All language subtitles for 3. Exposure in Practice

We're ready for our practical demonstration on how

to determine a correct exposure.

Before we do that, we have to discuss

different camera modes because that'll, of course, affect

our exposure.

Now, you've probably bought your first camera, maybe

you're actually an experienced professional, but the first

time you picked up that camera, you actually

noticed a few different settings.

Now, of course, we have auto, program, shutter

priority, aperture priority, and manual.

Now, auto is quite seductive because it's usually

green on the dial and basically the camera

does all the thinking for you.

My suggestion is don't do that because you

probably would have noticed that the first time

you use your camera on holiday, photographing your

pets, family, whatever it may be, it's a

little bit weird and the exposures are all

out of the place.

Perhaps it's blurry.

There's all these things that can go wrong.

The camera is only a tool.

It can't do the thinking for you.

It does a lot of the thinking for

you, but you've got to actually use it

properly.

So now, program.

Do we use program in a professional environment?

My encouragement to you is do not use

program because there's gonna be a lot of

things that you'd need to change based upon

the genre in which you're photographing.

Now, that gives us three modes left.

We have shutter priority, aperture priority, and manual.

Well, shutter priority might work for people who

do different kind of sports, for example.

You might be photographing the tennis and you

know that you have to be at a

certain speed to photograph tennis or the football,

or it could be car racing.

Well, you know that it has to be

at 2,000 speed, a fraction of a

second, or 8,000th of a second.

Well, that's fine, great.

I'm telling you, if you're photographing people, though,

then you actually arguably would only ever use

two modes.

And I'm saying to you, I would rather

you only use one of them, and you

probably know what mode that is.

Well, aperture priority, for example.

We understand what aperture priority is.

We're prioritizing the aperture that we want, of

course, which will determine how many things are

in focus, and we call that depth of

field.

So if you want more things in focus,

you've probably heard of f-stops, right?

So you've got f-stop, like, say, 1

.2, 1.8, 2.8, f4, 5.6,

and so on.

The confusing part about it is that if

you go to f1.2 or 1.4,

it's wide open, and you think, well, wait

a second, is this more or less things

in focus because of it?

I want you to actually think about it

this way.

If it's f1.2, it's a small number.

Yes, it's a big aperture.

If it's a small number, it means less

things are in focus.

As it goes to 2.8, f4, 5

.6, f8, there's gonna be more things in

focus.

So think of it like that.

More things in focus, the higher the f

number, the more things in focus, fantastic.

So that's aperture priority.

Now we prioritize the aperture, and then, of

course, in that mode, we can prioritize the

ISO that we want, but then the camera

will choose the appropriate speed.

But the problem is that, of course, the

speed might not be the one that you

need.

It might be too slow, you might get

blur, and there's all things that can go

wrong.

And yes, of course, as we talk about

the golden triangle, or at least the triangle

of exposure, we have ISO, we have shutter

speed, and we have aperture.

Yes, we can actually have any of these

things on automatic, shutter priority, aperture priority.

We can even have auto ISO.

I strongly discourage you letting the camera doing

the thinking for you, especially if you're photographing

people, let alone in an environment that doesn't

change.

As in, if you're photographing me now, for

example, that's quite predictable.

Here's the exposure, fantastic.

The minute you start to widen your angle

of view, your exposure will change based upon

the values within that frame.

Now, we'll discuss this further a little bit

in a moment.

Now, if you photograph on manual, you're choosing

everything, and arguably it's more difficult, no different

than driving an automatic car and then driving

a manual car.

Yes, it's gonna be a little bit more

difficult.

You're gonna do more things, but you can

take control more.

Now, what we're doing right now is I'm

gonna photograph a white piece of board.

It's nothing exciting at this stage, but I

wanna emulate a pale-skinned bride wearing a

white dress sling and a white wool or

a polar bear in a snowstorm.

And let's see how aperture priority handles this

environment.

So right now, I am on aperture priority.

I am at 3200 of a second, f2

.8, 400 ISO.

Now, it's a white board, and I've actually

had to focus on a cut in the

board because, of course, it's nondescript.

It'll be very hard to focus.

So right now, although I'm actually physically seeing

a white board, in my camera, if you

were to photograph something white, it's going to

underexpose it.

It's going to make it gray.

You have to understand that the camera is

not racist.

It's actually gonna pick something in between.

It doesn't care about black.

It doesn't care about white.

Whatever tones the camera sees, it's going to

make it mid-gray.

It has to have a standard.

It's not gonna be polarizingly white or black.

It's going to be mid-gray.

So what happens is the camera is going

to evaluate what's in the scene and then

determine what it believes to be a correct

exposure.

Why aperture priority doesn't work, and we'll talk

about metering modes in a moment, but at

the moment, we're actually using matrix and evaluative

metering.

We're evaluating the entire frame, and now we

are underexposing badly.

Now, you'd think sort of almost the opposite.

Now, if you sort of see something white,

you think, oh my God, I'm photographing something

white now.

I should underexpose this.

Well, the camera is already doing that for

you.

It's counterintuitive.

You have to think about it.

If something is light, bright, white, you have

to overexpose, and I say that inverted commas

because you're not overexposing.

You're exposing correctly, but you have to understand

what the camera is doing and thinking.

So let's go back to this now.

What we have to do now is I'm

gonna switch the camera to manual and emulate

the exact same settings.

Now, yes, I can use compensation, exposure compensation.

This is basically where I can leave it

on aperture priority and compensate with the exposure,

but that will get that value from the

shutter speed.

I would rather determine where I want that

particular value to come out of.

Does that make any sense?

So in this case, I am going to

emulate the exact same exposure.

I'm gonna go 3,200 of a second,

2.8, 400 ISO.

So let me do that.

3,200 and 2.8 and 400 ISO.

Great, so we're seeing the exact same thing.

Now, what did we say?

If your subject matter is bright, you go

bright, lean towards the plus, and if your

subject is dark, you go dark, lean towards

the minus.

Now, what do I mean when I'm saying

that?

Well, if you look in your camera and

your viewfinder, most cameras, of course, will have

a exposure meter in the actual viewfinder.

Now, here we have a plus, minus, and

a zero.

Zero represents where the camera thinks that good

exposure is, plus represents overexposed, minus represents underexposed.

So what I have to do now is

this.

I have to deliberately overexpose, as in expose

correctly, because that's the exposure that I want,

but overexpose what the camera is saying to

make this white card look white.

So now I have latitude and room to

breathe in my shutter speed, and from experience,

I believe we're gonna be about five to

six clicks, and when I say clicks, I

mean third-stop increments towards the plus sign.

So in your exposure triangle, you have ISO,

you have aperture, and you have shutter speed.

You can use one, two, or three of

these combinations to click towards the plus sign.

So in this case, I am going to

click once, two, three, four, five, six.

So now I've determined that something white is

going to be about two stops, as in

there's six third-stop increments.

A third, a third, a third is one

stop, and then third, third, third is two

stops.

So now we've got two stops difference from

the original.

So if you shot aperture priority with a

polar bear in a snowstorm, you would have

underexposed all of those shots, and that's gonna

be a problem, and the minute you start

introducing different elements other than white, again, your

exposure changes again.

So all I know now is, and what

you know, anything white, and if you cover

up your camera and your meter, depending on

whether you're spot metering or you're evaluative metering,

matrix metering, which we'll discuss shortly, you need

to overexpose, by what the camera is saying,

by two stops.

Okay, fantastic.

So we've got that.

Now what happens when we actually put, we

switch this to black?

Now we'll do that shortly, but what I

wanna discuss with you is this.

Once you determine a correct exposure, if you

want more or less things in focus, you

can't just move one thing, because right now

I'm on manual, I'm at 800th of a

second, F 2.8 400 ISO.

Now I'm shooting with an 85 millimeter 1

.8 lens, so if I want, now of

course it doesn't matter because I've just got

a white background here, but if I had

subject matter in front of me, foreground, background,

middle ground, and I wanted to choose, let's

say an aperture of maybe F2, well you

can see how now I've overexposed this by

one stop, which means that I have to

actually bring that value down, either with my

shutter speed or my ISO or both.

So, let's go back to where we were.

I'm at 800th of a second, F 2

.8 and 400 ISO.

We might say, well, wait a second, I

can get more quality out of this photograph,

which means that ISO affects quality.

Let me now actually go to 200 ISO,

and let's go three clicks down.

So now I have 400th of a second

at F 2.8 and 200 ISO.

Both of those were correct exposures.

This one, I get better quality, and I

have a safe handheld speed.

It really only changes really dramatically when you're

looking at different F stops, as in how

many things you want in focus.

If you can get better quality, why wouldn't

you?

But certainly, depending on how many things you

want in focus, you want to change that.

So remember, once you determine the correct exposure,

you change one more thing, you've got to

change two or three things of that exposure

triangle.

So now that we've determined what will happen

to a white subject matter, what will happen

now when we look at black subject matter?

Let's do it.

So now we have black subject matter.

It could be likens of maybe four African

-American men wearing a black suit leaning on

a black wall.

If you were shooting aperture priority, then I

think you'd know already what's going to happen.

So if I'm going to look in the

camera right now, I'm seeing a black piece

of card and I'm shooting aperture priority.

It's 125th of a second, 2.8, 400

ISO, and it's a terrible exposure.

What is black is now mid gray.

It's terrible.

You've just overexposed this shot ridiculously.

Now, if we thought something white was actually,

with two stops, we proved that we need

to overexpose to get a correct exposure.

What did we say?

If something is bright, you go bright lean

towards the plus sign.

Now, if something is black, let's do the

opposite.

If something is black, let's go dark, let's

go black lean towards the minus with one,

two, or three of the things that affect

our exposure, either with the ISO, the shutter

speed or the aperture.

So in this case, what I'm going to

do now is I'm seeing something gray.

I'm going to flick my mode, my camera

mode to manual and I'm getting the exact

same exposure.

What is black is actually gray.

So I'm going to move my shutter speed

dial because I'm actually quite happy with 400

ISO, quite happy with 2.8 in the

context of this demonstration.

And now I'm actually going to underexpose by

about five clicks, as in five third stop

increments, which is equal to one and two

thirds of a stop.

So let's count the clicks.

We're going to go one, two, three, four,

five.

Let's have a look at that.

I would say we can even go one

more, which is the equivalent.

So now I am seeing something black.

So guess what we've just proven?

We have proven that white and black accordingly

will actually over and underexpose by two stops.

Now that you know that, now you look

at your subject matter in a bit of

a different way and learn how each of

those values will change based upon introducing new

elements.

For example, now we have something black.

What happens if we added maybe a third

of the frame with a white dress and

maybe Caucasian skin?

What will happen then?

There's all these things we have to determine,

but now that we've determined two stops will

be under and overexposed respectively with black and

white, now let's look at the nuances when

we start to add some different subject matter

in the frame.

So we determined what we believe to be

a correct exposure based upon a completely black

scene.

Now, yes, of course, if you start adding

skin tones and white dresses and things like

that, it may change.

And yes, of course, too, if you're photographing

with mirrorless, what you see is what you

get.

What we're trying to do now is determine

what we believe to be a correct exposure

and what's the quickest way of getting there

and what's gonna be the most efficient way.

Now, I didn't change my exposure whatsoever.

Once I determined what I believed was black

and I had a feeling it was a

little bit light, but now I've actually introduced

Sally, our mannequin.

And if you look at her, you would

say she's exposed correctly.

We see detail in her skin tone per

se, and we see detail and creases in

the white.

I still feel that maybe we're a touch

over.

So what I'm gonna do now is go

one click down, and now you can start

to see the shadow underneath her bust and

a bit more detail.

So we're about a third stop out.

Of course, if I had skin tone, skin

and white dress in my scene, it would

have been more obvious, but I was about

a third stop out.

So now we're looking at that as well.

We're looking good.

So guess what?

Now I can actually photograph my entire scene

in this environment.

When I start to introduce new elements in

this shot, in other words, if I widen

my angle of view, I have less white,

I have more black, and so on and

so forth.

Now let me explain in more detail what

that means.

Right now, the camera originally was evaluating the

actual entire scene.

So with different camera systems, it's either called

matrix metering or evaluative metering.

We're evaluating the entire scene.

If we look at our exposure meter now,

look at it.

We're only, by what the camera is saying,

it's saying that we're only overexposing this shot

by one click.

Now, why is that?

Whereas when we took her out, it was

actually, it thought it was a correct exposure,

but what did we say?

If something is dark, you lean towards the

dark and you underexpose.

So we lean towards the minus, but now

we're looking at what the camera thinks is

actually a correct exposure, or about one third

stop out.

It's because we've introduced skin tone, we've introduced

white.

So you could confidently say that if you

were photographing subject matter like this, and you

had some black, you had some white, and

you had some skin tone, it's close to

mid gray.

And that's why aperture priority in this case

would work.

But watch what happens now when we change

to the different metering modes.

So let's do this.

We're gonna go into our camera settings.

And right now, as you can see, we're

on matrix metering, which is evaluative.

Now there's center weighted.

I discourage center weighted metering because basically it's

gonna evaluate the entire scene, but then focus

on what's in front of us in the

middle of the frame, as in it's weighted,

it's biased to the center.

If it's biased to the center, if you

add that white dress and add that skin

tone, it's going to be brighter than mid

gray.

The camera's gonna make it mid gray, therefore

underexpose this.

So center weighted is not a good one

at all.

Now some people like the idea of spot

metering, but this is what's gonna happen.

If we spot meter, and let's go to

aperture priority now, and let's see what happens.

Okay, so you see what happens that if

we go down to her chest, now what's

happening?

It's exactly what happened before.

When we had the white piece of card,

it was all white and the camera says,

I don't like white, I wanna make it

mid gray.

So if you spot for a white dress

and you just leave it at that, and

you do an exposure lock, you're gonna underexpose.

Now, if we know that shooting something white,

we have to overexpose by about five to

six clicks, almost two stops, then we know

that we could spot for the dress.

So now I'm gonna emulate this exact exposure

with manual 2500 speed, 2.8 400.

Okay, so this is exactly like what our

spot meter did.

And like I said, it's a problem.

Let's see if our theory works.

So what we need to do now is

because we have some latitude in our speed,

I'm gonna lean towards the plus sign, five

to six clicks.

Let's do it.

One, two, three, four, five.

I wanna stay there.

So it's one and two thirds.

So it's five clicks.

And guess what?

We've got a great exposure.

It basically means that you could spot for

a white dress, the highlight on the white

dress, and then you know you're gonna be

one and two thirds stops to the plus.

Great.

Now let's see what happens if we actually

spot for the black in the environment.

Look what just happened.

The whole frame changed.

You can see it's actually changing with everything

that I'm doing.

Guess what happened again?

We see the camera sees black.

It's actually gonna meter for that spot where

my focus point is, and it sees something

black.

It's gonna make it be gray, which it

has.

And of course, all the dress, the skin

tone blows out completely.

That's terrible.

So what do we wanna do?

We are going to underexpose five clicks.

Great, let's do that.

We're exposing correctly, but what the camera is

saying.

So let's do this.

Now, right now, let's emulate what we're doing

in aperture priority.

We're at 200, 2.8, 400.

200, 2.8, 400.

So what we're gonna do now is we

are gonna move the shutter speed five clicks.

And guess what?

We arrived at the exact same destination.

So let's now spot meter for the skin

and let's see what happens.

So right now, there's many places that I

could choose, but she's a mannequin, obviously different

properties than normal skin.

But what I've done is I've chosen a

highlight on her arm that's closest to the

light source.

So what we need to know from experience

that I know that most of our skin

tones are gonna be about two clicks, as

in two thirds of a stop, brighter than

mid gray.

So what's gonna happen is the camera will

see brighter than mid gray, go to mid

gray as in underexposed, which is what you're

seeing right now, which means usually you can

actually overexpose by two thirds stops.

Remember, we're not overexposing, we're exposing correctly, but

only overexposing what the camera is saying.

So I'm gonna emulate the exposure that the

camera has given us on manual.

So at the moment, it's aperture priority, 2000,

2.8, 400 ISO.

So let's do that.

Let's go, 2000, 2.8, 400 ISO.

And again, the camera thinks it's a good

exposure because we've got the actual exposure meter

right on zero, but we know we're actually

looking at a bad exposure.

So what I'm gonna do now using my

shutter speed is gonna go a couple of

clicks.

In this case, I'm thinking three, and there

we've got a good exposure.

We're one stop different.

So again, depending on different skin types, whether

it's Caucasian skin, African-American, tan skin, it's

gonna be different all the time.

And the thing is, depending on where you

put your spot meter, again, it'll change.

We've just worked out how we can spot

meter for a dress.

We've learned how we can spot for a

dark suit, let's say to emulate a dark

suit.

And now we're emulating arguably spot metering for

the skin, but there is no standard per

se.

There is this white is white, black is

black, but skin tones will vary.

So again, just let's go to aperture priority.

And once again, look at those differences there.

And we go from white, skin tone, black.

In other words, you can get to those

destinations in any which way you want.

If you spot meter for the eye, well,

of course, now you've got a bit of

dark in there.

So you see how it's gone darker.

If you actually expose for shadows, then that's

gonna be a problem too, because now you're

blowing everything out even more.

So you just have to pick a system

that you like and stick to it.

As far as I'm concerned, I like to

shoot on manual and I'm emulating what aperture

priority does.

So let me explain.

So if I go to manual, independent of

our conversation that we've had up to this

point, if I go to manual and then

I look at my screen here, let's ignore

the fact that in mirrorless what you see

is what you get.

But if I'm shooting on manual, then I

might start at this point.

Okay, so let's say for example, if you're

not shooting in mirrorless and you're looking at

your subject matter and you are using aperture

priority, let's in fact go to matrix metering.

So we're back on matrix evaluative metering mode.

And I wanna talk about now if we

don't have any of the extremes.

So in this case, we have Sally, she's

wearing a white dress, we've got the black

background.

And at the moment I'm shooting aperture priority

and on matrix mode, metering mode, it's a

pretty decent exposure.

Although of course, we've got to take everything

into account.

Now watch what happens when I have more

negative space with black.

Not gonna move anything here.

Watch what happens to the exposure.

See, now that the camera is seeing more

black, it's freaking out and saying, well, I

don't like black, I actually wanna go mid

gray and it's making what was once black

mid gray.

And of course it's overexposing her skin tone

and overexposing the white dress.

That's a problem.

So we have to know that the minute

you actually introduce anything other than white and

black, you have to compensate accordingly.

So let's see now, let's emulate it.

400 speed, 2.8, 400 ISO.

I'm gonna flick to manual and do the

exact same thing.

400th of a second, 2.8, 400 ISO.

And now what we'll do, let's lean towards

the minus.

What did we say?

If something is dark, you go dark, lean

towards the minus.

In this case, we've got more dark than

anything else.

I like to emulate what I see in

front of me like a paint palette, like

putting it in a paint bucket.

Right now we have, in fact, let's do

this.

I'm gonna go now to the picture control

to monochrome.

So we sort of void ourselves of any

sort of color bias.

Yes, there's not much color.

The only color that they really have is

her sort of red lips and then the

skin tone.

And of course, you've got the black background

and the white dress.

Now that I've made it black, picture what

you're seeing in this particular viewfinder now as

a paint bucket.

That's all it is, it's a paint bucket.

And we mix those tones in and what

do we get?

Well, we're actually gonna get quite dark.

It's gonna be a dark gray because we

only have a little bit of white, a

little bit of skin tone and mostly black.

If we get a dark gray, the camera's

gonna make it a mid gray, make it

light and overexpose as we're seeing now.

So what we have to do is of

our exposure triangle, use one, two or three

of the things that affect exposure, aperture, ISO

or shutter speed, and then bring ourselves underexposed

by what the camera is saying.

In this case, I am gonna use the

shutter speed.

So let me see how many clicks it

takes.

One, two, three.

So there we have it.

We've got detail in the whites, we've got

detail in the skin tones.

The blacks are looking pretty good.

Maybe we go one more, maybe four.

There we go.

And it depends on the monitor that you're

actually watching this tutorial on right now, but

we're about four clicks.

In other words, if you have subject matter

that occupies about a bit less than third

of a frame, not quite a quarter, but

a third of the frame with mostly black,

then you know, you're gonna be about three

or four clicks to the under.

So we've looked at a white subject matter,

we've looked at dark subject matter, but what

happens if you have something in between?

And of course, we're not looking at black

or white, we're looking at different colors in

normal environment.

You have skin tones, you have different color

dresses and things like that.

So right now, what I'm trying to do

is emulate a scene that is quite typical.

Now we have a brown part of the

RV parking garage, we've got a gray background,

that's a Muslim background.

We've got the right white dress, we've got

skin tone.

We're back in normal color and we're actually

back on aperture priority and we're on matrix

metering mode or evaluative metering mode.

So if I'm looking at this right now,

I'm actually, if I'm shooting aperture priority, then

it's, in other words, using the camera meter

to give me what it believes to be

a correct exposure, it's actually overexposing it.

Well, why is that?

Well, if you look at all those tones,

we have to first convert them to black

and white for me to explain what I'm

talking about.

We're no longer looking at, let's say a

skin tone or a brown piece of wall

or anything like that.

Now we're just looking at shades of black

to white.

Now you would say that this is close

to correct exposure because you do have whites,

you do have dark grays and things like

that.

But if you were to mix all those

tones in as we're doing right now, you

would arguably say that that scene is darker

than mid gray.

Therefore, the camera is deliberately overexposing it, but

it actually thinks it's a correct exposure because

as we said, it has to have a

standard.

So what I'm gonna do now is I'm

gonna emulate this exposure in manual mode.

So 500th of a second, 2.8, 400,

500th of a second, 2.8 at 400.

And I believe it's a little bit bright.

So I'm gonna get my shutter speed or

my ISO.

In this case, I might get my ISO

down actually.

And I believe that is a good exposure.

We've got beautiful detail in the skin.

We've got detail in the dress and that

gives us a good exposure.

So remember, you've got the polarizing white and

black and we know that's about five clicks,

almost two stops under and over respectively.

And in this case, we're about two thirds

of a stop out of the exposure by

what the camera is saying.

So remember what your job now is to

do is to look at your subject matter,

not in terms of color, but of tones

of black to white.

And if you're using your spot metering mode

as we discussed and let's do that in

fact, while I'm speaking about that right now,

let's go to spot metering mode.

And you'll see that as I move my

spot in different places, let's go to aperture

priority, you'll see how it'll affect the exposure.

If you actually even grab your smart device

out, your phone, you'll actually see that no

matter where you are with your phone and

you look at your subject matter, you can

tap on that particular part of it and

it would give you again, a mid gray

sort of reading.

You have to know that the camera can't

think like a human so you have to

over or underexpose accordingly or compensate accordingly to

get your correct exposure.

So when you're in an environment like this,

if you don't have mirrorless, of course, mirrorless

is easy because what you see is what

you get.

I can clearly see that's a bad exposure

that you actually have to look at your

scene and if you were to go on

to manual and if you were to actually

go to matrix metering again, okay, so let's

say we're right there, we're focusing on the

eye and we've already determined that that being

a correct exposure.

I'm saying is you have to diagnose that

scene, put those tones in all involved and

then compensate accordingly based upon what you're seeing.

Once we know that, then you're always gonna

be within a pocket of a third stop

increment.

And if you take a shot and have

to look at the back of the camera,

great, you're looking for detail in the highlights,

detail on the skin tones, detail on the

whites, I let that be my guide.

I'm not looking for detailing shadows to determine

my exposure because if I have a deep

dark shadow and a strong piece of sunlight

hitting that bride's face, for example, and I'm

after detail in the shadow, of course, the

actual skin tone is gonna be white, I'm

gonna have no detail whatsoever.

So I let the highlights on the skin,

I let the highlight on the dress, if

we're talking about weddings or white dress usually,

that's gonna be my guide and the rest

usually takes care of itself.

Let's talk about white balance.

Now, yes, if you're shooting in raw, you

can actually fix up anything afterwards in raw

conversion, no problem.

And you might just say it's easy to

put it on auto white balance and that's

basically it.

The problem is that when there is a

problem, when you have got the wrong color

temperature in a photograph, then you're gonna have

to change almost every single shot because let's

say for example, I'm photographing a scene like

this and I'm cropping up close and then

I'm shooting on auto white balance and then

I widen my angle of view and start

incorporating different elements into my frame, it will

change the white balance.

So I would prefer you to actually choose

a specific Kelvin degree, whether it's actually choosing

your color temperature specifically or arguably a preset

will be a lot easier.

So you know the presets, right?

So let's go to them right now, go

to the white balances.

Of course, you've got auto, you've got direct

sunlight.

Now direct sunlight is 5,000 Kelvin.

Cloudy, you've got 5,700.

Shade, you've got 7,250.

Incandescent, 2,950.

And fluorescent is 4,000 Kelvin degrees.

And then flash, you've got 6,150 Kelvin

degrees.

And of course, you can actually choose the

exact temperature that you basically want if you

wish, or you can actually pick a particular

preset.

Now my suggestion is pick a preset because

it'll be consistent.

Let's say for example, if in one particular

scene, you screw up the temperature, then in

raw conversion, you can globally grab all those

shots and fix them rather than have to

go through three images here, four images there,

that wide shot, that closeup shot, everything will

have a different white balance.

So keep it consistent.

So what do the white balances do for

that matter?

And why should we look at it a

bit closer?

So let's look at it right now.

So right now we're looking at Sally.

Let's just get a good exposure here.

So we're looking at an exposure of around

400th of a second, 4.5, 640 ISO.

It's superfluous based upon the actual conversation we're

having right now, and that is white balance.

So right now, as you can see, it's

on daylight white balance.

We're basically saying this is the sun or

daylight.

Okay, so let's now, we're direct sunlight.

It's not direct sunlight.

We're actually in the shade of a garage,

but we're choosing daylight because it actually looks

quite realistic and it looks okay.

Watch what happens now that we return the

white balance to cloudy.

So if you want cloudy, it will simply

go warmer.

And if you look at the difference, it's

quite huge.

In fact, what we'll do is this.

I'll go back, I'll take a shot.

Then I will go cloudy, take another shot.

That looks quite pleasing to the eye.

Let's go shade, even warmer still.

Now let's look at the differences here.

So we've got, see now that you compare

them, now you realize which one's gonna be

better.

In this case, we've got daylight.

We've got cloudy and we've got shade.

So it really depends on your personal preference.

Now you're gonna be careful because some people

who already have darker skin who have gone

tanning or anything like that, they're gonna almost

look like oompa loompas if you go too

far with your white balance.

So now how do we think of white

balance?

What makes us understand it?

Well, let's think about this for a moment.

If we're shooting in direct sunlight, we're basically

saying we're using a warm light source.

So the sun is a warm light source.

It's warm.

So we're basically saying, okay, sun, you've already

got a warm tone.

Then I think that this will be, what

I see with my own two eyes, this

will look realistic.

Great.

If we're shooting with a cloudy white balance,

let's say for example here, we're in actually

an open shade, but let's say where the

clouds go above the sun and now we're

shooting cloudy, the clouds are filtering that light.

It's no longer as warm.

It's a little bit colder.

So what we're saying to the camera by

choosing the cloudy white balance, I wanna warm

this up a little bit.

In this case, we're in the shade of

an RV parking here.

So the shade of a building.

We're basically saying it's actually a cold, cold

color temperature.

So we wanna warm things up a little

bit.

And therefore we get this particular skin tone.

Now I actually think somewhere in between is

probably about right.

And you can see the difference between, like

I said, right now we're seeing direct sunlight

white balance.

We're actually seeing the cloudy and then now

we're seeing shade.

And of course, as we go further up

in the food chain, so to speak, you

are going to get polarizing color temperatures.

So let's do that for example.

Let's deliberately choose incandescent.

What we're saying to the camera, or to

the camera, we're saying we are shooting with,

let's say, could be a man-made light

globe, tungsten light globe, or candlelight.

And you are gonna see that this is

gonna be blue.

Do you see what happens?

Is that we're basically saying that if our

subject matter was illuminated with a very yellow,

warm light source, this would correct it.

But we're using this in this environment and

she looks dead.

Now, if I was photographing guys and I

deliberately wanted to make a shot look cool

in two senses of that word, cool as

in it's got a cool vibe, or cool

as in cold, then that's a masculine look

and that could work.

So be careful on where you're using this,

but you would use incandescent in exactly what

it implies, with an incandescent light, man-made

tungsten light globes, and possibly even candlelight.

Now, candlelight's gonna be warmer, but so you

have to just determine what color temperature you

prefer yourself.

Now, here's the thing, and if you don't

like these color temperatures, you can simply change

them.

Let's see what happens when we go auto.

Now, auto has actually done a pretty good

job here.

Now, you might say, well, fantastic, Jerry, I'll

use it all the time.

But don't forget, the minute we start introducing

new elements in this particular frame, it will

not be consistent.

So just remember, although it might give you

a pretty good result in most situations, it

won't be consistent.

So play around with your color temperatures.

My advice to you is to go to

your favorite RAW conversion software.

Let's say, for example, you use Lightroom.

And as you look at the photograph that

you've taken as shot, you will know the

actual preset white balance that you chose.

And slide them left and right, and you'll

begin to realize that maybe all this time

you've been shooting with direct sunlight, and you

prefer cloudy or vice versa.

So have fun with it.

Don't overcomplicate it.

But just know too, that if you wanna

get perfect color, you might do a custom

white balance.

You may even photograph a color picker in

your particular frame.

But I only do that when it comes

to maybe shooting fashion, where it's so critical

to get that color absolutely perfect of the

dress, more imperfect, more actually important than even

skin tone.

So you can do that as well.

So take that, run with it, have some

fun with your presets.

But my advice to you is make your

life easier, get it right in camera as

close as possible, and be consistent.

Arguably the most important element in the exposure

triangle is aperture.

How much light we're letting through the iris

of the lens, and how many things we

want in focus.

We call that depth of field.

So what we're gonna do now is actually

gonna look into the camera and notice what

an f-stop will actually do in terms

of it being wider.

What does 1.8 look like all the

way till say f22.

Every lens will have different compression of course,

and actually behave differently with the same f

-number.

For example, f4 with a longer focal length,

there'll be actually less depth of field.

Let's say than a wider angle lens with

the same f-number, say f4 for example

in this case.

So what I wanna do now is look

through the camera.

Of course, as we can see here, we've

just got this plant in front of us

with different leaves.

And I've actually set the camera, dare I

say it here to auto ISO, but it's

giving us a nice exposure.

So I've focused on a particular leaf there

as you can see right there.

And what I'm going to do is I

am going to move the aperture from 1

.8, and I want you to start looking

at how many more things we have in

focus, foreground and background.

You can sort of see how we're getting

that less milkiness in the background.

In this case, we don't really have a

bokeh.

And I know that a lot of people

love that word bokeh.

With this particular lens, I've got the range

from f16 all the way down to 1

.8. Now it's important to note that many

people think that focus starts from where you

focus from and it goes backwards.

In other words, depth of fields, you may

believe that starts from that point of focus

and working backwards.

So for example, if you're photographing, say me

at a very shallow depth of field, let's

say it may be at 1.8 or

f2, if you focus on my eye socket

where the glass of the eye meets the

eye socket, and you feel that the actual

focus is about this deep and it goes

backwards, then you might miss my eyelash.

Now, yes, that may happen depending on what

lens you use, but this information is extremely

important, especially when you're photographing groups of people.

Let's say for example, this particular lens looking

at me right now, you're looking at a

bird's eye view of three layers of people

in a family group shot, okay?

So bird's eye view, these are the top

of the heads.

If you actually photograph at f4, at the

tip of that person's nose or eyes, and

then your depth of field, let's say for

example, is like this, then what happens is

we're missing focus.

So what you have to do first of

all, understand that focus starts 1 3rd in

and 2 3rds back.

So if you are photographing three people, for

example, you will not actually focus on the

tip of that first person's eye or nose.

You will actually focus on the tip of

that person's nose or eyes on that second

level.

And now we have 1 3rd in and

2 3rds back.

And of course you have to determine what

f-stop is going to be needed for

your subject matter and appropriate to the lens

choice that you basically have.

So the example that I did just now,

it's very elementary, it's very fundamental, but what

we're just trying to ascertain here is the

fact that if you are shooting at, let's

say an f-stop number at f1.2,

1.4, 1.8, you are gonna have

less things in focus.

And then as you get deeper in focus,

you are gonna get more.

In other words, f16, f22 is where you

get more things in focus.

You simply have to choose the actual appropriate

f-number or the f-stop based upon

the subject matter that you're photographing.

So don't overthink it, but also don't play

with fire.

Never photograph family photographs at 1.2 or

f2 or anything like that.

The way I like to think about it,

depending on the lens choice that you have,

if you photograph two people, then that might

give you permission to photograph at 2.8

because you've got the two people right there,

their eyes are on the same sort of

plane of focus, and then you can arguably

get them in focus.

If you're photographing four people, you might wanna

shoot with f4, five people, 5.6, eight

people, f8, and so on.

Now, yes, that's not an absolute.

And of course, we said before that if

you're photographing with a wider angle lens, that

same f-stop like f8, for example, on

a wider angle lens, your depth of field

might be like this, but with a longer

focal length lens, your depth of field might

be like this.

So just make sure you understand your lenses,

the genre that you're photographing.

Don't overthink it, guys.

Aperture is actually really easy.

Just determine how many things you want in

focus, know the limitations of your lens based

upon the genre that you're photographing, and have

some fun.