacement for the human eye.
It’s important to learn
how cameras work with light to create an image,
that way we’ll know what’s going on
when it’s time to capture a moment.
There are three variables
that determine if you’re getting the right amount of light
for the correct exposure.
With a manual camera,
we’re able to change any of the variable ourselves.
Different settings can result in really different pictures.
Let’s look at the process together.
First, see this here?
This is the aperture.
It’s the hole that light passes through.
If we make the aperture big,
we’ll have more light, true,
but the sharpness of your photo will decrease
very quickly from your focus point,
backward and forward.
This is what we call shallow depth of field.
If we have a very small aperture,
we’ll have less light but a deeper depth of field.
For portraits, it can be nice to have a sharp figure
separate from a somewhat blurry background
so I would suggest a large aperture.
Aperture is measured in f-stops.
This can get a little confusing
because lower numbers mean bigger apertures
and higher numbers mean smaller apertures.
Next, there’s shutter speed to think about.
The shutter acts like a curtain
that covers the sensor,
and it only opens when you release the shutter button.
If we want less light,
we open the shutter for a shorter time.
If we want more light,
we open it for a longer time,
but we run the risk of getting
a motion-blurred picture.
The speed is measured in seconds
and fractions of seconds.
For shooting sports or anything with a lot of movement,
we’ll need faster speeds.
For taking awesome night landscapes,
longer exposures will be better,
but we’ll need a tripod to steady the shot
and prevent motion blur.
Another cool thing we can do with light exposures
is light painting,
drawing in the dark with a torch
or the light of a cell phone.
Lastly, ISO sensitivity controls
how sensitive the sensor is to light.
If we use low sensitivity,
we’ll need more light to register a photo.
With a higher sensitivity,
we’ll be able to get a picture
with less available light.
100 ISO is a low sensitivity,
while 6400 ISO is a high one.
If we increase sensitivity,
we’ll be able to use faster speeds
and smaller apertures,
but we’ll get noisier images.
Good thing we have something to tell us
if we’re getting the correct amount of light
to get a good exposure,
the light meter.
Sound good to you?
Now it’s time to get out there
and practice taking pictures
under different conditions,
so you know what to do
any time you want to take the best picture.