The click.

Setting a manual Exposure (the quick rundown.)

This post is choppy and not the best formatted. One of the 2peas girls instant messaged me and I walked her through setting a manual exposure. I'll be going through what each setting does and how to figure it all out over the coming weeks- I just wanted to post my instant message explanation in case anyone wants to jump ahead!
much love, StephÜ


There are 3 parts of 'manual' they work like a triangle- all having to do with how much light is let in. 1. ISO (film speed) 2. Aperture/F-stop (how blurry or sharp it is 3. Shutter speed/exposure time (makes a difference if you can handhold or not)

Ok, if you don't have a tripod, you're goal will be to keep your shutter speed at less than 1/60 second (thats about my max for handholding, most people are 1/100ish)

So, if your shutterspeed has to be fast..that means we have to get our light from somewhere else.....1/100 second. isn't going to let very much light in at all.

So we go to ISO. Basically ISO 100 is letting in the least amount of light, ISO 1600 is letting in a lot. The tradeoff is that at 100 you get the best picture quality, think of it as the top name brand film.
Think of 1600 as a lower grade/offbrand mac and cheese---still good, but a little grainier! It's going to look a little bit grainer, but it's going to let the light flood in faster.
Ok, now the third part...f-stop. Fstop is more confusing. the SMALL numbers are considered 'wide open' and the bigger numbers are 'stopping down' or 'using a narrow exposure' It still confuses me sometimes when people talk about it..just remember that f-stop numbers are ass-backwards.

I read somewhere that aperture/f-stop is like a funnel. The small number lets in more light, but it kind of spills creating the blurred background.
If you're pouring water into a funnel and you are pouring 'wide open' (small number) you will get an area in the middle that's in focus, but the water is pouring so fast that some will overflow the funnel and go over the edges making a big mess (blur) if your aperture is 'stopped down' you are pouring the water (light) slowly through the funnel. It's going slow so you can control where it's going. The water is right where you want it, (everything is sharp)

Since they are working all together and we know we need a faster shutter speed b/c we aren't using a tripod, we'll need to open up the aperture and bump the ISO to compensate for the low-light from the shutter speed...the other two will make up for it.

Grab your camera and set it to M (turn it on)
Push the ISO button and choose 800- that will give you a little grain, but will let in good light.

Ok, so we've got the ISO set to 800, now we'll set the Fstop. To do that, push the AV +/- button (hold it down) and scroll your wheel to the left...see the number moving down? Thats your aperture/f-stop control.(the lower the number, the more light it will let in) Go ahead and scroll to the left..with the kit lens it will probably go down to 5.6ish.

Excellent! Now that the two of those are set, you can set up your shot...go ahead and compose and focus.

When you look through the eyepiece, you'll see a little bar that says -2, -1, 0, 1,2 with a little bar that pops up when you push the shutter halfway down...see it?

The negative numbers are underexposure and the positives are overexposure...you basically want it to be right on 0
To set the shutter speed, you need to twirl the dial towards the bar...so if the bar is on the left, turn the dial towards the bar...you'll see it move towards the middle.

Once it's in the middle you have a correct exposure...that's taking a technically correct exposure...now the trick is 'seeing' the creatively correct exposure. Learning the f-stops/iso/shutter speed and knowing what they do and how to make a creative picture....you'll get it!

posted by Steph @ 5:58 PM 1 comments

Lesson 1- Getting it in focus.

How many pictures have we taken that are stunning, absoulutely beautiful, perfect exposure, except, dang it, my focus got messed up! If only it were in focus, it would be PERFECT.
Yeah, we're not doing that anymore. (Well, not as much anyway!)
Today we're talking focus. Using your cameras autofocus to your advantage to get the sharpest images possible.
One huge thing that made a differnce is changing my focus from the shutter release button to the * button on the back of the camera. It took a few days to get used to focusing with a different button, but now that i'm used to it, it's amazing the difference in sharpness when your focus is a separate movement from the shutter. I don't have to worry about focusing,then adjusting my exposure, refocusing, and then taking the shot.
With the exposure lock on the * button, I can focus, set exposure and click. No accidental refocusing on the tree behind my kid.

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The instructions on changing the focus and more info about the focus lock can be found on page 92 of your manual. More info is on page 153. I don't have my manual to paste what it says here...sorry!
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When you're taking pictures in Auto, the camera will choose where it thinks you want to focus, according to lighting,etc. You will see the light on the AF point that is being used. When you flip to the creative modes, you can control the Autofocus points. The button to control the autofocus points is on the back of your camera on the VERY top right. It will have a rectangle with three dots across and one on top and one on bottom, kind of in a cross shape. If you hold the button down and use the scroll while looking in the viewfinder, you will see the AF points lighting up/changing. When they are all lit, it will use allpoints at the same time...for groups, etc.
So basically-
*Decide which item you want to focus on.
*hold the shutter half down OR hold the * button if using focus lock *recompose the picture.
*shoot!

This week play with your autofocus and control it. Set it on the autofocus point you want (i usually use center) and make it focus on what YOU want it to.
Try taking a picture of flowers or something else with varying distances from your lens and make the front set in focus..then the middle, then the back.

Getting it in focus is half the battle!

Remember, set it up, focus, recompose!

Here are some samples. I'll try to get out so I can find better examples, I can't drive yet but when I can i'll do better samples!
Heres the front/middle/back excercise. Top- focus on the pumpkin, Midddle- focus on tractor, botton- focus on wagon.

It's hard to see...I promise i'll do better when I can drive out of my neighborhood of dead 'stuff'

And in this one, focus and recompose. I focused on the pumpkin and then set up my shot. Using the focus lock, as long as the pumpkin doesnt move it will stay in focus even when I move the frame!


Take some pics, show us what you've got! Have fun!
Happy Shooting!

posted by Steph @ 1:30 PM 3 comments