Decrease Aperture

Well, you can mechanically let in more light by decreasing the aperture. When you decrease the aperture, you increase the size of the “hole” light enters through, thus letting in more light. To let in more light by adjusting the aperture, you should lower your f number. The lower the f number, the more light can come in.

Decrease Shutter Speed

The second mechanical trick you can do to let in more light is to let the “hole” mentioned about stay open for a longer period of time. The longer the camera’s sensor is exposed to light, the more light it captures. However, the longer the shutter stays open, the more chance you get of blur being in your picture.

Look at the two pictures below. The first one has a faster shutter speed. It’s a darker picture. The second picture has a slower shutter speed. The shutter stays open longer and lets in more light. This picture is much better and not as dark. However, had my puppy been awake and moving around I wouldn’t have been able to increase the shutter speed because then she would have been a blurry fur ball.

Increase ISO

So, what if you can’t decrease your shutter speed? What if your subject is moving? What if you don’t have  tripod?

Easy, increaes your ISO. By increasing the ISO you increase the sensor’s sensitivity to light (and noise) making it possible for you to take low-light pictures without a tripod. The drawback to increasing the ISO is that the higher the ISO the more noise will appear in your image. But at least you get the shot, right?!

This third picture was taken at the same shutter speed as the first (the dark picture), but at a much higher ISO. I probably went a little too high (or a lot too high) on the ISO, but I wanted to really give you the idea of how increasing the ISO can really brighten up an image.

Shorter Shutter Speed (0.25 sec), Higher ISO (3200)

Should I use flash outside on a sunny day?

YES!!!!!

However, I always thought the answer was no. I assummed on a bright, sunny day there was PLENTY of light and no flash was needed. What I didn’t take into account were all of the shadows that were cast by this bright beam of light!

Just the other week at Thankgivings I was taking some shots of my boyfriend. He refused to remove his cap because of a fresh booboo he’d just gotten on his forehead. So I thought, maybe the shadow from his cap won’t be too dark. Man, was I wrong. Here’s my picture to prove it:

Harsh Shadows on Face in Bright Sunlight

Can we say LESSON LEARNED!?

1) He’s gotta take off the cap!

AND

2) I gotta use flash on those shadows!

All I’m telling you here is to turn ON your flash if you see harsh shadows on your subjects face in bright daylight. I tried it out myself and here’s what I got.

Portrait in Bright Sunlight with No Flash

Portrait in Bright Sunlight With Flash

As you can see, my face is much better illuminated and the very harsh shadow from the sun has been dimmed by the use of the built-in flash on my camera. Nevertheless, the sun was just too bright in my face and it was difficult for me to hold my eyes open. I perhaps could have turned a little more away from the sun to prevent this.

FLASH TIP:

You will probably have to force the flash to fire in such bright light. You can do this manually by popping out the flash on some cameras or you can go into your cameras menu to turn on the flash in the settings. Also, you could select the night portrait scene mode.

Getting Creative

You may want to get creative and bring out harsh shadows. If that’s the case, go on with your bad self! Leave the flash off and have fun. Partially lit faces can be quite mysterious.

Learn More about Fill Flash

Here are a few good pages for advanced learning on how to use fill flash outdoors:

• Outdoor flash tips from BetterPhoto.com
• Using a flash not attached to the camera discussion in Flickr
• A good post on when to use flash outdoors from Digital Photo Secrets

I’m very new to photography and this was my first chance at photographing waterfalls. The first day of the trip, I thought I would play it safe, relax, and shoot in auto mode. Boy, was that a mistake for waterfalls! I froze them in time!

The four pictures were all taken at different shutter speeds, but before I explain more choose which picture you like the best.

Waterfall at fast shutter speed - Shutter Speed .008 s Aperture f 4.5 ISO 900

Waterfall at slightly fast shutter speed - Shutter Speed .02 s Aperture f 5.6 ISO 640

Waterfall at slow shutter speed - Shutter Speed .0667 s Aperture f 10 ISO 640

Waterfall at slowest shutter speed - Shutter Speed .125 s Aperture f 14 ISO 640

Frozen or Milky Waterfalls?

Which waterfall picture appealed most to you? My favorites are the second and third picture. The shutter speed decreases in pictures from one to four. The first picture with the fastest shutter speed freezes the waterfall and this is the typical result you’ll get if you shoot waterfalls in auto mode. The last picture has the slowest shutter speed and gives it the most mystical feel.

Basically, the only thing you need to know is the slower shutter speed, the more mystical and milky the moving water will be. Some people prefer super mystical and milky waterfalls, and others like the more realistic frozen falls. I like a bit of both.

Using too fast a shutter speed will give you an all too frozen waterfall, and using too slow a shutter speed will give you and all too milky waterfall. To avoid either scenario you should bracket your pictures. Bracketing is when you take several pictures each at different shutter speeds. To find a good shutter speed to start at, shoot the waterfall in auto mode (no flash) and decrease the shutter speed from there.

• 1 second = slow shutter speed (a long length of time)
• .0008 second = fast shutter speed (a short length of time)

You may want to show that an object is in motion and have it blur just a tad (a common practice for waterfalls) or you may want to freeze an object in motion so that all the details are kept sharp (such as in photographing sports). Either way, the key to freezing or blurring a moving object in a photograph is shutter speed.

Use a fast shutter speed for sports - Shutter Speed .0008 s

Use slow shutter speeds to capture motion - Shutter Speed .0667 s

I won’t get too technically (because basically I can’t) but shutter speed is the length of time the camera’s shutter is open. While the shutter is open, light is being recorded and the image is being “taken” so to speak. So, the longer the shutter is open, the more movement is captured and the blurrier moving objects will be. This effect is used quite artistically with lights and moving water.

So, the assignment for this post is to experiment with shutter speed. Here’s what to do:

1. Set your camera to Shutter Speed Priority mode. This is denoted by an S on the dial on my Nikon D5000. Tip: If you’d like to know a good place to start with the shutter speed, take a picture in auto mode first and take note of the shutter speed used. Go up and down from that in the next steps.
2. Take a few shots of the moving object with slow shutter speeds and look how the image blurs. Tip: Use a tripod. Any movement causes blur, movement by the object or movement by your camera. So, be sure to keep the camera extremely still when using slow shutter speeds.
3. Take a few shots of the moving object with fast shutter speeds and see how the image freezes (or at least freezes as compared to what blurred looked like).

Share your experiment here! Feel free to get way more creative than using the ceiling fan. Lights and water are both fun to work with when experimenting with shutter speed.

Here are my fine examples of the moving ceiling fan blades in my living room.

Here’s PROOF that I’m new to photography: Aperture is spelled WITHOUT the second A!

The first picture of the series with the blades blurred the most has the slowest shutter speed (the shutter stayed open the longest length of time). The last picture of the series where you can clearly count there are five blades has the fastest shutter speed (the shutter stayed oped the shortest length of time).

If you don’t know what the Aperture and ISO mean in the image, don’t worry. We’ll cover those two topics very soon! For now, just focus on learning what shutter speed is, what it does, and how you can control it to get the results you want (frozen or blurred action).