2. Aperture (AV Mode) The aperture controls the depth of field
in the images. When you have the AV mode set on your camera, you
can then manually control the aperture to what you want and the
camera automatically changes the shutter speed so it matches the
aperture that has been set. Aperture is measured with F-stops and
when you have a lower F-stop then the wider the opening of the
aperture is. When the F-stop is higher, this makes the opening
smaller for the aperture. For example, when the F-stop is set at
f/2.8, this would make the opening wide for the aperture. This
would cause the background in the image to be completely out of
focus and then the subject that is being focused on will be crisp
sharp. If the F-stop was changed to f/20, this would make a smaller
opening for the aperture. This would make the whole image in focus
and crisp sharp. When the aperture is set so the opening is wider,
it allows more light to be allowed into the camera lens. This then
takes less time for the camera to set the exposure and this makes
the shutter speed faster. A wide aperture causes a shallow depth of
field and this is what causes the background to be out of focus.
When the aperture has a smaller opening, less light is allowed into
the cameras lens and this takes more time for the exposure to be
set and this causes the shutter speed to be slow. Smaller apertures
will cause a deep depth of field and makes everything in the image
really sharp. Wide apertures are used mostly in low light
conditions because more light is let into the cameras lens and
because the shutter speed is so fast, moving objects are caught and
are frozen how they are. Wide apertures are used for mainly
portrait photography or macro images as the photographer will want
the background to be out of focus so that the subject or model has
the full attention and has the main focus when being looked at and
it also makes the background less distracting. Smaller apertures
are useful for taking images in good lighting conditions because
there will be enough light being used and let into the camera lens.
The shutter speed isnt as fast so it is good if the photographer
wanted motion to be noticed in the images. So if the photographer
was taking an image of the waterfall, the slower shutter speed
allows the photographer to get the motion effect of the water
gushing. Smaller apertures are used mainly for taking landscape
images or for group images so that everything that is in the image
is considerably sharp.
3. This image that I took used a wide aperture opening. This
image used the smallest F-stop and this has caused the image to
have the foreground in focus and sharp and then the background is
really out of focus and this doesnt make the background distracting
and makes the pole stand out from the rest of the image and more
noticeable.f/5.6This image was taken with a more smaller opening
and a slightly higher Fstop. It has made the majority of the image
in focus but kept parts of the image out of focus still but not as
blurred as the first image.f/11This image was taken with an even
higher F-stop and this caused all of the image to be in focus and
sharp. Compared to the first image where all of the background was
out of focus and the main subject was really sharp it is the
opposite and has all of it in focus.f/25
4. Shutter Speed (TV Mode) Shutter speed allows you to control
how long the shutter is open on your camera. When you have the
setting TV set on your camera, it allows you to change the length
of the shutter and how long its left open. Shutter speed works in
fractions of time. So they can go from fractions of a second to
several seconds. For example, they are seen on the camera like this
1/1000 or 1/10. When it reads 1/1000 this means the picture is took
really fast and can capture things that our eyes even cant see
because it is that quick at taking the image and this freezes
everything in that fraction of a second. But when you see it say
1/10, this means that the image was took with a longer shutter
speed and this captures the movement seen before taking the image.
To get an image which avoids seeing the camera shakes is using the
fraction 1/60 or more. Anything used below this fraction will start
to show camera shakes and thats when a tripod is ideal to take the
image. When taking images on a really bright day where there is a
lot of light, the shutter speed has to be set so its faster rather
than a slower shutter speed because if the shutter speed is slow it
allows more light to be let into the lens and this causes the
images to become overexposed and this can make the images nearly
white. If its a bright day and by using a faster shutter speed, the
right amount of light is let into the lens and has the right amount
of light for the image and no overexposed parts to the image. When
taking night time images or images in low lighting places, the
shutter speed needs to be slower rather than faster. This is
because when the shutter speed is too fast, it doesnt get the right
amount of light or gets enough light for the image and this causes
the images to be dark and underexposed. But by using a slower
shutter speed, it has enough time to then let the right amount of
light in that is needed to brighten up the image. But when you keep
the shutter open for longer, you are more likely to get out of
focus images due to camera shake because the slightest movement and
the camera detects this and then it comes out as a blurred image.
Fine art photographers sometimes like this effect that the image
has but for people who want a sharp and in focus image then either
using a tripod or leaning the camera on the wall or on a table,
this keeps the camera still and captures sharp images. Having a
slow shutter speed is good for taking images of trains coming past
or capturing the water falling down the waterfalls. For taking
images with a fast shutter speed, this is good for water sport
images or acrobatic images.
5. This image was took with a fast shutter speed. This means
that the movement in the image is frozen because the faster the
shutter speed the quicker it is to capture the movement. I used a
tripod for this image so the camera shakes didnt come through but
with it being a fast shutter speed it would have been highly
doubtful for them to come through.1/500 secThis image was taken
with a slightly slower shutter speed. This makes a lot of
difference from the first image because you can see a bit of
movement from the model and to stop the camera shake from having a
longer shutter speed, I used a tripod so that it would freeze the
image but capture the movement.1/25 secThis image was taken with a
really slow shutter speed and this means the shutter was open a lot
longer than the first image. Movement has been detected a lot in
this image and the model doesn't have any detail that is sharp and
it makes the subject harder to recognise. A tripod is defiantly
needed for an image with a long shutter speed because it is
important for the background to be in focus so that the movement is
shown.1/10 sec
6. ISO Settings ISO is all about how sensitive to light the
camera is. The normal range of ISO is between 200 and it goes up to
1600, depending on what the camera is, the range of ISO varies.
When choosing the number it has two important meanings with it. The
first one is it sets the right amount of exposure that is needed
with the amount of light being taken in. If you go out and take an
image on a bright, sunny day, a lower ISO needs to be used, for
example, 100 or 200 ISO.. This is because the lower the number is,
the more light is required and the more light that is required, the
more likely a shutter speed needs to be used. Then if you dont have
a lot of light or if you arent using a fast shutter speed, the ISO
number would need to be raised. Each time the ISO number is doubled
(so from 100 to 200) it means that the camera only needs half the
light to get the same exposure. For example, if the shutter speed
was at 1/250 and the ISO was set at 200, if you changed the ISO to
400 the shutter speed would need to be changed to 1/500 because
this then gives you the same exposure because the numbers have been
changed but they have only been doubled. Higher ISOs are usually
used for indoor photography and for activities like sporting events
because the shutter speed would need to be fast so that it freezes
the action and the photographers would normally use an ISO around
1600. The second important meaning is that it also detects the
noise in the image. So when you use a higher ISO, the quality of
the image decreases and the visibility of noise increases. Noise is
the grainy effect which is seen on images sometimes and is more
noticeable on pictures which have been taken on a mobile phone and
tend not to be as bad when using a digital camera and can be good
quality with ISOs that are 1600 or above. There are quite a few
factors which can affect how noticeable the noise is. The first
factor is the size of the pixels used on the sensor. If there is
larger pixels, the amount of noise on the image is reduced and this
is why digital cameras can produce high quality images because they
have larger sensors which produce larger pixels. Another factor is
the amount and the type of noise reduction that is being applied in
the camera. All the pixels collect noise, so every camera runs
processing on the image taken and this is to minimize the noise.
Newer models of cameras have the newer technology that reduce the
noise.
7. This image was taken with the lowest ISO setting. This image
zoomed in is still considerably sharp compared to the bottom 2
images because it doesnt use a high ISO so it doesnt show the noise
as much because of the sharpness of the image.ISO 100This image was
taken with a slightly higher ISO setting and by zooming into the
image it brings up the noise and this image doesnt have as much
noise in it and it is a little sharper than the bottom image
because it doesnt use a higher ISO.ISO 800This image was taken with
the highest ISO setting on the camera. By zooming into the original
image it brings up the noise thats in the image and this has a lot
more noise because it uses a higher ISO.ISO 3200
8. White Balance The white balance is all about getting the
colours in the images as accurate as they look to the naked eye.
Having the right white balance set in different lightings helps the
camera identify what the colours are. When taking images sometimes
they might come out with a bluish tint too them or a yellow/orange
tint. This is because different lightings have different
temperatures or colours to them and without changing the settings
to what lightings your under, this can cause the camera to get
confused as to what the lighting is and this causes the different
tints over the images. Fluorescent light adds a blue tint to the
images whereas tungsten lights have a yellow tint to the images.
The temperatures can range from a light blue like the sky, to a
warm light from a candle. We dont see the different temperatures
because our eyes adjust to it automatically but to a camera, it
isnt smart enough to make the adjustments like we can automatically
and thats why the settings need to be manually changed by us and so
it needs to be told if there is warm light, to cool it down and
when there is cool light, to warm it up. These are some of the
basic White Balance settings on the camera: Auto is when the camera
tries to make a guess of the colours in basic and easy lighting.
But in trickier lighting situations it isnt as good to use Auto.
Tungsten Is the mode which is mainly used for indoor shoots,
especially under incandescent lighting (such as bulb lighting) and
it usually cools down the colours in the images. Fluorescent is the
setting which will warm up the colours in the images and it also
compensates for the cool light of the florescent light.
Daylight/Sunny is the mode which isnt displayed on most cameras
because it sets things to a fairly normal and isnt a big change to
the images. Cloudy is the mode that warms up the images a little
bit more than the daylight mode does. Flash When using flash on a
camera it can make the images quite cool and so having this mode on
helps warm up some of the images. Shade The light in the shade is
normally quite cool and blue so using this mode warms things up a
little.
9. Tungsten LightCloudyWhite Fluorescent LightFlashAll these
images were took when it was really bright and sunny. In the first
image I used the Tungsten mode and it has a really heavy blue tint
to the image as it is used for mainly bulb lighting and is the mode
which cools down the colours. The second image was taken using the
Cloudy mode. This has made the image just slightly warmer than it
already was but not massively as this mode generally warms up the
image slightly. The third image was taken with the Fluorescent
mode. This has made the image have a blue frost over the image but
not as deep as the Tungsten mode did. This is because this mode
compensates for the cool light of a fluorescent light. The final
image was taken using the Flash mode. This has warmed the image up
again. This is because the flash leaves quite a cool effect on an
image and having that mode on it warms up the colours in the
image.