When trying to achieve a correct exposure for your images, it’s important to be familiar with ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. After that, it’s just a matter of how to put them all together!

Remember that exposure has everything to do with light reaching your camera’s sensor, and that each of these three settings regulates the amount of light in some way. Correct exposure is a precise balance between the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed settings. As soon as you adjust one of them, you have to adjust the others to compensate. For example, if you have a correct exposure (just the right amount of light hitting the sensor), but you decide you need a faster shutter speed (which will let in less light), you will have to adjust either aperture (a larger aperture to let in more light), or ISO (a higher ISO to make your sensor more sensitive to the light) in order to maintain your exposure.

{Because this picture was taken outside on a sunny day, you can see that the ISO is as low as it can go, and the shutter speed is very high.}

So, remember:

More light                                        Less light

Higher ISO                                         Lower ISO

Larger aperture                                Smaller aperture

Slower shutter speed                       Faster shutter speed

If your image is too dark, or underexposed, you need to choose something from the “more light” column to add more light and get a correct exposure. If your image is too light and washed out, or overexposed, you need to choose something from the “less light” column to decrease the amount of light hitting your sensor.

{Because I wanted to underexpose the couple, and properly expose the bright sky, my shutter speed was really high so I wouldn’t let in too much light.}

So, you’re about to take a picture and you’re ready to adjust your settings… where do you start? You need to decide which setting is the most important for your particular image and adjust that one first. If you are photographing sports, for example, your priority will be keeping your shutter speed high. If you’re photographing a large group of people, you’ll want to make sure you use a small aperture so that everyone is in focus. If you’re indoors, you’re going to want to increase your ISO before you do anything else.

{This image was taken in a large room with very little light. As you can see, I had to bump my ISO way up, use a very large aperture, and keep my shutter speed lower than I normally would while photographing a toddler!}

Once you have adjusted the most important setting, you will adjust the other two settings. Take a few test shots to see how you’re doing. If you’re image is too dark, chose something from the “more light” column above. If it’s too light, chose something from the “less light” column.

{These two images were taken from the same beach, the first on a very bright day and the second on a gloomy, rainy day. You can see that on the gloomy day, I had to increase my ISO, open up my aperture, and decrease my shutter speed to let in more light.}

At first, adjusting your settings will be mostly trial and error, but as you practice, you will get better at judging the different situations you’re in and what settings you’ll need. Remember, there’s not really a “correct” combination of settings. Your settings  just depend on the look you’re going for with your image.  Don’t get discouraged… practice makes perfect!

For the past couple of months, we’ve been discussing the settings responsible for achieving a correct exposure. So far, we’ve covered  ISO and aperture. (Have you been practicing?) The third setting, which we will talk about today, is shutter speed.

*Note: If you’re not comfortable using your camera in manual mode, you can set it to “shutter speed priority” which will allow you to select the shutter speed while the camera selects the other settings for you.

I might be stating the obvious with this one, but shutter speed refers to how fast the shutter is working. In other words, it determines how long the shutter stays open to let the light in to the camera sensor. Shutter speed is expressed in seconds and is usually a fraction of a second, such as 1/200 (meaning the shutter stays open for 1/200 of a second).

In most situations, you will want to keep your shutter speed high because it will result in sharper images. If your shutter speed is too slow, you can get blurriness either from your unsteady hands, or from the movement of your subject. I like to keep my shutter speed at least 1/125.  If I am photographing something with a lot of movement (sports, pets, or kids, for instance), I will keep it even higher.

For example, the stem that this little guy was clinging to was blowing around like crazy in the wind. If my shutter speed wasn’t high enough, he would have been a big blur across the image.

The catch to keeping your shutter speed high is that you don’t leave much time for light to reach the sensor. Light is the key to correct exposure. If you don’t get enough of it, your image will be underexposed. Keep your shutter speed as high as you can without compromising your exposure.

So, how does shutter speed affect your image (aside from exposure, of course)? A fast shutter speed will freeze the action while a slow shutter speed will show movement.

In this picture, my shutter speed was 1/640 so that I could freeze the jumpers in mid-air.

As I mentioned above, most of the time you want a fast shutter speed to avoid blurriness. However, sometimes you want to show movement in your image, so a slow shutter speed would be what you want to use.

In these photos, the one on the left has a high shutter speed (1/250) and it has frozen the action of the flowing water. The one on the right has a very slow shutter speed (one second long) and shows the water flowing through the rocks.

*Tip: If you’re using a very slow shutter speed, you’ll need a tripod!

A slow shutter speed can also be fun when you’re photographing light. I played around with long exposures during the fireworks on the Fourth of July this past summer.

So, now you know all about ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. Next month, we’ll talk about how to use them all together to achieve a correct exposure!

There are three camera settings that are important to master if you want to be able to properly expose your images: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. Last month we talked a little bit about the ISO setting on your camera. This month, we’ll explore aperture.

*Note: if you’re not comfortable using your camera in manual mode, don’t stop reading here! Your DSLR has an “aperture priority” setting which allows you to choose the aperture while the camera determines the other settings for you.

The aperture setting determines how wide the camera lens opens when you take a picture, and is usually expressed as an “f stop” such as f/2.8. Some people find aperture confusing because the larger the opening of the lens, the smaller the f stop number is. For example, f/11 is a very small opening and f/2 is a very large opening. The reason for this is that the numbers are actually fractions. 1/11 is smaller than 1/2. Therefore, f/11 is a smaller opening than f/2.

Clear as mud?

Just remember: smaller f stop number = larger aperture.

Why does aperture matter in achieving a correct exposure? The answer is light. Light is always the key to exposure and by controlling how wide your camera opens up when you press the shutter button, you are controlling how much light is getting in. If you have only a little light available to you (if you are indoors, for example), you will need to use a wider aperture to let more light in. If you are outside on a sunny day, you will be free to use a smaller aperture if you want to.

Here is an example of how aperture affects exposure. In these photos, aperture is the only setting that changed:

When choosing your aperture, it is important to remember that it determines the depth of field in your photos. In other words, it determines how much of your picture is in focus. Aperture is what lets us achieve the ever popular “blurry background” (you can learn more about that in this post), but as you make your aperture wider, the part of the picture that is in focus gets smaller. If you are taking a picture of a large group of people, for example, you don’t want to let your aperture get too wide or you will not have all of your subjects in focus.

So, as you experiment with your aperture setting this month, you will need to keep two things in mind as you chose your setting:

1) How much light is available to you? (Do you need a wider aperture to let in more light?)

2) How much of your picture do you want to be in focus? (Do you need a smaller aperture to get all the important parts in focus?)

Have fun practicing and next month we’ll tackle shutter speed!

There are three main camera settings that are responsible for a correct exposure: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. These three settings are inseparable; if you change one of them, it affects the other two. When you are able to understand and use these settings, you have a lot more control over the resulting images. Today’s blog post is the first in a series of posts that will help us understand these three settings better, and will explore how to put them together to create beautiful images.

The first setting we’ll tackle is ISO. Most cameras allow you to adjust your ISO, including point and shoot cameras. The ISO setting determines how sensitive your camera’s sensor is. The higher your ISO number, the more sensitive your camera is to the light coming through the lens. This is particularly helpful in situations where not a lot of light is available, such as inside your house. Another reason you might need to increase your ISO is if you are using a smaller aperture, which means your lens doesn’t open up as wide when it takes the picture, and therefore is not letting as much light in.

In this example, I was in my living room, using only the light from the window, so I had to bump my ISO up to 800.

So why don’t we just keep our ISO as high as possible all the time? When your camera is more sensitive to light, it is also more sensitive to interference or “noise”. This noise will make your images look grainy.

Here you can see the difference between a low ISO (100) and a very high ISO (3200). It is especially visible in the darker areas of the photo, such as the background and the pupils the cat’s eyes.

At this size, it may be hard to tell, so here are the same photos more closely cropped:

A good rule of thumb for setting your ISO is to keep it as low as possible while still getting a correct exposure. One word of caution, though: don’t keep your ISO low at the expense of your exposure! Underexposing your image and then lightening it up in a photo editing program will create more grain than if you just use a higher ISO in camera.

You can see how much grain is added to this picture when I lightened the underexposed image in photoshop.

Again, a closer crop of each so you can really see the difference:

Try experimenting with your ISO settings this month. Once you get the hang of it, you will see a difference in the quality of your photos and possibly the speed at which your camera takes them. Once you’ve mastered ISO this month, we’ll talk a bit about aperture next month!

The holidays are just around the corner and for most of us, that means lots of pictures! Often, our holiday pictures include beautiful lights. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, strands of Christmas lights can make a fun backdrop for a picture. Here are a few tips for using lights in your photographs this holiday season.

 USING LIGHTS AS A BACKDROP

Christmas lights are a really fun way to add some interest to your backdrop. Place them over or under a sheer fabric and use the tips I’ve already shared for making your background blurry. This will create a sparkly look.

Lights under the fabric:

Lights on top of the fabric:

You can see that in the second set of photos, I got in closer to make the background blurrier. This is because you don’t want the cords from the lights to be noticeable when the lights are on top of your backdrop.

You don’t need an elaborate backdrop or setup in order to use lights as a background for your photos, though. Simply use your Christmas tree!

In order to get those big, round circles from your lights, remember the blurry background tips!

PHOTOGRAPHING YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE

For most of us, the focal point of our holiday decorations is the tree, so here are a few tips for getting great photos of your Christmas tree.

Turn off your flash! Your flash drowns out the pretty lights and makes crazy shadows everywhere. In these two examples, I used auto mode for both and simply turned off the flash in the second one. See what a difference it makes?

Use a high ISO. Increasing your ISO will make your camera more sensitive to light, allowing you to get a better exposure in such a dark setting. Even most point and shoot cameras allow you to change the ISO setting. 

Use a very small aperture. The smaller your aperture (the larger the number), the more “twinkly” the lights will look. Remember, if you are not comfortable in manual mode, you can use aperture priority. You can see in these photos (cropped close for comparison), how the star burst effect gets larger as the aperture gets smaller.

Remember, if your aperture is really small, you are letting in much less light and you will need to boost your ISO up very high. You will also need to have a slow shutter speed in order to get a correct exposure, which brings us to…..

Use a slow shutter speed (and a tripod!). In order to let in all that beautiful, twinkly light, you will need to use a slower shutter speed. The following pictures show you how shutter speed effects your photo.

Remember, when your shutter speed is very slow, movement (either from the person holding the camera, or the subjects in the photo) can ruin the picture. You will probably want to use a tripod to eliminate camera shake. If you are including a person in your photo, you will need to ask them to hold very still. If you are including a little person who doesn’t know the meaning of “hold very still”, you will need to sacrifice some of the “twinkly-ness” of the lights (by using a larger aperture to let in more light) in order to have a higher shutter speed.

Here are a couple more examples, along with their settings:

There you go… now you’re all set to go out and take some fabulous holiday photos! Don’t forget to use them in a layout and post them in the gallery so that we can see them too!

Getting the focus perfect in our photographs is something that we all struggle with. If you are particularly frustrated, or just hoping to improve, these tips should help!

1. Faster shutter speed. When you end up with a blurry photo, the culprit is often your shutter speed. The shutter speed is just what it sounds like: how long the shutter on your camera stays open to expose the sensor to light. If the shutter is open too long (a slow shutter speed), your camera can’t “freeze” the image and you end up capturing movement instead. Setting your camera to sports mode (usually a little running guy) will make your camera choose a higher shutter speed.

On your DSLR, you also have the option to use Shutter Priority mode (and manual mode, of course), which allows you to choose your shutter speed.  When photographing people, you usually don’t want to let your shutter speed fall below 1/125, or even higher if you are photographing something fast-moving, such as sports or toddlers.

2. Give your camera more light. One of the reasons your shutter speed might be slow is that there is not enough light for your camera to work with. This means that the shutter needs to stay open longer in order to get a correct exposure. Open the curtains, go outside, or use a flash (if you absolutely have to).

3. Choose your focus point. If your camera has the option (if you have a DSLR, it does), change your settings so that YOU choose what the camera focuses on, rather than leaving it up to the camera. On my camera, this option is called single-point auto focus and can be found in the “custom settings” menu (on my Nikon D80) or the “shooting menu” (on my D3200).

(Ignore my grimy screen!)

Once you have changed this setting, you can move the focus point around in your viewfinder. This way, you can be sure the camera doesn’t accidentally focus on the background instead of your subject. (TIP: This does not work in any of the auto modes, but it works in manual, aperture priority, shutter priority, and program modes.)

You can see that in this photo, I moved my focus to the point over my son’s eye, rather than leaving it in the center or letting the camera choose. If it was in the center, it would have focused on the peacock. If my camera had been in auto, it might have chosen the peacock feathers to focus on because they offer such great contrast. Which brings us to….

4. Focus on contrast. Cameras see everything in terms of light and dark and they need contrast to focus on. If you point your camera at a blank white wall and press the shutter button, it might try to focus for a second, but then it will give up because it can’t “see” anything. This also happens if it’s too dark for the camera to detect something to focus on.

Our brains are drawn to faces and, more specifically, to eyes. When photographing people, the eyes are where we usually want to focus. Not only is it aesthetically pleasing to have the eyes in focus, but the eye is a great source of contrast.

The camera’s love for contrast also means that you have to be conscious of what is in the frame. Be aware of focus-stealing objects and settings. If you know you are going to be taking pictures of your son, you might want to avoid dressing him in a striped shirt. If  you stand your friend in front of a brick wall, make sure she stands a good distance in front of it so the camera has an easier time focusing on her. In the peacock picture above, you can see that, because my son is a good distance away from the contrasty peacock feathers, they weren’t in danger of stealing the focus (as long as I had my focus point in the right place).

5. Don’t make your depth of field too shallow. The “depth of field” is the area in your photo that is in focus. The setting that has the most influence on this is the aperture. The larger your aperture is (or the smaller the F-stop number), the smaller your depth of field will be. It’s tempting to set the aperture as wide as possible for that great blurry background, but remember that it makes it harder to nail your focus when you do! If you shoot wide open, your depth of field can be less than one inch, which means that if your subject moves even a tiny bit, you will miss your focus.

6. Practice, practice, practice! When I was first learning to use my camera in manual mode, I would take more than 100 pictures a day! You don’t have to be that crazy about it, but if you use these tips and practice often, you will see an improvement in the focus of your photos.

I often hear people comment on blurry backgrounds in photos and wonder how its done. If you’ve been wondering the same thing, these tips will help you out!

Zoom in. One thing that will help your photo have a blurrier background is to zoom in. (Hint: This only works with optical zoom, not digital zoom. For instance, zooming in on your phone camera will not blur the background more.) These two photos were taken from the exact same spot, with the exact same settings. The only difference was that I zoomed in closer in the second one. (I gave them the same crop for comparison.) You can see that the background is just a little bit blurrier in the zoomed in version.

(None of my kids were willing participants, so I had to kidnap Mr. Potato Head.)

Get close. This might sound the same as zoom in, but it’s not. Zoom in with the lens on your camera, but also get physically closer to your subject.  In these two pictures, all my settings were the same, including the focal length (how “zoomed in” I was). I just got a little closer in the second one.

Use Portrait Mode. Most cameras have a “portrait mode”. It is usually represented by a picture of a lady with a hat on. In this mode, your camera will usually choose settings that blur the background better than it would in auto.

Use a large aperture. The aperture setting is the most important setting for determining the blurriness of your background. If you are not comfortable using your DSLR in manual mode, you can choose “aperture priority” mode, which is usually represented by the symbol “A” on the selection dial. You will want to choose a large aperture. Remember, the larger the aperture is, the smaller the number is. Your number will be around f/5 with the kit lens, and even lower with other lenses.  The lower the number (or larger the aperture), the blurrier your background will be. In these two pictures, you can see the difference that aperture makes.

Now, experiment with some of these tips and see how they affect your photos. If you end up with some images you love, create a layout with them and post them in the gallery. We’d love to see them!

Hi everyone! Welcome to this week’s Saturday Special. Have you ever had a picture that you wished was black & white? Maybe you have the perfect kit for your picture but the colors just don’t seem to work together. Or maybe you are looking for the elegant look that black & white pictures give. There are many ways that you can convert your color picture to black & white. One of the most common ways to convert it is to change the color mode to grayscale under the image menu. This tends to leave your picture fairly bland though. Today I’m going to show you a way to convert your picture without losing the contrast and making you picture look flat. (The screenshots and directions are in Photoshop Elements 5.0.) First open up the picture that you want to convert to black & white. Duplicate the picture by right clicking on the thumbnail in the Photo Bin and selecting Duplicate. This is so you are not working on the original and accidently save over top of it. Press D to set your foreground and background to the default black and white. Make sure that the black is in the top box. If it isn’t press X to switch them. Now go to the top of the Layers Palette and choose Levels from the Adjustment Layers menu. When the box pops up don’t change anything on it right now, just click ok. This will add a layer to your Layers palette named Levels 1. Go back to the Layers Adjustment menu and this time chose Gradient Map. Check to make sure the Gradient map is set on black to white. If it is not click on the arrow next to the gradient map and choose the correct gradient from the popup menu. Click ok. This will give you a layer in the Layers Palette named Gradient Map 1. Just going this far will already give you a better black & white picture, but we are not done yet. In the Layers palette, double-click on the Levels thumbnail in the Levels 1 layer. This will popup the Levels box. From here we are going to edit the individual colors, starting with red. So go ahead and choose the Red channel from the drop down menu. Grab the black (shadow) arrow under the Input Levels and slide it right. This will increase the shadows in the red channel. [IMG]http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm313/p_a_sandbulte/red.jpg[/IMG] When you think you are satisfied with this edit, go back up to the drop down menu and choose the Green channel. On this one we are going to slide the white (highlights) arrow to the left. Again when you are satisfied with this edit, go back up to the drop down menu. This time we are going to work in the Blue channel. Go ahead and move the highlights arrow to the quite a bit to the left. Move the shadows arrow just a little bit to the right. Not every picture you convert will have the same settings, play around with the sliders a bit until you get the effect you are looking for. When you are happy with how your picture looks go ahead and click OK. One last step and then we are done. Go to the Layers palette, click on More. From that menu choose Flatten Image. This will flatten the adjustment layers into your picture. You can also use ctrl+Shift+E to do this. Check out the pictures side by side. The one on the left I just used the grayscale mode to convert the picture. Look how much of a difference there is in the one on the right. Here is my page with my new black & white picture using LDrag’s Blessings of Life and Stolen Moments & Rosy Posy’s Here and Now. Check out these great pages by the ScrapMatters’ CT. Kayla made this cute page using WM Squared’s Inspired by Fran templates and Full of Joy and Add-on by Band Geek Designs. Here is a sweet one by Chel. This one by Ophelia uses Jennifer Labre’s Full of Life and True Blue Studio’s Summer Garden Templates. Here is one from Tamara using Amy Stoffel’s Make a Move. Challenge reminders: -For the month of September you will receive two points for posting in this thread & in the Saturday Special gallery. You can receive an additional two points for using new Scrap Matters products; please make a note of new products in your post. And at the end of the month you’ll be entered into a random drawing that could earn you some bonus points! -You have until the end of September to complete this challenge for September MOS points or wait to post in October for October MOS points! -Remember no double dipping… layout must be unique to this challenge. -You don’t have to use Scrap Matters products, but remember your SM gallery must contain at least 50% SM product beginning July 8, 2011.

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Hello Henriette here with this months photochallenge and we will be talking about how to photograph glass.

Good morning and HAPPY Saturday! I always love trying new ways to add focus to my pictures and found a new one (for me anyway) that I simply love! Blurring the background of your photo…

First open your editing software and the picture you are going to use. Next select the Magnetic Lasso Tool from your toolbar:

Using your magnetic lass tool outline the image you want to focus on (the part that will not be blurred)

When you have you image selected you might need to make a few corrections, so zoom in on your picture and use the Quick Selection Tool:

When you have all of your image selected…

You might want to expand the selection just a little bit so it’s not right on the edge of your image. To do this go to Select>Modify>Expand> I only expanded 1 pixel

Then you will want to invert your selection to create the blur…to invert you need to go to Select>Inverse

Then you can create your blur. On mine I went to Filter>Blur>Gauissan Blur…but you can use any of the blurs you wish. Play around with it!

Here’s my final pic:

Here is my layout created with the picture above using So Silly by Amy Stoffel, BBQ Weather Bonus Alpha by WM[squared] Designs, and Alphlets by Stolen Moments:

and here is what the amazing SM CT girls created using this tut: (please check out the forum to see what each girl did to their picture)

Andrea:

Fiona:

Becky:

Tanya:

Aren’t they all simply AMAZING?!?! Can’t wait to see how this tutorial inspires YOU!

Challenge reminders:
-You will receive one point for posting in Saturday Special 2.12.11 thread & in the Saturday Special gallery. You can receive an additional point for using new Scrap Matters products; please make a note of new products in your post. And at the end of the month you’ll be entered into a random drawing that could earn you some bonus points!

-You have until the end of February to complete this challenge to earn MOS points.

-Remember no double dipping…your photo and/or layout must be unique to this challenge.

-You don’t have to use Scrap Matters products, but we love it when you do!

Now….get scrapping!