The Exposure Triangle and How it Affects Your Photos

Last night I completed part 2 of our Understanding Your DSLR Camera course, this is the stage where I teach about exposure and use the exposure triangle to explain the relationship between aperture, shutter and ISO. This article on the ever brilliant Lightstalking site will do it for those of you not in my class last night.

Getting a new DSLR can be quite an overwhelming experience for a new photographer. All the knobs and buttons seem to do a thousand different things (and they do), but the dirty secret of photography is that at its core, knowledge of the exposure triangle is what will make your new DSLR really sing. If you know how the exposure triangle works, then you essentially know the basics of how your photographs will turn out and you can build your skills with the manual functions of your camera from that solid basis.

The biggest benefit of having an advanced DSLR is that they allow manual control over most elements of the photographic process in terms of what’s happening in the camera. But having that control means that it is of great benefit if you know what elements you need to control and what they do. Let’s take a look at the three absolute essentials that make up the exposure triangle – ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture.

Click Here: The Exposure Triangle and How it Affects Your Photos

35 Stunning Examples of Long Exposure Photographs

Most photography uses extremely fast shutter speeds, only allowing light into the camera for a fraction of a second, but when longer exposures are used there can be some remarkable results. Static objects are revealed in heightened detail, while anything moving becomes a blur.Long exposure photography entails using a long-duration shutter speed to sharply capture the stationary elements of images while blurring, smearing, or obscuring its moving elements.

The ability to take long exposures requires a user to use a tripod for optimum results (of course, some people prefer the hand shake look). The use of a tripod is essential because the inability for the human hand to stay still is truly remarkable. No matter how good you get, it will be very hard to hand hold a 1 second shutter release without very noticeable blur. As well as a tripod (or monopod in some cases could work), a photographer should make use of the timed shutter release. This will allow the user to set the shot up, and set a timer to release the shutter. Most cameras have the option of one or more timed shutter releases, for example my Canon 40D has a 2 second and 10 second wait. I usually use the 2 second release as this gives you just enough time to get your hands off the camera to not bump the shot. This is even more important on longer shutter times.

The technique of ‘light painting’ is the use of a long exposure while moving a light through a dark scene, recording the light source’s path, or shining light onto objects in the frame to highlight them. Enjoy the great examples below and get out their and experiment with your camera taking long exposures.  by Dustin Betonio ….…..more here

Video DSLR Basics: Shutter Speed

This short but very useful post is a must for anyone thinking of shooting video on their DSLR

Here is an excerpt:

“To understand shutter speed for SLR video, it helps to understand how the shutter works on a traditional motion-picture film camera. In a film camera, the shutter spins at a constant rate. Half the time, it is open, exposing the film, and half the time it is closed, pulling the film into place. The long-standing industry standard is for this to happen 24 times per second…….So, if you want to set your SLR to correspond to cinematic standards, set it to shoot at 24 fps (“24p”), and set your shutter speed as close to 1/48 second as you can. Usually, that means 1/50.” Thanks to Alex Fox for this insight

Canon EOS 5D Mk2