A Simple Exposure Guide – Aperture, Shutter Speed, & ISO
- By: Nate Kay
Here is another great guide by Pretty Presets and Mom & Camera that provides simple exposure tips in regards to aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.
- Category: Tips
- 5 Comments
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Kelly Calver
Great post, good for us newbies who are trying to explain simply what the different elements are
Diane
Nice infographic. Perfectly summarizes the basic exposure settings a newbie should understand.
Foinikas
Thanks for the post! I just bought my first dSLR and it’s all Greek to me!
abbi
Best advice given to me when I wanted to learn exposure- set your camera to M- Manual Mode and keep it there. Go out and shoot the same object with different exposures to see what a difference the ISO, f-stop and shutter speed can do to your image. Also, invest in a 50mm lens if your DSLR has a full-frame sensor, so you can learn how distance can distort your perspective, especially if you plan on photographing people.
William
ISO has nothing to do with exposure. It certainly doe not increase the sensitivity of the sensor. Only shutter speed and aperture determine the exposure i.e. how much light reaches the sensor.
The sensor has only one sensitivity, the base ISO. After the shutter closes and the photons in each sensor well create electrons. The signal gain can be increased before it is digitized. Of course this can not increase the exposure because the data recording is step is over. Both the signal and the noise are increased by the amplification. Increasing ISO does let you under expose which can be useful. Increasing ISO increases the image’s brightness which is only necessary because the exposure was decreased.
This is not an esoteric point. Increasing in ISO is convenient because the photographer can reduce the shutter speed to freeze motion, or decrease the aperture opening to increases DOF. But either change also reduces the exposure because both reduce the amount of light that reaches the sensor. The signal to noise ratio in the shadow regions suffers because there is less light. Less light means less electrons or signal while the sensor read noise remains constant. So motion blur artifacts are decreased or depth of field is increased at the expense of shadow detail. This is often a welcome compromize. Intentionally under exposing the sensor is often useful.