Understanding Exposure

[Jusselin]

Originally Posted by Thomas Campbell

Cars driving by on a street work great.

see i would not have thought about that my mind was wondering where i could find a ferris wheel

[panda81]

Originally Posted by Thomas Campbell

Cars driving by on a street work great.

Reminds me of a photo I saw recently that I thought was pretty brilliant. Linking the page because it's not my photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/akira_1972/3911954519/

[Jusselin]

Originally Posted by L Stegall

Not a derail -the Fair can be a really fun place to practice motion blurs and just general photography. It does start 9/25. here's the link: http://www.bigtex.com/ Maybe the sun will come out between now and then.

On the other hand, the Dallas Arboretum does have it's Fall Blooms starting this weekend - huge pumpkin display and other stuff going on and it's a great spot to practice different techniques as well, but I'm not sure how the garden hasn't been swept into White Rock Lake with all the rain we've had. :-D

sweet thanks stegall

Jusselin added 1 Minutes and 43 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Originally Posted by panda81

Reminds me of a photo I saw recently that I thought was pretty brilliant. Linking the page because it's not my photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/akira_1972/3911954519/

wow those are really cool, i have seen car pics like that before and always wanted to try....what would be a good shutter speed to start out with to capture something like that

[L Stegall]

Yes, traffic, especially at dusk where you get taillights and headlights is one place to practice motion. So would a downtown street corner, a train crossing, a shopping mall, a jogging or biking trail - keep your mind open and camera in hand.

[Tom]

You need a good steady tripod.

Try something like
ISO 100
Aperture F/22
Shutter speed 30 seconds

Thomas Campbell added 2 Minutes and 13 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Oh and you don't ALWAYS have to have a tripod for a blurry night shot.
EDIT: pulled pic because it was too big and screwed up the thread.

This is 8 30sec exposures stitched together. I used a trash can with a plastic top to get up high and then balanced my lens on my cell phone and wallet. Then stitched it all together.

YOu just need something steady. Be creative with what you use.

[L Stegall]

Let me second the good sturdy tripod. Can't shoot these long exposures without one. And a cable release, if you have one, also really helps eliminate any vibration from clicking the shutter.

[Jusselin]

Originally Posted by Thomas Campbell

You need a good steady tripod.

Try something like
ISO 100
Aperture F/22
Shutter speed 30 seconds

Thomas Campbell added 2 Minutes and 13 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Oh and you don't ALWAYS have to have a tripod for a blurry night shot.


This is 8 30sec exposures stitched together. I used a trash can with a plastic top to get up high and then balanced my lens on my cell phone and wallet. Then stitched it all together.

YOu just need something steady. Be creative with what you use.

sweet i know just the parking garage i am going to tonight lol, man 30 seconds sucks lol the last time i shot at 30 seconds i thought my camera broke

[texxter]

One of the reasons why the technical aspects of photography can be a little difficult at the beginning is that most camera controls have an impact beyond just the direct change you made. For example, if you change the aperture, you're also changing the depth of field. If you change the lens while maintaining the same exposure, you're changing the perspective and the depth of field. If you change the exposure you're also changing the saturation of a color image. Shutter speed can freeze motion, and it can also capture more light than your eyes can see, hence giving you an image that only a camera can see. So as you learn the different creative controls you have available to you, start to internalize all the different ways in which a control affect things.

Depth of Field is a good one. It's determined by focal length, distance to the camera and aperture. Can you do exercises that show clearly how you can control depth of field by changing one or more of these three elements above? That will give you insight into relationships.

Also, it's helpful to gain an intuition for exposure. That is, to be able to "eyeball" an exposure without a meter. This comes handy with flash too - if you know the f-stop you need to use when your flash (with your modifier of choice) is at x distance of your subject, you can move more quickly. With sophisticated light metering systems today we tend to rely on them and lose the ability to do a quick estimate of the exposure needed for a specific situation. I need to work on this myself. Some exercises would be to set the camera to manual, dial aperture and shutter speed for a given ISO without actually looking at the camera, just evaluating the light. And see how close you got.

Good luck!

[Jusselin]

thanks Paco

[JohnT]

Excellent book! I read it a few years ago as a refresher course after being on a 20-yr. hiatus from serious photography, and I still learned some new stuff. Digest it slowly, work the exercises, and enjoy the journey. Have fun!

[Jusselin]

thanks john, yeah i am sure this thread will grow because every time i have learned something new i will post and ask more questions lol...also this thread can hopefully be of use to other new comers

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Don't forget that most SLR lenses shoot at their best in their midrange of F stops-ie not wide open or shut down- this is more so on the zooms than the primes.

While the LF lenses were designed to do some of their best work at f32 and higher.

[johnastovall]

Remember Group f/64