Original subtitles

This segment is all about understanding your camera

and how to determine a correct exposure.

Now, what is the best way to actually

understand any tool?

Well, that is read the manual.

If I was to ask you at home

watching right now, have you read your camera

manual from cover to cover?

You would probably say no.

Please do yourself a favor and read the

camera manual.

It could be one thing that you learn

that's a little bit different.

One little nuance that can be the difference

between a good picture and a great picture.

And I'm telling you, it makes it a

lot more fun.

I can't tell you the last couple of

decades that I've been teaching.

I'll be teaching with someone, a student with

a similar camera system, and I'll just rattle

off under my breath a particular technique that

uses these combination of buttons and they'll look

at me like I'm an alien.

And I'm like, well, you've read your camera

manual, right?

And they'll look at me sort of blankly

with a wry smile.

It is no different than when you're playing,

let's say a video game.

Give an example, like a Mortal Kombat.

You may have heard of it.

It's a PlayStation game and all those kinds

of things.

You might select your favorite player and then

you're fighting in a little bit of a

battle and a combination of buttons can give

you like countless number of moves.

Now, most people who are novices like myself

will go in there and maybe just tap

a few buttons and just have some fun.

And you wanna get into the game really

quickly.

You don't wanna do the research.

Then all of a sudden, that particular favorite

player of yours can only go so far.

And then you realize that you can't beat

a more experienced player because they know all

the moves.

So what you wanna do is read those

particular moves, what that player is capable of,

and now you can have a lot more

fun.

No different than in photography.

We wanna be able to understand what the

camera is capable of.

No different than a calculator to an accountant.

Now, when we talk about exposure and we're

talking about a camera system, of course, we'll

do this in practice very shortly.

Right now, I just wanna give you a

little bit of theory to sort of give

us a bit of a foundation to work

from.

So when we give you our practical demonstrations,

excuse me, when we give you our practical

demonstrations in the field, then you'll have something

to reference to.

So let's talk about it now.

Is exposure and the way the camera works

anything new?

What came before it?

Well, the human eye is so complex and

is so incredible that we have to understand

that it all stemmed from this.

So let me explain.

If you're looking at the pupil of the

eye, the iris of the eye, let's call

it the aperture of the eye.

Basically, we're allowing light to come into our

eyes so we can recognize the environment around

us.

So the aperture of the eye, the iris

is allowing light to come in.

You'll often hear about your pupils being dilated.

That's basically meaning the aperture of the eye

is wide open.

We're allowing all that light to flood in.

Like you may have an operation with your

eyes, for example, and you'll get your pupils

dilated deliberately and they're really wide open, allowing

that light to flood in.

And then you walk outside and it's all

sunny and you can't see.

Well, that's like photographing, for example, at an

F-stop at 1.2 or 1.4,

where the aperture is really, really wide open.

Now let's talk about shutter speed.

Well, that's like your eyelid.

That's like, basically, how long you keep your

eyes closed or not.

For example, if you blink quickly, that is

like a fast shutter speed.

You're allowing light to travel in quickly.

And if you keep your eyes open, well,

that's basically like putting it on a fraction

of a second, like maybe a half a

second or one second.

Or even, for example, sometimes you're photographing landscapes

and you wanna shoot at F22 with a

deep depth of field.

We'll discuss more of that shortly.

But that basically means that we're maybe shooting

at one second or five seconds or 10

seconds.

That's like leaving your eyelid open for quite

a while.

Now, what about ISO?

Well, ISO, I liken in the human eye

to, let's say, the aging process.

So for example, myself, as of this video

tutorial that I've been filming, it's 2020.

I'm 46 years of age as of this

moment.

Now, as I'm getting older, of course, I

see less detail.

Things are less sharp.

Well, that's exactly the same with ISO.

So for example, as you age, you see

less detail, less dynamic range, and all those

different things.

And that is pretty much what ISO is.

The younger you are, the cleaner everything looks,

the less sandy, the less noisy, the less

grainy, and all those types of things.

So once we understand the combination of ISO,

shutter speed, and aperture, then we truly begin

to understand what exposure is all about.

But this just quick little visual reference is

that, just to let you know, the human

eye can do all that the camera does,

and even more.

And whether you believe in God, creation, evolution,

whatever it basically is, doesn't really matter.

The human eye gives us that perfect foundation

to discuss what exposure is all about.

Now, you've probably heard of the exposure triangle.

What does that mean?

Well, let's go through it properly now.

The exposure triangle, okay.

So we've got three things that determine exposure.

Basically, we have the ISO, that is the

image sensor's sensitivity to light.

We have shutter speed, that's the exposure time.

So we said ISO was like the aging

process, like the quality that we're getting.

Shutter speed is the exposure time, how long

we're actually keeping our eyes open, so to

speak.

And the aperture controls the amount of light

on the sensor and how much is in

focus.

And we call that depth of field.

So let's focus on ISO, for example.

Now, of course, there's lots more ISOs that

we can use in the current camera systems.

But for the moment, let's start from 100

ISO, 200, 400, 800, all the way up

to 12,800 and beyond.

When we get to this level, okay, we

need less light.

In other words, we will be shooting in

dark situations.

We need less light.

There's less detail though, unfortunately.

There's less sharpness, less dynamic range.

And of course, we get more noise and

grain.

So ideally, you don't really wanna be up

in this sort of level when you're photographing,

but sometimes you simply need to because you

may be in the crypt of a church,

you can't shoot with flush.

We're shooting with candlelight and we're gonna have

to use these ISOs.

Let's go down to this end of the

scale.

When you're thinking about 100 ISO, we need

more light.

When we say we need more light, like

it's if we have more light, then we

can shoot with 100 ISO.

More detail, we have more sharpness, more dynamic

range, and of course, less noise or grain.

So you'll often read textbooks about ISO when

we talk about 100 ISO being something like

maybe in the sun, 400 ISO maybe being

in the shade, maybe indoors being at 1600.

And then as it gets darker and we

have less ambient light filtering through the windows

of a house, so if we're only using

ambient light in terms of man-made tungsten

light or fluorescent light or whatever we're doing

inside or candlelight, then that's when we have

to go up to this end of the

scale.

Now, let's talk about shutter speed.

Shutter speed is basically how long that particular

eye is open or the camera's eye, the

aperture, and how much light we let in

and the exposure time.

So we look at exposures from anywhere from

one second to multiple seconds to what we

call bulb, where we get to manually choose

how long that particular shutter speed is open.

We've got half a second, quarter of a

second, eight, 15th, 30th, 60th, 125, 250, 500,

and beyond.

And of course, most camera systems will go

up to 8,000.

So we often talk about a safe handheld

shutter speed.

For most people in most environments with most

lenses, you would say that 125th is like

a safe handheld shutter speed.

So some camera systems have image stabilizer, which

allows you to shoot with a low shutter

speed.

So that's great.

Now, and some cameras don't.

Now, some people generally shake as we get

older.

We find it harder to handhold.

So it really depends on who you are

and if you have the hands of a

surgeon or arguably if you shake or not.

So just, you gotta know your limits and

try to fit between them there.

Now, if you want a safe shutter speed,

generally speaking, if your focal length of your

lens, let's say, for example, a 50mm lens,

some people would say, well, make sure your

shutter speed exceeds your focal length.

So if you have a 50mm lens, then

you can go to 60 shutter speed.

Some people will actually say, go double that,

double that.

So for example, a 50mm lens, you might

wanna go to 100 speed or 125.

I'll let you be the judge and you've

got to work it out for yourself.

So as we go up to the fast

shutter speed, of course, we need more light.

It'll freeze faster moving our subjects and objects.

So depending on the genre of photography that

you're photographing, you will have to learn what

will be within a range.

For example, a bride and groom walking down

the aisle, you might wanna be about 250

or even possibly up to four to 500,

depending on how fast they walk.

If you're photographing, let's say a tennis player,

let's say just yielding a tennis racket and

forehand, backhand, all that kind of stuff, you

might be up to 2,000.

And of course, if you go to motor

racing, you might be in the 8,000

range.

So you just gotta work out what you

want.

And of course, if you're photographing, let's say

a waterfall and you wanna make it look

all misty and beautiful and all that dreamy

-like sort of moving water, you might be

around about the quarter, half a second or

a second and beyond.

So again, depending on the genre that you're

actually photographing, it really depends on what you

wanna do there.

Okay, now, aperture probably, arguably you would say

is the most important because the shutter speed

within a certain range and ISO within a

certain range is you don't really identify it

as much in your camera, unless you're at

the longer exposures and the fast exposures.

And if you're going extreme ISO, whatever, but

the aperture really is where the magic happens.

This controls the amount of light, as we

said, on the sensor and how much in

focus.

And as we said before, we call it

depth of field.

As we open up, as in as the

pupil, so to speak, is dilated to 1

.4 or even beyond, like there's lenses now

that have 0.95 and so on, there's

less in focus.

And of course, we need less light to

achieve this.

And then of course, you go to the

F22 range, we need more in focus and

we need more light to achieve that.

So when you look at this entire exposure

triangle, once you determine what a good exposure

is, according to the subject matter that you're

photographing, if you change one thing, you have

to change something else.

And if you don't know what I'm speaking

about right now, we'll actually discuss that in

our practical demonstration.

All right, guys, so there's the theory.

The theory there is that we have three

things that affect exposure.

And of course, we have different camera modes

and metering modes and things like that, which

we'll discuss in the field on location.

But I wanted to give you a bit

of a foundation, a bit of a theory

to look at.

And now we need to work out that

how do we determine the correct exposure?

What modes do we use?

What are the implications of changing white balances?

And what are the implications of changing all

these different things and how do they harmonize

together?

So let's do this right now, follow along

with me and don't forget, you've got to

practice.

Repetition, experience and practice, all of these things

will be your best teacher.