How To Tuesday {By request: Light}

In a comment on my last post, Melissa asked how I get so much light in my indoor shots.  I wasn't going to do How To Tuesday this week, but how could I resist when she asked so nicely?

The easy answer is this:

A nice big window.  This window is actually a luxury for me and one of the many fabulous reasons we switched to this apartment in the Great Apartment Switch of 09.  Our other apartment had a similar window, identical in size, but as that apartment was in the middle, it had the upstairs balcony overhanging it, thus impeding my light source.  Our new apartment is on the end and our new window is free from obstruction.  I get lots and lots of gorgeous light.  I heart light.  (I wrote "apartment" way too many times in that paragraph.)

But, that's the easy answer.  If you have a big window that gets decent light during the day, park your kiddos or whatnot infront of it and snap away.  But, since we all don't have big windows, here's the technical answer.

Cameras are made to capture light.  That's their whole job.  By capturing light, they capture images for us to, hopefully, enjoy.  We, as the humans in this equation, are able to manipulate that light via the controls on our cameras.  Even your easy point & shoots have some controls over this, and those of you with fancier point & shoots (Melissa) have even greater control over it.  The mechanisms that allow us to manipulate light are: Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO.  All of them manipulate how much light comes into your camera and reaches your recording sensors.

1. Aperture is the size of the opening of your shutter.  The wider your aperture the more light comes in.  Apertures range from the wide end at 1.4 to the small end at 22.  Confused?  I was too.  Just remember that the wider the aperture, the smaller the number.  The smaller the aperture, the bigger the number.  I'm sure it makes sense to someone as to why, but I'm not one of them.  Aperture also affects how much of your picture is in focus.  A wide aperture makes for a shallower depth of field (less of the photo is in focus) and a smaller aperture makes for a greater depth of field.  But that's a lesson for another day.

2.  Shutter speed is how fast your shutter opens.  Shutter speed is measured in what is called an f/stop, which is essentially fractions of a second.  That's where you'll see something like 1/100, as in the shutter is staying open for 1 one hundreth of a second.  The smaller the second number is, the longer your shutter will be open.

3.  ISO:  I don't remember what this stands for, but ISO is how sensitive your sensor is to receiving light.  An average ISO is 400.  If you've adjusted your aperture and your shutter speed to your liking and you're still not getting the results you want, you can change your ISO.  If you're outside on a bright day you can probably get away with using an ISO of 100 or 200.  If you're inside or it's a bit darker, you can bump it up to 800 or 1600 or higher if your camera will allow it.  I try to stay at 400 or below because my camera gets really noisy at 800.  Other, better cameras can handle a higher ISO with out a problem.  The higher you bump that ISO up, the more noise you'll get in your image.  When people were shooting with film, noise would have been called grain.  With digital, it's called noise and it's generally not very pretty.

So, those are the basics.  Make sense?  Now for the examples.  Let's start with what shutter speed can do for you.

Mrs. Potato Head (or what's left of her) will be our model today.  Everyone say "Hello, Mrs Potato Head!":

All of this first set of pictures will have an ISO of 400 and aperture of 1.8 (as wide open as my lens will go).  I just want to show you what shutter speed does.  The speed is in the upper left corner.


Remember that as the second number gets smaller, the longer my shutter is open.

Notice that as the shutter speed got longer, the image got lighter?  That's because more light was able to reach the sensor with a longer shutter speed.  Now, when you have your shutter speed set to lengths at about 1/80 or longer, you need to stabilize your camera to prevent blur or camera shake.  Get a tripod, put your camera on a solid surface or get yourself as firmly planted as you can.

Next, lets try ISO.  With these I kept the shutter speed at 1/100 and the aperture at 2.8.  I only changed the ISO.



You can see how changing the ISO affects the sensitivity to light.  ISO 200 is too dark, ISO 400 is about right (my exposure was off, I could have maybe gone with 1/80 instead of 1/100), and ISO 800 is too light.

I didn't do a series for aperture because... well... I'm lazy, and if you have a point and shoot, there's not much you can do about it.  But the effect is the same and I think you get the idea.  Now, if you have a point and shoot, you probably have some control over these.  On the point & shoot we have we can adjust ISO and shutter speed a little.  Shutter speed will probably say ISO and shutter speed will probably have a +/- type of symbol.  Oh, and if you get that shaky hand icon, it means that you don't have enough light to take a picture without it being blurry, so see if you can adjust it.  If you have a fancier point & shoot, you may have the ability to shoot in Manual mode (you adjust everything) or Aperture Priority (Av) mode (where you set the aperture and the camera takes care of the shutter speed.  Just play around, get your manual out if you still have it and see what kind of control you have.

When I'm inside (and outside, too, if I'm being honest), I open my aperture up usually as wide as it will go.  My 50mm lens will go to 1.8 and I like it there.  I try to keep my ISO at 400.  If I absolutely have to I bump it up to 800, but, like I said, my camera gets really noisy at 800 (don't judge too harshly, she's almost 5 years old).  Much fancier cameras can go up to 6400 ISO without a problem.  (I dream of the day!)

Well, I hope this all made sense.  It took me a good long while to wrap my brain around it and I still have a lot to learn about getting a good exposure.  One word: histogram.  *shudder*  But let me know how it all works out for you!  Photography is all about practice, so get out there and shoot!