Okay, I said I would post something about what might be a problem when you set your aperture for those landscape shots where you want everything in focus. Now I am regretting having said that. I have really been trying to keep this blog basic and I'm not sure how to make this simple, but I think this is important to know so here goes.
You have three things that determine the amount of light coming into your camera: Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO.
Here you are in front of this expansive landscape scene you want to capture. You check your camera setting your aperture to between f16-f22 so you can have the greatest depth of field. The closer to f22 the better. You snap the picture and look on the back -it is blurry. Why? I can't tell you how many blurry pictures I took before I finally found the answer and here it is... this small aperture lets less light into the camera. Your camera, the genius it is, compensates by slowing down slow shutter speed allowing in the correct amount of light to make sure the photo is properly exposed. It really is genius. But at some point depending on the available light conditions you are shooting in, the shutter may have to stay open so long that it picks up the camera shake from your body. Voila, this will of course cause blur and totally ruin your picture.
How do you determine when the shutter speed is so slow that you can no longer hand hold your camera and snap a clear picture? Here is a rule of thumb. If your shutter speed is slower than 1/focal length of your lens. If you have a 70 mm lens on your camera this means that if your shutter speed is less than 1/70 you may experience shake. If you start getting down to 1/50 you are definitely going to have a problem. So what to do?
You have two options. Do you remember my post about the camera I had with no working flash and I used 400 speed film to take wonderful photos indoors? Your ISO on your SLR works the same way. You can set the ISO on most SLRs up to 1800 if needed. The higher you set the number the more grainy your photos are going to apear but I think the difference is nominal on most photos. As a matter of fact, I was looking at a friend's photos the other day taken at ISO 1600 and couldn not believe the clarity. I am sure it varys from camera to camera and most photographers will tell you that jacking up the ISO is the least preferred option.
The preferred option is to use a tripod. If you don't have a tripod look for something to brace the camera against, like a tree or fence or rock. If none of those are an option, and often they are not, then you are going to have to raise your ISO.
No comments:
Post a Comment