Click here to visit The Exposure Triangle Part 1: Shutter Speed
Click here to visit The Exposure Triangle Part 2: Aperture
Three settings to help us get proper exposure of our images - totally a reason to shoot in manual as in other settings, the camera might chose these for you and fairly often will do so incorrectly (and, although it's "smart", it's not as smart as you as it can't actually see and think - even though some camera dealers will try and convince you otherwise ;)
ISO is a setting that is a bit of a left-over from film days (anyone remember those days, ahh...) and is what changes the light sensitivity of your sensor.
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| image credit: MU Photography |
Now, don't worry... increasing your ISO and making your camera's sensor more sensitive isn't going to cause it to break down and cry about spilled milk. It's actually going to make your images brighter. Yippee!! So, in dim light (or just indoors), perhaps try changing your ISO to 800 or maybe even 1600 to try and suck up more light while still keeping your shutter speed fast enough to stop motion (maybe 1/250 sec) and your aperture at a level to get acceptable depth of field (maybe f3.5).
Of course, with all three sides of the exposure triangle, there is a main side-effect to increased ISO. When you increase the ISO, because of the increased sensitivity of your sensor, it is more likely to pick up "random" bits of light. These extra specs of light are called noise (also showed up as grain in film days). They can appear as a grainy texture on your final image or sometimes just random little coloured dots here and there (especially in the shadows of your image). Sometimes these are no problem at all and sometimes they can be incredibly distracting so it's a bit of a balancing act to see how high you can go with your ISO before the grain or noise becomes too much.
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| image credit: MU Photography |
As with everything, my suggestion is to play around with the ISO setting on your camera. See how it changes the image. Zoom in on the preview to see what the grain looks like (or, better yet, open the image on your computer and zoom in). And decide what settings you prefer in different lighting conditions.
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| image credit: MU Photography |
So, that's the exposure triangle explained:
Shutter speed (how long light is allowed to enter your camera)
Aperture (how "wide open" your lens is and how much light can come in at one time)
ISO (how sensitive your camera sensor is to that light)
Hopefully now it is slightly less confusing and less of a "Bermuda Triangle". Hang in there!! You'll get it :)
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| image credit: MU Photography |
Now go out and play and keep clickin' :) And if you'd like to learn more about how to be awesome with your camera or host a Yummy Mummy Photo Party, visit our website at www.yummymummyphoto.com
Cheers!
lil' mama photog
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