Photography Basics: Manual Exposure In 45 Minutes!

What makes a good photo? This lesson explains the 3 fundamental elements each photo must have to look beautiful:

1. Sharpness (Subjects of your photos must be sharp. Subjects are the main interest of your photos)

2. Exposure (How bright or dark your photo is. Generally, by mentioning Exposure, photographers generally mean the Subjects' exposure value)

3. Composition (What you include in the photo, compositions examples are: Angles, Tilt, what is in the Background or Foreground layer, where do you place the subjects in the photo, etc)

All these three components must be done well, together; not just having a photo with good Sharpness and Exposure but bad composition. Learn how each of these elements can make or break a photo.

This lesson goes through your basic camera settings - be sure to set your camera up accordingly:

• Check File Size: M or L (determines how big the photo is). We want to avoid shooting RAW format for now

• Check File Quality (Fine is high resolution, while Basic is low resolution)

• Focusing Mode (set to AF-S, which is Auto-Focus Single, if you are a Canon user, please set to One Shot)

• Focusing Areas (set to Single area, in the middle)

• White Balance: set it to Auto (AWB for Canon users)

• Metering Mode: in this Course, we will learn to master Average Meter (Evaluative in Canon, Multi-Segment in Sony and Matrix in Nikon)

• Exposure Compensation ensure it is 0.0 (only for Nikon users)

• ISO please to not set Auto

Always check a camera before you start any shoot.

A camera's shutter release button can be pressed in 2 stages, the first stage is called "half-shuttering". When you press on the Shutter Release button on the first level, the camera will perform the following actions: Refer to the image - 1st Level Half Shutter.

All the processes above happen rapidly the moment you press halfway. The light measuring process will continue until it goes to sleep again.

This lesson explains the camera's process when the shutter button is depressed halfway.

Locking your focus point in the center means that all your subjects will be located in the middle of your photos. (Refer to the image - Leave Focus Point in Middle)

This lesson teaches you a professional camera technique: focus, lock, recompose.
By using this technique, you can acheive fast focusing and image captures. This is because of a few good reasons:

• The center focusing point is always the most sensitive because it is mostly made up of Cross Hair Focus Sensor

• You need not move focus points from one end of the viewfinder to another end

The ISO is the very first setting you have to get right. You need to match the lighting condition of where your SUBJECT IS to the right ISO value. (Remember: ISO value of where the subject is, not where you are. This is because photographer and subject may not be standing at the same location during a shoot). In this lesson you will learn the 4 typical lighting conditions you will stumble upon through the world and the corresponding ISO to select.

ISO values you can associate to these 4 levels of brightness are:

• ISO 200 for Very Bright locations

• ISO 400 for Bright locations (mostly bright indoor)

• ISO 1600 for Dark locations

• ISO 3200 for Very Dark locations

(Note: We will reserve ISO 800 for a more advanced speedier way of shooting. You will learn this method in the Advanced Exposure & Intermediate To Advanced courses.)

Lets practise changing ISO values on your favorite. Let's try to do this as swiftly and quickly (yet accurately as possible) because changing ISO is going to be a frequent thing that you will need to perform during a shoot.

ASSIGNMENT 1:

The problem is, many modern digital cameras don't make their ISO dials or buttons that accessible. Changing ISO can be painfully slow or even involving some complex button presses. As such, spend sometime to think that IF you were to re-design a new digital camera, where would you re-position your camera's ISO button to. Should it be a few button presses or should it simply be a DIAL (like a Shutter dial). Take a photo of your camera and indicate where you think the new ISO button/dial should be. You can then upload this photo to this Course Assignment segment above and share your ideas with fellow Course subscribers and discuss about your choice of where your cameras buttons and dials are. Bigger Question: Are those buttons ergonomically positioned for professional use?

ASSIGNMENT 2:

Try to randomly change ISO from one value to another with one swift single turn of the dial. Example: try to change from ISO 200 to ISO 400 without stopping at values in between, all in a single swift and fluid movement of your thumb or index finger. Can you do this? If you can, then very cool. This means you have a camera that allows you to swiftly change ISO. If you are unable to, because the camera requires you to continuously press buttons to get to your desired ISO values, then this camera model may not be suitable for you when you frequently need to move between dark and bright locations during fast-paced shoots. Apart from this, this is also vital because you will eventually learn to use ONLY True Stops of ISO values. Get used to this habit, as this will then pave the way for you to be able to PRE-CALCULATE your Exposure accurately without the need to depend on your camera's exposure meter that much at all.

True Stops: ISO 200, ISO 400, ISO 800, ISO 1600, ISO 3200 are all True ISO Stops. They are all cleanly divisible or multiplicable my 2. Use these numbers whenever possible from today onwards.

Non True Stops: ISO 120, ISO 250, ISO 640, these are NOT True ISO Stops. If you may, avoid using these numbers. They make calculation slow, especially when you are in fast-paced shoots.

One of the reasons to upgrade to a DSLR is the presence of aperture controls. In this video we talk about lens aperture, how it determines the depth of field, and how it ties into your photography workflow. (Refer to image - What is Aperture)

In higher-end models of DSLR cameras, the Aperture is a dedicated dial. However, in Group C camera, you would need to press and hold a specific button to change your aperture. (Refer to image - Group C Nikon Aperture, Group B Aperture Dial, Group C Canon Aperture)

Aperture is symbolized with TWO symbols. It can be written as F or f. It describe the size of the hole of the opening.

However, if you choose to use f, you would always need to include a / sysmbol after it, example: f/2, f/4. Similarly if you choose to write it as F, then it will have no trailing / symbol. So it would be F4

Lets practise changing aperture values.

This video discusses the shortfall of kit lenses versus prime lenses

Complete the manual exposure workflow by metering to zero.

Do note that different camera may have the + and - not as depicted in the video.

Examples:

Lets practise getting the exposure meter to "0"

This lesson talks about composition and the 5 basic rules to follow. This would help you to take better photos.

Lets do a complete manual mode exposure workflow in a very bright outdoor situation.

Lets do a complete manual mode exposure workflow in a bright indoors situation.

Lets do a complete manual mode exposure workflow in a dark indoors situation.