Digital Photography 1 on 1: Episode 47: Understanding Camera Settings

Get the spreadsheet here: http://tinyurl.com/4lesleq

Pre-set modes like "Sports" and "Night Portrait" make it easy for us to just point and shoot. If you're new to photography, two of the most important things to learn are aperture and shutter speed settings as these will give you a lot of creative control. If you're not sure what settings to use Mark has an easy to follow spreadsheet to help you determine the right settings.

Get the spreadsheet here: http://tinyurl.com/4lesleq

[Female Narrator]
Adorama TV presents

Digital Photography One on One

where we answer your questions.

Here's your host,

Mark Wallace.

[Mark Wallace]
Hi everybody

welcome to this week's episode of

Digital Photography One on One.

I'm Mark Wallace.

Well this week

we don't have a specific question

from a specific person,

in fact we have a question

that's been asked by

many, many people over many months

and the question is simply

what settings do I use on my camera?

Now the reason that we get asked this

is because in different situations

you have to use

different settings on your camera

so there's no one answer.

So what I wanna do

is I'm gonna walk you through

an exercise

that I've in my workshops for years

and it will help you

with sort of a my mind workflow,

some questions to ask yourself

so you'll know

what to set your camera on.

Now remember

we have something called

the exposure triangle.

That is our ISO,

our shutter speed,

and our aperture value.

We need to set

those three things correctly

so that we get a perfect exposure

and not only that

we need to make sure

that we set those correctly

so we get a creatively correct exposure,

that's a term I'm stealing from Bryan Petersen,

and what he's talking about there is

we can get something that's

not too bright or too dark

but what we really want to do is

make sure that we capture something

that we're either showing motion

or freezing motion

or isolating a subject

using shallow depth of field

or showing everything

so we have a phenomenal scenic photo

and so we need to figure out

how to do that.

And so we're gonna do is

in a second

I'm gonna bring out my computer

and I'm gonna walk you through

a spreadsheet,

I know that sounds crazy

but that's right,

I created a spreadsheet

and you can download the spreadsheet

from the Adorama Learning Center

and it just walks through some questions

and it will help you understand

what settings to use on your camera

and the nice thing is

it allows you to put in

a lot of different variables,

the type of light,

if you know, a flash or a tripod,

the kind of lens,

and what you're shooting,

and based on that

it'll tell you

what kinda settings

to use on your camera.

Now ideally,

once you learn how to

ask yourself these questions

you won't need the spreadsheet,

in fact it's very, very simple.

What you'll be able to do is

do this all in your head

and with a little bit of practice,

you'll be able to do all of this

all on your own,

with no spreadsheet,

you'll just become intuitively able to do this

and when you go into a situation

you'll know what settings to use on your camera.

So let me bring out my computer

and we'll walk through it.

Well now that

I have my computer out here

let me walk you

through this spreadsheet.

Now this spreadsheet doesn't calculate anything for you

but it helps you walk through

some of the questions that

you need to ask yourself

and so you can do this all in your brain

but what we'll do is

we'll walk through this

and it'll help you know

what questions to ask,

in which order,

and then

at the end,

what settings to use on your camera.

So what I've done is,

and again by the way,

you can download this spreadsheet

from the Adorama Learning Center

so if you wanna follow along

at home you can do that,

or you can just use a piece of paper,

that will work fine as well.

So on the left side of this spreadsheet,

what I've done

is I've entered this

little column here called scenarios

and that's so you can

write in different types of things

that you would like to shoot

and then you can sort of

work out all of the variables

and figure out

what settings to use on your camera.

So we're gonna walk through

several scenarios here

and so,

let me scroll back up here.

What I'm gonna do here is,

I'm just gonna paste in

some scenarios that we

thought of earlier,

and so we have

kids playing sports outside.

So in this instance

we're talking about soccer,

in the middle of the day.

We're gonna talk about

shooting some kids

in the back yard at night

for maybe a birthday party.

We're also gonna talk about

maybe shooting a senior portrait,

so getting a nice headshot of somebody

and then at the last

we're gonna talk about

shooting a dance recital.

You know we're gonna talk

to you about determining when

it just won't work

and so this

will help you figure that out as well

because that's nice to know.

So what we gonna do here is

we need to fill in some variables

and once we have that,

then we can solve

the exposure triangle,

ISO, shutter speed, and aperture value.

So first let's talk about

the variables that we have to understand

and again you'll be doing this

in your brain

but working it out on a spreadsheet

will help you sort of

think through how to ask questions.

So the first thing

that we're gonna look at

is the light level.

In other words how much light

do we have to play with

in this situation.

So the very first situation

again we're talking about

shooting kids outside.

So we're gonna say it's very bright.

So we've got lots of light,

so we'll type that in there

the kids party at the back yard at night,

well this is really low light,

there's not alot of light there

so we're going to figure out

how to deal with that.

The senior portrait,

let's pretend for this hypothetical situation

that we're shooting outside in the shade,

so this is shady but bright

and we'll say yeah, shade / bright.

So we've got

plenty a light for that one

and then the dance recital.

For this scenario

we're gonna pretend

that this is the

absolute worst light possible,

so horrible light.

In other words

it is really dark,

it's maybe in a gymnasium

and the lights are

you know those

horrible lights that make everything green.

So that's what we're

gonna talk about in that situation.

So the first thing to ask yourself is

what kind of light

do I have

where I'm gonna be shooting

and knowing that

is going to really help you understand

what equipment you need to bring

and eventually

what settings to use on your camera.

So the next thing we need to talk about

is exactly that,

what equipment do you have with you?

So we have another section of this

spreadsheet here

and it says

do you have a flash,

do you have a tripod,

and what lens are you using?

Now the thing to understand here is

this isn't am I going to use a flash,

am I going to use a tripod,

what we're asking ourselves is

is it available to use

if I need it.

So on this for scenario here

where again we're talking about shooting kids outside,

we're going to say

we have no flash and

we didn't bring a tripod

because we just ran out the door for the soccer game

and for this one

we're using a zoom lens

and so the- the lens is maybe a 75 to 300 millimeter lens

because we're shooting sports

and so for this I'm gonna just

make a guess at what

part of that lens I'm gonna be using most of the time.

So I'm just gonna put in here

that I'm gonna be using a 300 millimeter lens

which is the long end

so I'm zoomed in to the maximum ability of that lens

and so now I have

some parameters to work with

saying here's the flash, the tripod that I have

and the lens.

Okay now that we have that

we're ready to start solving our equation

and so what we're gonna do here

is we have to answer this question

and that is what is the most important thing?

Is it controlling motion,

either freezing motion or showing motion,

or is it controlling depth of field,

how much is in focus in the image?

Now if you're new to these terms

we covered depth of field in

Digital Photography One on One episode 12

and so there's a lot information about

depth of field in that episode

so if this is new to you

watch that because it'll really help you out,

if you're new to controlling motion, freezing action,

and showing blur,

well you can check out episode 18

for freezing motion

and that will show you how to do that.

We also have some other epish--

episodes on motion I think,

episode 15 we shot about panning

and recently we shot one

on using a slow shutter to do

some neat things at night with light.

So if controlling motion is your thing

and it's new to you,

watch those episodes.

But we have to make a determination,

which one of those two things

is the most important thing for us

and you have to make this decision in

every single scenario that you have.

It doesn't mean

if you're shooting motion

and that's the most important thing

that depth of field isn't important,

it just means that

motion is more important

and you always have to make

one more important than the other.

So for this one

we're going to say

that motion

is the most important thing for us

and depth of field

is not the most important thing.

Okay it doesn't mean it's not important,

it just means it's not

the most important thing.

Now that we have that

we can zip over here

to the right side of our spreadsheet

and there's a little

column here and it says mode.

What that's asking is

now that we know

what's the most important thing,

shutter speed or depth of field,

which is aperture value,

which mode setting do we

put on our mode dial on our camera?

Well because we said

shutter is--

I mean our motion

is our most important thing,

we control motion

with our shutter speed

and so we would use
shutter priority mode.

Now on a Canon

that is the TV

on that dial

and on almost all other cameras

it's just an s

which stands for shutter

and so that's the mode

that we would put our camera on

and now

we are ready to go in

and start talking about exposure

and again here's our exposure triangle,

the ISO, the shutter, and the aperture value.

Now the first thing we're gonna do

is we're gonna talk about

the ISO and what to set that on.

Now the ISO

since we have lots and lots of light,

we can set that to a low ISO,

doesn't have to be very sensitive,

so we're gonna set that to 100

and that's gonna be great.

Now if you're new to these three things

and understanding how

they work in relationship to each other,

check out Digital Photography One on One

episode 16 and specifically I talk about ISO

and what it does,

and how it works.

So if these things are new to you,

check out episode 16

because I talk all about

how these three things work together.

Okay now the next thing is

we know that we are in

shutter priority mode which means

that we get to set

the shutter speed

on our camera.

The question then is

what do we set that shutter speed to?

So let's go back

and look at what we have here.

We have a 300 millimeter lens

and that tells us

something right off the bat

and that is

if we're handheld

and we know we're handheld

because we have no tripod,

our shutter speed

needs to be at least

as fast as the length of our lens

and that's a rule of thumb

that we learned in episode 18

and so we know

that our shutter speed

has to be at least

1/300 of a second,

at the very, very minimum

to freeze that motion.

But we also know

that we have a lot of light,

we really want to freeze that motion,

so we're gonna set our shutter speed

a lot faster than that

so we're gonna set it to

1/1000 of a second,

so I'm just gonna put

a thousand in there.

So we're at thousandeth of a second,

and that's really gonna freeze that motion

and what aperture value should be used,

well we don't really care,

because depth of field

isn't as important as the

shutter speed

and controlling motion

and because we're in aperture--

I'm sorry, we're in shutter priority mode,

the camera is gonna

automatically figure out

the aperture value for us

and so right there

we've walked through this,

we know what settings to put our camera on.

Now one thing to note

is that you really

need to pay attention to

what's going on inside your camera.

So if you're shooting that soccer game

and you're at a thousandth of a second

and you see that inside your camera,

the camera is blinking at you

saying your aperture value is,

you know it can't get wide enough,

or it's saying low,

not enough light,

or saying high,

too much light,

you may have to adjust

your shutter speed,

either faster to restrict light

or slower to let in some more light

based on what your cameras telling you.

So this is just

sort of a starting point

but it'll help you

think through what you need to do

and get you there.

So let's walk through

a couple more of these really quickly

and we can see

where we can avoid some problems

using this methodology

of thinking through our scenario.

So what we're gonna do here is

we're gonna talk about

shooting our kids party

in the backyard

at night.

So let's talk about the equipment,

do we--

that we have

so let's say yes,

we have a flash,

we're not going to use a tripod

cause kids move around too much

and since we're shooting at night,

we have our favorite lens,

which might be

a 50 millimeter lens

and so we've got that.

Now what's the most important thing,

is it motion

or is it controlling depth of field,

how much is in focus?

Well for my money on this,

I'm gonna choose motion

because I wanna make sure

that those kids aren't all blurry,

I want to make sure

I get some really nice shots

so again I'm gonna say

motion is the most important thing,

depth of field is something that

we don't care about too much

for this scenario.

And now we can

go over to the right hand side

and somehow I just

scrolled way over .

I can go over here

to the right hand side

and say what mode

do I need to be in.

Well this, again,

we're controlling motion

so we're in

the same exact mode,

which is shutter priority.

That's either TV or s

on your mode dial

and now we can

start dialing things in.

So ISO, what do we use?

Well the light is really low

so our first inclination would be

let's crank the ISO

as high as it will possibly go,

maybe 3200 ISO.

Well we could do that

but we don't need to.

Why, well we have a flash

and so because

we know we have a flash,

we know we can let our flash

make up for

some of that light

that we don't have

and so let's increase our ISO

but not make it crazy
that we have a

a lot of noisy pictures.

So what we're gonna do is

I'm gonna type in 800.

So we're gonna have our ISO at 800

which is pretty high

but not crazy high.

What I suggest is

you do some experiments

to see what different ISO levels

do for you

as far as creating noise

in your image

but 800 is a

pretty good starting point.

Ok now that we have that,

we know that we need to

set our shutter speed

to something.

Well we know we can't

set it to a thousandth of a second

because there's not

very much light there

and so what I

suggest that you do is

make that shutter speed

as slow as possible

without having blur.

And we know

based on what we

taught you in episode 18,

there's a rule of thumb

that says your shutter speed

should be at least

the length--

at least as fast

as the length of your lens or

a sixtieth of a second,

that's the slowest

you should go

when you're shooting handheld

and so we're gonna put

our shutter speed

on sixtieth of a second.

What aperture should be used?

Well we're gonna

let the camera

figure that one out.

So we're just gonna say

we don't care,

the cameras gonna figure that out

and we're off to the races.

Now once again

we need to look at that

and see if

our cameras complaining to us

and saying not enough light

or we need to

do some changes

but this is going to work out

pretty darn well

in fact we did an episode

where we used

these exact settings

at night, with kids,

when they were trick-or-treating

and that's Digital Photography One on One episode 36.

So you can see this

actually working out

in real life.

Okay let's talk about

one more here

and this is

shooting a senior portrait.

So a friend of yours

is asked you to

shoot a senior portrait,

so you found a great location,

lots of shade,

your senior's all ready to go

and so what

you're gonna look at here is

what are you using?

So let's go in here and say

do we have a flash,

let's say yeah,

we have a flash in our camera bag.

Do we have a tripod,

sure we have a tripod,

cause we want to make sure

that we have everything

framed up just right.

What lens do you have?

Well let's say

you have an 85 millimeter,

which is a great lens

and specifically maybe

let's say this is an 85 millimeter
with an aperture

that goes to maybe 2.8,

something like that.

So we've got this great lens

and now we're ready to go in here

and say where do we start,

what's the most important thing,

is it motion our depth of field?

Well for a senior portrait,

hopefully that senior's

not gonna be moving around a lot,

we want to really

get that nice shallow depth of field

so for this,

depth of field is

the most important thing

and our motion

is not what we really care about

and so what mode

do we set our camera on?

Well again over here

for mode we would probably

most nobly say

we want to set this to

aperture priority mode,

so on a Canon that's Av

and for all other cameras

that's A on the mode dial

on your camera.

So once we know that

we can go back out here

and look at our exposure triangle

and say okay,

let's start over here

with the ISO.

Well we know

we're in shade

with lots of light,

we can keep

that ISO nice and low

so we're gonna set that to 100

and we're gonna say

what aperture value

do we want to use?

Well again, we talked about

depth of field in episode 12

and we know

that we want to

have a really wide open aperture,

which is a low number

and so let's say

that our lens

allows us to shoot

at an aperture value of 2.8.

So I put in there f/2.8

and there you go.

So we know what that is.

Shutter speed, well the camera is gonna

figure that out for us

because it's in

aperture priority mode

and now we know

that we have all of our

settings ready to go

on that scenario

and that's how it works out.

What are you shooting,

how much light do you have,

what equipment do you have,

what's most important,

what mode

do you set your camera in,

fill in the blanks,

you're ready to go.

And I use this

every single time I shoot,

it's just an exercise

I do in my head

and it's become automatic.

Now I want to show you

one more illustration

of how this can

really help you out

and I've created this

hypothetical situation that is

the worst case scenario

and using this methodology,

we know

that it's best for us

to just to leave our camera in our bag,

cause it is not going to work out.

So let's walk through it really fast

so I can illustrate this for you.

So we have this dance recital

and in this fictitious scenario

we're shooting at

let's say in a gymnasium

and it's really low light

and we're shooting from

the very top of the bleachers

and they won't let us use a flash,

we can't bring in a tripod

and you know we don't have

a really, really nice lens.

So what we're gonna do

over here is

we're gonna say

what equipment do we have?

So we have

a flash

and the answer to that is no.

We have no flash.

Do we have a tripod?

The answer is no.

What lens are we using?

Well we're using a 300 millimeter lens

cause we're just trying to

get a picture of our kids.

Okay so we know that

what's the most important thing,

is it motion or

depth of field?

We know its motion

because those dancers,

you wanna freeze those dancers.

So the answer is motion

is the most important thing,

depth of field we'll let it

come out where it comes out,

so what mode do we use

when we're

trying to control motion?

Well it's shutter priority mode

which we know is

the TV or s on our mode dial

on our camera.

Now that we know that

let's talk about

the ISO setting.

Well in this light,

it's horrible light,

there's just hardly any of it,

so we're really gonna have to

increase your ISO

so we're gonna

put it at 3200

and let's pretend

that's the highest ISO

we have on our camera.

Well when we look at this

we're saying what shutter speed

should we use?

Well we have

a lens that's 300 millimeters

and let's say

this is the absolute worst case scenario,

we have no

image stabilization on this lens,

so it's just totally handheld.

Well we know that

our shutter speed

has to be at least

300th of a second.

So I'm gonna say

300th of a second here.

Well based on experience

and you can

try this out for yourself,

what would happen is

as soon as we

got our camera out

and we're trying to

shoot at 300th of a second

our aperture is gonna

start complaining

and saying

there's not enough light,

there's not enough light,

and the images

are not gonna work,

it's just gonna be really, really dark

and so this is not going to

work out for us

because our aperture

just won't open wide enough

and we can't increase our ISO

because it's already maxed out

so the only option that we have

is to slow down

the shutter speed

and really in this scenario

probably you'd have to have it

down to maybe

a 20th of a second

because it's just

such horrible light

and at that point,

everything is totally blurry

and there's really no room

for you to wiggle here

because you don't have options

that you need

like a flash

or a brighter light

or a better lens

and so just based on this,

you can look at this and say

you know what,

this is not going to

work out for me,

I'm not going to get

the shots that I

would like to get

so either I need to rent a lens

and a flash

or I just need to

enjoy the dance recital

and understand that I'm not

going to get the shot

that I want

because sometimes

that's the truth,

you don't have the equipment

or you don't

have the right scenario

to shoot the shots

that you wish you could

and unfortunately that's just the law of physics

and this workflow

will help you understand

why something horrible is

happening to your shots

like that where everything is all blurry

and that's because

there's just not enough light.

Well that's the methodology I use,

I've taught this for years

in my seminars and workshops

and a lot of people

have used this

to get their thinking

in the right shape
so that when they go out,

they know what settings

to use in their camera

and they've been very successful

I hope you're successful as well.

Well thanks for joining me

that's all the time

we have this week.

Remember if you have

a question about photography

you can send those questions to me

at [e-mail]

Again thanks for joining me

I'll see you again next week.

[Female Narrator]
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