[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,
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 askmark@adorama.com
Again thanks for joining me
I'll see you again next week.
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