Category Archives: How To

How to use a Polariser

March 27, 2015 Passy 2 Comments

Polarising filters are great for fixing problems with bright light conditions.

Examples include taking photos in Forests, photos at the beach, as well as indoor photos, where bright sunlight is streaming through windows into the room.

In this lesson we focus on techniques that can be used to get much improved photographs in rain forests when the sun is shining.

We also cover using Polarising Filters for indoor photos, and a brief mention of Beach Photo applications.

Forest Photography

Let’s face it, most times we go hiking, it is nice if there is sunshine, although strictly speaking it is best to take forest photos of plants, streams, and waterfalls when it is overcast.

If we just put our camera into auto mode in the Forest, it struggles with exposure and color correctness.

This results in grey washed out photos, with foilage being a strange aqua green, rather than its natural colour.

On a sunny day hiking, we would normally wear sunglasses, which makes the sky a more intense blue, as well as making plants greener and improving contrast.

To get this same effect for our photos, and stop harsh sunlight from washing out our images, we can use a “Circular PL” polariser filter.

This simply screws onto the front of a DSLR Camera, and is also rotatable. Rotation of the filter adjusts the degree of polarisation or sunglasses effect.

It is best to use good quality Japanese made Hoya brand filters, and we find these filters work extremely well.

Note that a Polarising Filter works best when the sun is shining from your left or right hand sides.

If you use a Polariser Filter facing directly into the sun, or with your back to the sun, it will often have minimal to zero effect.

As well as a Polarising Filter, we have found that good results can be obtained by also setting our camera into “Sunset” mode.

One downside of using Sunset Mode is that people’s skin colour can become very orange in colour.

For the portrait on the left in the image above, sunset mode warmed up the skin tones, and made the pink top intense in colour. Overall this was a good effect.

However in the photo on the far right, the skin tones do not look good with the orange glow caused by Sunset mode.

The photo in the middle has sunset mode turned off, and the people look more natural. However the scenery in the background is grey with a strange aqua green hue in the ferns and tree leaves.

Polariser with Sunset Mode Examples

The following pictures show Auto Mode versus Sunset Mode with Polariser Filter.

We think you will agree that the right hand side Sunset Mode pictures look far better than the Auto Mode photos.

Using a Polariser Filter really makes the colours “pop” and look beautiful in the Forest.

Polarising and Indoor Photography

Natural light is the best medium for photos, as it is naturally diffused, and does not have the harshness produced by light from a Flash.

However, we get the same dramatic range in brightness as we do in the forest. Eg. Light near the windows will be washed out with white overexposure, and shadow areas will be dull and grainy.

Using a Polariser filter smoothes all of this out, with the added benefit that we can see scenery that is outside while looking through the windows.

One side effect of using a Polariser for Indoor Shots, is that we can get areas that are “light blue” in colour.

In the bedroom shot above, the blue looks okay. But the blue reflection on the dining room table is not so good, and probably should be photoshopped out.

Polarisers and Beach Photography

At the beach we wear sunglasses to cut down the glare from bright sunlight reflecting off the water and white sand.

Beach photos also benefit greatly when our camera “wears sunglasses” in the form of a Polariser Filter.

Like with Forest Photos, Polarised beach Photos will turn out with intense colour, and beautiful blues and greens and “see-through” water.

There is the downside of people’s skin colour tones being a bit orange and non-realistic, but this is a small price to pay compared to the overall beauty of the entire image.

We have not had a chance to try our Polariser Filter out at the beach yet, but when we do, we will update this lesson with some “Before” and “After” images to demonstrate how well it enhances sea scape images.

Polarising Filters Videos

Here are a couple of Videos which show how to use a Polariser Filter, and the improvements in color which can be achieved.

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Enjoy,
Passy

How To

Selective Coloring

January 25, 2015 Passy Leave a comment

For people interested in the Technical side of Photography, here is the latest of our “How To” articles which is all about How To Do Selective Coloring Using Photoshop.

In this article we show you how can make a color photo into Black and White, and then select colors from the Original Photo to show through into the picture.

At Photos By Passy, we love using Photoshop Selective Coloring for Car Photos.

Here are some “Before and After” Examples of Selective Coloring.

Selective Coloring Methods

There are two methods for doing Selective Coloring:

Method 1- Make a Duplicate Layer and Selectively Desaturate the Photo

Method 2- Make a Black and White Adjustment Layer and then Paint a Mask onto it.

We have found that the second method is the much better way of doing this.

The following six minute YouTube Video goes through the steps of doing Selective Coloring in Photoshop.

Summary of Selective Coloring

Basically we mask out a Black and White Version of our image, and then paint it to allow color to show through.

– Make a Black and White Adjustment layer and use the sliders to make it look nice

– Set the brushes panel to a soft round brush where pressure affects the opacity

– Set the foreground color square to black and background color as white

– Paint with this black brush on the B&W mask layer to reveal color

– Because it is a “Pressure Brush”, with a mouse the more you stop and go back over it, the more color shows through

– If you make a mistake, simply change the brush foreground color to white, and paint back over the problem area to fill in the mask hole and put it back to B&W

Adding a Vignette

As well as Color Selection on our car pictures we also added an Oval Darkening “Vignette” around the outside to finish off.

This is very easy in Photoshop and simply involves being on the layer witth the original picture (not the B&W mask) and doing:

Filter > Lens Correction and then pick the “Custom” tab and use the Vignette Sliders.

The following video shows how to do this, as well as another method involing the Oval Marquee tool and Inverse Selecting.

(Note that the Filter > Lens Correction Method is shown in the second half of the video)

Selective Colouring Photo Album

Our Photoshop Students at the High School Day Job have done some very creative work with Selective Colouring using images from Google Images.

Use the link below to view a Photo Album of their work.
Some of them used Selective De-Coloring to make existing highlights stronger, and others used pattern based selective coloring.

(I actually learned some new ideas about Selective Colouring by watching what they were doing. Together we all do better!)

Click Here to View Photo Album

That’s it for this Photoshop Tutorial.

Use your own photos, or find some in Google Images, and play around with Selective Coloring in Photoshop.

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If you enjoy like Photos By Passy, then you owe it to yourself to like our Facebook Page.

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If you enjoy visiting Photos By Passy, why not get a free subscription to the website.

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Go to the subscribe area on the left hand sidebar, (or down the bottom of the page if using a mobile phone), fill in your email address and then click the “Subscribe” button.

Enjoy,
Passy

How To

DIY Photography Course

December 2, 2014 Passy Leave a comment

Welcome to our Free Online Digital Photography Course!

Music and Photography are my passions.

Teaching Mathematics, Photography, MultiMedia, and ICT is my “Day Job”, but I manage to get out and about most weekends working as a Photographer.

Modern Digital Photography actually involves quite a bit of behind the scenes Mathematics.

An understanding of this Mathematics can definitely make you a better Photographer, even if it just means you know the best Viewpoints, Angles, and Geometric Composition to use when taking pictures with a Mobile Phone.

I have found that understanding the Mathematics of a DSLR Camera really helps me do fast effective problem solving on Photoshoots.

But don’t let a bit of simple mathematics put you off doing Digital Photography. There are lots of proactical examples and explanations to get you through.

Digital Cameras have preset Auto Modes which work well in about 80% of situations, but there are other times when a Camera needs to be put into full Manual Mode and some Mathematical Problem Solving invoked.

Here at Photos By Passy we have produced a comprehensive series of articles on Digital Photography, including plenty of real life examples as well as selected Videos which can be viewed.

We recommend working through these articles in the order in which they appear in the Overview Below.

The eight Digital Photography articles are as follows:

– Photo Composition Rules

– Digital Camera Settings

– ISO Light Sensitivity

– Aperture Settings

– Shutter Speed Settings

– White Balance Settings

– Combining Settings for Correct Exposure

– Flash Photograpy and Diffusers

Contained below is an outline of each article followed by a clickable link to the full article.

It is important to work through the articles in the order they are given here.

Like great Works of Art, the elements in a Photograph need to be arranged in a manner which is interesting and pleasing to the eye.

In addition, Photography is a two dimensional medium. Therefore we need to make use of the elements which are present in the photo to create a sense of depth and three dimensions.

Photos also need a main focal point, as well as leading our eyes on a journey through the picture.

Having these things makes for great photos, which are pleasing to the eye, and we call this “Composition”.

There are a Number of Composition Rules involving Percentage, Geometry, Symmetry, a Grid of Thirds, and even the “Golden Ratio” and its spiral.

To find out about these rules and their Mathematics, click the link below:

Photo Composition Rules

Most people use their camera on “Auto” mode, and get plenty of good pictures.

However, there are many items on a camera which can be adjusted manually to get even better pictures!

In this “How To” article we introduce several of these camera settings, and show how they can be used to create quality photos.

An overview of the three main Variables: “ISO Light Sensitivity”, “Aperture”, and “Shutter Speed” is provided.

This provides the preliminary background to more detailed articles on each of these three key items.

It is therefore vitally important to read this article before proceeding forward to the specific detailed articles.

To read the Introductory Article about Camera Settings, click the link below.

Digital Camera Settings

ISO sets a Camera’s sensitivity to light

Effectively it works like a Brightness Control on your camera, and you can turn it up higher if you are in a dark room, or in a shady forest.

If you are in Bright Sunlight, then you need to turn the ISO down to a low value or else your photo will come out all white and washed out with too much brightness.

Camera ISO is one of the three key Variables of Photography, the other two being Aperture and Shutter Speed.

Every photographer needs to understand ISO in order to get bright and clear pictures from their equipment.

The ISO sequence is: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400 and etc. For every step up in this scale, the brightness of your picture doubles.

To get the full story on ISO and how to set it correctly on Digital Cameras for a variety of lighting conditions, click the link below.

How to Do ISO

Aperture is one of the key variables in Digital Photography. The other two are ISO Light Sensitivity and Shutter Speed.

An understanding of Aperture is critically important to isolate subjects in portraits and get full detail in Landscape pictures.

The Aperture Scale consists of a seemingly odd set of decimal and whole numbers, and getting your head around these values is not at all easy for Beginner Photographers.

In this article we examine Aperture in detail, and mathematically explain where the Aperture “f-numbers” come from.

Click the following link to read the full article.

How To Do Aperture

Shutter Speed is mainly used for creating dramatic effects by either freezing action or blurring motion.

The Speed is expressed in a fraction of a second, and is how long we let light in through the camera lens to the sensor.

Think of the Shutter as like opening and closing a set of venetian blinds quickly to let a burst of light into a darkened room.

Shutter Speed, (also called “Exposure Time”), becomes critically important in situations outside of the norm, such as the following:

1) Fast Moving Sports Action

2) Dimly lit indoor areas such as Bars and Clubs

3) Night Time Photography

4) Theatre and Musical Performances

5) Indoor Photos using Flash

6) Indoors Photos where we do not use Flash

7) Photos where we want motion blur for fast moving objects

8) Bird and Wildlife Photography

9) Photographing Young Children and Animals

In this article we will show you what Shutter Speed is, what the speed numbers mean, and how to set shutter speeds to values which should produce great photos.

Click the following link to read our article on Shutter Speed.

How To Do Shutter Speed

Different light sources produce light with slightly different colour tints, but our eyes do a great job correcting these variations.

Humans do not see a shift in colour as we move from a sunny garden into a shaded area, or go into a room and turn a light on.

Generally wherever we are, a piece of plain white paper always looks white.

However Digital Cameras DO detect light source differences, and sometimes create pictures with incorrect looking colours in them.

We need to know how to perform “white balance” adjustments, so that we can obtain pictures with realistic colours in them.

White Balance involves the Primary Colours of the Spectrum forming a Kelvin Temperature Scale from “cool” blue/violet through to warm “red” candle light.

What we have is a Mathematical Scale of color, and White Balance blends various colours together so that a white sheet of paper will look white, no matter what coloured lighting we are in.

You can read the full article on White Balance at the following link:

How To Do White Balance

In this article we look at Combining Variables for Correct “Exposure”.

We tie together the three key Digital Camera Variables: ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture, and discuss how to set these up to get good exposures in Camera Manual Mode.

When these three variables are optimised and unified together, we get a nice clear picture with great contrast and highlights. We say that the photo is correctly “Exposed”.

You can read the full article on Getting Correct Exposure Using Key Variables at the following link:

Combining Variables for Correct Exposure

In this article we discuss Flash Photography and how to use Light Diffusers to make Flash Photos look so much better.

Diffusers come in all types of Geometric Shapes and Sizes and create softened light which is more like Daylight.

The Intensity of Light from a point source like an on camera Flash follows an Inverse Square Law with the Distance the Flash is from the subject.

This is very important to have an intuitive idea about Inverse Square Law when changing the Power on a Flash, or when we move further away from the subject being photographed.

The full article about Flash and Diffusers can be read at the following link:

Flash Photograpy and Diffusers

Working through this series of articles will definitely make you a better photographer.

Keep in mind that I spent a couple of years working with Digital Photography to reach this level of understanding to a point where I could write about it to share my knowledge with others.

So if you are a complete beginner and feel a bit overwhelmed, then that is okay, these things just take practice and time.

It is best to work through all of our eight articles a bit at a time, try things out, and then come back to the articles to pick up a bit more of the finer detail.

The Maths is helpful, but the main thing about being a Photographer is to get out there taking lots of pictures!

Life is short and there can never be too many photos of its little magic moments!

Enjoy,
Passy

How To

How to Do Flash

November 29, 2014 Passy Leave a comment

In this article we discuss Flash Photography and how the use of Light Diffusers can make Flash Photos so much better.

Diffusers come in all types of Geometric Shapes and Sizes and create softened light which is more like Daylight

Most Digital and Pocket Cameras come with a built in electronic flash which provides an intensely bright light source so that photos can be taken indoors.

These flashes do a basic job, but often they light up too much of the scene and remove the natural ambience of the setting.

The band in the above photo are “Two Phase The Duo” who are a great Covers Band who play venues, parties, and functions.

For more information about this band check out their Facebook page at the following link:

Two Phase The Duo Facebook Page

Here are some Photos of the Two Phase Duo taken using a mountable camera flash with a light softening Diffuser attached.

Light Softening Flash Diffusers

Diffusers are various semi transparent plastic devices attach over the face of an electronic flash and soften the light on the people in the photo.

The Diffuser which is our favorite is the Gary Fong Gamma Blade Diffuser, which was specially designed by Gary for use with the Sony A77 Digital camera.

One of its best features is that it is completely flat and can fit in a suit coat pocket, or the leg pocket on a pair of cargo pants.

It looks like a cheese grater and has elevated circular “bumps” on it (hemispeheres), which turn the flash into a simulated set of soft white LED lights.

There are several other types of Diffuser: the “Puffer”, the “Stofen”, the “Light Sphere”, the “Soft Box” and various others.

If you are ever stuck for a Diffuser, you can always fold up some white paper and cardboard and tape it onto your flash. You then tilt the flash upwards at 90 degrees and use the white as a reflective “bounce card”. The light from the Flash bounces off the white cardboard and this bounced light illuminates the subject with soft white light.

The Puffer Diffuser

If you have a pop up flash on your Digital SLR Camera, a “Puffer” Diffuser can be mounted onto the front of the Flash to soften the harsh burst of flash light and create a nicer photo.

The only problem with Puffer Diffusers is that if you have a large zoom lens on your camera, and/or a Lens Shade Hood, there might be a round reflection shadow formed on the bottom of your photos.

This happens because the Flash pops up and is not high enough up in the air away from the lens.

The other problem with just using a “Puffer” on an onboard pop up flash is that we cannot adjust the power of the flash. The flash simply sends out a big burst of light which might actually be too bright for the scene being captured.

To overcome these problems of shadow and power most photographers invest in an attachable external flash for their digital camera.

Attachable External Flash

When we attach an external flash it is designed to be as far as possible above the camera lens. This produces light which shines downwards at the person a bit like real sunlight does.

Attachable units can also be rotated through various angles, (such as 45 and 90 degrees), so that light can be bounced onto the subjects from the walls or roof.

This produces much better looking photos than the pop up onboard flash.

Another great thing about attachable flash units is that they can have their power and angle of dispersion adjusted to better focus the light on the main subject matter, and not aimlessly light up the whole room.

Light Intensity Mathematics

When using a Flash you might think that if you double the distance between yourself and the subject, that the intensity of the light on your subject will halve.

This is not actually the case, the instensity will actually be 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4 of the original brightness.

This is known to anyone who has studied Physics as the “Inverse Square Law” and it also to both light and sound.

The “Inverse Square Law of Light Intensity” is not nearly as complicated as it sounds.

“Inverse” means that when we move further away, we only get a FRACTION of the light we used to have.

“Square” means that we do “Distance x Distance” to work out the bottom number in this 1/ fraction.

This makes things get very dark very quickly as we move the Flash further away from the subject.

The Inverse Law of Light Intensity Reduction from a Concentrated “Point Source” also applies to Projectors and Candles, (but not to fluorescents or light globes in rooms).

We do not need to make actual 1/d x 1/d calculations when doing Flash Photography, but we do need to be aware that illumination of subjects can decrease rapidly as we move ourselves further away from them.

Flash Power – Auto and TTL

Most attachable Flashes have three modes: Auto, TTL, and Manual.

TTL mode is supposed to make the Flash and Camera do all of the thinking for you; however I have found for my particular setup, I get better results controlling everything myself in Manual Mode.

“TTL” stands for “Through The Lens” and the flash fires off some preliminary flashes to work out what it thinks should be the correct exposure power for the final shot it takes.

Quite a few articles and Videos on the Internet have mentioned that TTL is great when it works, but is often inconsistent.

At the end of this article are several videos about TTL if you are interested in trying it out.

Flash Power – Manual Mode

Rather than using Automatic TTL mode on our external flash, we have found that the best results are obtained from our Sony A77 Camera by setting the Flash to Full Manual Mode.

We usually start off with the power around 1/16, and if this is too dark we increase it to 1/8.

For the angle of dispersion, we set it to a 50mm lens for Night Life People Pictures.

Shooting at ISO 1250, we find that this gives nice bright results, with the background containing ambient lighting rather than bright flash lighting.

We have also found that it is better to shoot photos slightly brighter than normal, rather than darker, as we can always tone down the brightness later in Photo Shop without losing crispness and detail.

For night time venues with plain Red, Green, Blue, coloured lighting, we have found that as long as the Band does not mind a bit of soft diffused flash, we can get clear pictures of them at a power of 1/16, but still maintain some ambience.

Let’s now look at a few of the common types of diffusers for DSLR external Flash Units.

Stofen Diffuser

The Stofen Diffuser is a semitransparent rectangular cap which goes on top of an attachable flash.

I started off originally with a cheap $50 Chinese Yongnuo Flash and a Stofen diffuser, shooting all of my pictures in Manual Mode like the one shown in the image below.

It did a reasonable job, and angled up at 45 degrees it produced better results than just using the plain manual flash, or a white bounce card.

Light Sphere Diffuser

The next Flash setup I tried was a proper compatible Sony Speedlite Flash, with a Gary Fong Collapsible Lightsphere Diffuser.

This produced cleaner and better results than the Stofen Diffuser, but was a bit bulky on top of the camera in crowded nightclub situations.

There is a video about this Diffuser in the videos section at the end of this article.

Blade Diffuser

The final Diffuser I have settled on as my permanent setup is the Gary Fong Lightblade Diffuser because it is flat and compact and gets great results.

There is a video about this Diffuser in the videos section at the end of this article.

Soft Box Diffuser

These type of diffusers are too large and bulky to carry around for night life photo shoots, but are used for studio photography.

They are also called “Pillow Boxes” because they have soft white translucent material like a pillow case, which is formed as part of a box containing a special photography light bulb.

Effectively they create soft daylight for doing Portrait Photos indoors.

Fill Flash

When we use a Flash in bright sunlight it can blast away shadows off people’s faces and also illuminate the person with correct exposure when the surrounding background is very light.

Even just using the camera’s normal onboard flash with the camera set to “Fill Flash” mode can achieve this, as in the Birthday Party photos shown below.

Typical Flash Set Up

For night life and party photos we use the following Flash setup for our Sony HVL-F43M Flash mounted on the Sony A77 DSLR camera.

We hope this article has enabled you to better understand Flash Photography using Diffusers, and there is lots of further information in the Videos which are embedded and lsited below.

Happy Snapping!

Videos About Flash Photography

First up we have a great 30 minute video with both Theory and Real World Examples of Flash Photography.

Here is a five minute video about the Flash I am currently using: The Sony HVL-F43M.

Here is a great video all about Diffusers from the excellent “Nightclub Photography TV” YouTube Channel.

Part 1

Here is Part 2 of the above video:

The following video is all about the Gary Fong Light Sphere Diffuser

This next video is also by Gary Fong and describes the excellent “Gamma Light Blade” Diffuser

This particular video is for the Sony Flash, but the “Light Blade” is also available for Canon and Nikon Speedlite Flash units.

The following video is an excellent six and a half minute video all about using “Fill Flash” for outdoor Portrait shots.

Here is a great twelve minute video all about using a Flash to do Outdoor Portaits.

This next sixteen minute video is all about using on camera flash, with an emphasis on Canon Camera Equipment.

This video is a one hour video about NOT using flash, but instead just using ambient light with light meters and reflector panels.

Videos About TTL

Here is quick two and a half minute video explaining what TTL Flash Mode is and how it works.

This next Video shows how to see the TTL Verify Light working on Canon, Nikon, and Sony Flashes.

This next Video discusses TTL Flash Mode versus Manual Mode.

The following video is a full one hour Webinar on TTL versus Manual for Flash Photography.

How To Do Exposure

November 23, 2014 Passy Leave a comment

In this article we look at “Exposure”. We also tie together the three key Digital Camera Variables: ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture, and discuss how to set these up to get good exposures in Camera Manual Mode.

When these three variables are optimised and unified together, we get a nice clear picture with great contrast and highlights. We say that the photo is correctly “Exposed”.

It is essential that you have been through the following previous articles, before reading through this “How To Do Exposure” article.

Here are the links to this essential background reading:

How To Do Camera Settings

How To Do ISO Settings

How To Do Aperture Settings

How To Do Shutter Speed

Let’s start off by quickly going through the definitions of “Exposure”, “Underexposure”, and “Overexposure”.

Underexposure in Photographs

Underexposure results in a dark and dull image because too little light was recorded by the digital sensor.

Underexposure often makes an image too dark for subjects to be seen clearly.

The amount of underexposure will determine how dark a photo is.

Overexposure in Photographs

Overexposure refers to a white-looking or washed-out image.

This is caused by having too much light reaching the digital sensor which makes the photo come out way too bright.

Correct Exposure

When we have correct exposure the tone in the image will range from white all the way though to black.

The picture will also contains all the tones in between black and white, resulting in crisp bright clear image.

Eg. We have a contrast in our image with a little dark and a little light, as well as a lot of inbetween.

The example photos shown here are photos of “Simmeau” from the fabulous Australian Led Zeppelin tribute band: “Shed Zeppelin”.

For more information about Shed Zeppelin, check out their Facebook Page here:

Shed Zeppelin Band Facebook Page

Camera Exposure

The camera uses an exposure meter which looks at shades of grey in the photo to mathematically get the correct exposure or tonal range.

(Basically Cameras see in Black and White, rather than in colour).

The light meter and processor decide what ISO, Shutter, and Aperture to use when the camera is in Auto Mode.

When we have bright rapidly changing indoor lighting, the camera has issues. It might expose for bright light, making the rest of the photo way too dark and underexposed.

We are often better off changing to manual mode and setting the camera variables manually ourselves.

There are some great videos all about Camera Light Metering in the Videos section near the end of this article.

Watching these Metering Videos will help you understand how cameras determine exposures, and what mistakes the camera can make when doing this under certain lighting situations.

Video About Exposure and Variables

The following is an excellent fifteen minute video about the Mathematics of Exposure.

Watch this video all the way though before reading the rest of this article.

Camera Variables and Exposure

Sometimes the camera’s auto mode metering does not give us the exposure we want.

Auto Modes usually work well outdoors in bright sunlight, when the sun is behind the camera.

But if it is overcast, or we move into the shade, or we are facing into the sun, or we go indoors, the exposure can often be Overexposed or Underexposed, and far from ideal.

In cases like this we need to shift our camera into Manual Mode, and Adjust some, or all, of the three key variables.

Manual Mode is basically a mathematical problem solving exercise, and it can be tricky to get all three variables at their optimum values.

When we get ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed all at just the right settings, we can get a really well exposed photo in full Manual Mode.

Sometimes we may have to adjust a fourth variable of “White Balance” as well; eg. Change over to incandescent lighting if we are taking a photo indoors at night time.

We need to know the effects of changing each of the variables: ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed.

Exposure is all about getting the right amount of light to reach the sensor, and so we often need to adjust the variable settings to get more or less light coming through.

For example, if we shoot a picture and which is too dark and underexposed, then we need more light.

However, if we shoot a picture which is too bright and washed out, we need to change things so that less light comes to the sensor.

The following “Table of Full Stops” needs to be understood, so that we can make the necessary changes in the amount of light in a mathematical manner, and not just be randomly guessing at what might work.

Limiting Factors

The additional complication is that each Variable has some limiting factors:

– ISO cannot be set too high in low light, because we may get ugly “noise” fuzzy dots all over the photo

– Shutter Speed cannot be set too slow in low light, because we will get blurring of moving objects, and/or camera shake blurring

– Aperture cannot be set too open at f2.8, or people slightly in the background may become out of focus.

Aperture determines how much of a photo is clearly in focus.

Often we are forced to use f2.8 when taking band photos, just to get enough light for a good exposure. However this makes people and items in the background out of focus, but this is often not such a bad thing.

When taking a Group Photo, it is important that everyone in the picture is in focus, even though some people are nearby and others are far away. In this situation we need to use an Aperture of f4.0 to f5.6 so that we have enough depth to capture everybody clearly.

It is therefore a delicate operation to find the settings for each of these variables so that they will all work in unison to create a well exposed photo.

Scene Mode Exposure

For certain situations, we do not need to change to full Manual Mode to get good quality pictures.

Modern Digital Cameras have Preset “Scene” Modes which can be used for situations such as : Outdoor Portraits, Landscape, Sunsets, Action Sports, and several other common environments.

These Scene Modes, with their Preset values of ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed work extremely well, as long as the lighting conditions are what is typical for that particular Scene Mode.

Some typical Scene Modes, and their limitations are discussed in the next two sections.

Preset Scene Modes on Cameras

Modern Digital Cameras have one or more fully “Automatic” modes, as well as special preset or “Scene” modes.

These generally do a great job of setting up the Aperture, Speed, and ISO variable values for us.

All we have to do is “shoot” or “snap” the picture, and the results look fantastic.

For example, if we set our camera to “Portrait” and take a picture of a person outdoors, it will turn out nicely with “bokei” (Background Blurring).

The Birthday Party pictures shown above were all taken using daylight portrait mode, which set our variables well, and also softened skin tones to make nice looking people photos.

However, if we set our camera to “Landscape”, the camera will make a nice bright picture where things both near and far from us are all in detailed focus.

Here is a great three minute video all about using Preset “Scene” Modes.

Auto and Scene Mode Limitations

Problems arise when we venture outside of normal daylight conditions, and attempt taking indoor shots without Flash, or we take portrait or party pictures with flash.

These “low light” and “Flash” photos often do not turn out as nicely as we would like them to.

We can Photoshop some of these pictures to improve them, but it is very time consuming.

It is better and faster to get good shots straight out of the camera by using Full Manual Mode, which will be discussed shortly.

Special areas of difficulty are photographing Rock Bands, Indoor Sports events, and Night Clubs, where there is not full daylight, and people are moving around.

On some Sony cameras, using “Sports” mode will sometimes produce reasonable shots in these conditions, and Canon cameras have a “Television” mode which sometimes works.

However, the best results for “low light” photography can be obtained by setting your camera to full “Manual” mode, and adjusting the variables yourself – fast enough shutter speeds to freeze action, wide open apertures to let as much light in as possible, and high ISO sensitivity so the camera sensor will work like “night vision” to pick up as much light as possible.

Manual Mode Exposure

Using Full Manual mode “M” is a matter of trial and error, combined with experience, and thoroughly getting to know your camera.

For example, for my Sony A77 camera, I know from experience that I cannot put the ISO higher than 1600 or there ugly noise dots and graininess begin to appear.

Even at ISO 1600 there can sometimes be a small amount of noise on the A77.

So rather than use ISO 1600 as a default for low light, I always check to see if I can slow down shutter speed, and use f2.8 Aperture, which might then allow me to shoot at ISO 1250 or ISO 800 which then gives negligible noise.

For Aperture, I know that if I am doing a Group Photo with some people further back or behind others, I have to use F4.0 to f5.6, or else the further away people will be out of focus.

For Shutter Speed, I know from experience that when photographing people or rock bands, that the minimum shutter speed for no blurring is 1/100. I have also discovered that the minimum shutter speed for action sports photos is 1/250 but it is much better to use 1/1000 if possible,

The point is that an experienced photographer is not blindly setting some variable and hoping for the best.

What they usually do is set one of the variables at a particular value, and then manipulate the other two to get the best exposure.

This is done by taking test shots, seeing what they look like, and then progressively making smaller and smaller adjustments until the resulting image looks good.

From my experience of taking lots of photos, I usually have an idea of what the approximate settings are for a given lighting situation, and then work on fine tuning these values to get the best possible exposure for the particular camera I am using – Sony A77, Sony A55, or Panasonic Lumix LX-7.

I know when I first started using Manual I had no idea of what to set things at, and I was totally frustrated.

So if this is your first experience when using Manual Mode do not be concerned. The path to mastery of exposure is usually not an easy one.

It is important not to give up, because being able to shoot in manual gets great photos in low light situations that people in Auto Mode will never be able to match.

Think of all those whited out Flash shots people take at parties, or those blurry noisey dark photos without the Flash.

Manual Mode is well worth learning so that you can be the person who gets the “Wow” factor photos, while others are floundering.

As I said, when I first tried Manual Mode I was totally lost as to how to begin to change the variable settings.

What I found though was that if I set the camera on auto and looked at the live view to see what settings the camera was choosing, I could then flick to manual and use these variable settings as my starting point.

There is only one way to master variables, and that is by going out and shooting a lot of photos and trying out different settings until you know the ones which give good results for your camera.

It is time consuming and frustrating at times, but it is well worth the effort in the end, when you have the great photos that nobody else can get!

What follows are some Exposure Settings examples. Read through these, and then watch all of the videos in the video section.

This will help you start getting your head around Manual Mode, and show you what effect changing each of the three variables has on the final photo.

After that it is all down to getting out and shooting lots of photos in Manual Mode and seeing the results. Then one day it should suddenly all start to “click”, and you will be able to problem solve exposure settings for difficult shooting conditions such as low light indoors without the use of flash.

Good Luck! It is a difficult path, but one well worth travelling.

Exposure Settings Examples

“A picture is worth a thousand words” so let’s take a look at some examples of variable adjustments made in Manual Mode.

Our first example below involves ISO light sensitivity.

In this second ISO example, the original settings produced an overexposed picture.

We did not want to change the Aperture, and could have increased shutter speed or lowered the ISO.

The shutter speed was already fast enough to freeze the action, and so it was better to lower the ISO to get a clearer more detailed image.

Generally, if the shutter speed is freezing the action well on an Overexposure, leave it as it is, and Reduce the ISO.

Our third example involves Shutter Speed for Indoor Sports.

As discussed in our “Shutter Speed” article, using the Auto “Sports Scene” mode on digital cameras works great outdoors in bright sunlight, but often has severe limitations for Indoor Sports.

Note that we cannot shoot Sports Action without motion blurring at speeds less than 1/250, and we should aim to use speeds of 1/500, 1/1000, or even 1/2000 if possible.

Another example of Shutter Speed involves Motion Blurring.

In the first photo below, we had a low shutter speed of 1/80 which gave plenty of light, but resulted in blurring of the singer’s moving hands. This blurring is a bit difficult to see in the small sized photo below, but it is there and it did make the photo unusable.

Moving to a higher speed of 1/125 stopped the blurring, but did create a darker picture. Sometimes we are faced with these types of compromises, and it is impossible for the camera we are using to get the penultimate perfect exposure. That’s Life – we can only strive to achieve perfection as much as humanly possible, and there are always some ultimate limitations.

Our final example is another one involving Aperture.

The original image was underexposed, and we could have increased the ISO up one stop from 800 to 1600, (and get twice as much light), but this might have also introduced a small amount of graininess.

We therefore made an Aperture adjustment instead, and were able to get 2 times more light by going down to the wider f2.8 value, which made some background blurring, but gave us sufficent light correct exposure.

By moving from f4 to f2.8 we changed the Aperture by “one full stop”.

Videos About Exposure

The following video is useful for Canon and Nikon Camera users and shows how to change the ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed settings.

The presenter goes through where all the dials and buttons are on the camera are to do this.

Watching this video made me realise how much easier my Sony A77 is to use, where I have a wheel on the front grip, and a wheel on the back to do this.