Hey Everyone! How was your week? Mine was pretty good. Thanks for asking. LOL Hey today I want to talk about something very basic in photography. The Exposure Triangle. I am giving a presentation on this subject with my local photography club and thought I would write a Blog about it. I can't believe I haven't written one on the subject before now. We have a lot of new members and new photographers in our club so I was tasked to give this presentation. So what is "The Exposure Triangle"?

The Exposure Triangle has been about since the beginning of photography.  These three settings are aperture , shutter speed and ISO. All three of these settings work together to give you the perfect exposure. Whether you're in full manual operation of your camera or one of the automatic modes of your camera. When your in auto the camera does all of the calculations and make the decision on what the settings should be. The camera gets it right most of the time but understanding the exposure triangle is the key to shooting in manual and controlling your camera when the auto doesn't work. I have been shooting SLR "Single Lens Reflex" cameras for over 45 years and the first few decades it was always in manual operation and under standing the triangle is the only way to get great photo's when shooting in manual. If you have a perfectly exposed image and you change one of the three settings you will have to make an adjustment on one of the other ones or both.  They all work together to get the perfect exposure. What is perfect exposure? It is the brightness of the photo when you look at the scene without the camera. How it looks naturally. You can have a photo over exposed ( too bright) or under exposed (too dark) Your light meter or your eye can tell you if its right or not. Modern camera's have made this very easy with the WYSIWYG. (What You See Is What You Get) Technology of today. In my day you may have to wait a day or two to see what the photo looked like or until you got it into the darkroom yourself.  But now you can see instantaneously what your adjustments are. You can see what the Shutter Speed , Aperture, and ISO does to your photo's. So let's talk about the big three.

ISO, ISO is how SENSITIVE your sensor or film is. In my day it was called ASA for film. The higher the number the more sensitive it is to the EYES light. The higher the number the more sensitive and more grainy the film or your sensor on the camera can be. Grain or noise is more intense in the higher ISO's. With modern technology this is not as much as a problem as it use to be. Going above 500 ISO used to be a problem but now you can go as High as 16000 with newer cameras and not notice at all. You just have to remember that the Higher the number the more SENSITIVE the sensor is. Any change in this setting you will have to change one or both of the other settings.

Leaf Aperture, I think that this is (for ME!) the most important of the three. Aperture controls the DEPTH OF FIELD of the image by controlling the size of the hole in your lens (the Aperture ring).  The depth of field is how much of the scene is in focus. The larger the depth of field the larger the area that is in focus. This control will let you blur out the background on a portrait or let the whole scene be in focus for a landscape shot. The larger the F-Stop number on your lens the more DEPTH OF FIELD you will have and the smaller the F-Stop number the smaller the DEPTH OF FIELD will be. For example a portrait shot at F-2.8 will have Fall Colors House a small DEPTH OF FIELD and the landscape shot at F-16 will have a large DEPTH OF FIELD.  This is one of the ways we show our artistic side when choosing what Aperture we use but when we change the Aperture we must change one or both of the the other settings.

Shutter Speed, Shutter Speed controls the DURATION TIME that the shutter is open and controls the amount of light that is captured during the recording of the image. The longer the shutter is open the more light that is let in. Using the control of this setting is great for capturing or showing motion in a photo. Longer shutter speeds are used to show the flow of a water fall giving it that silky smooth look. Fast shutter speeds are used for wildlife to freeze the action of the bird in flight or a humming birds wings. The measurement comes in increments like 1/1000th sec. or 1/60th of a second up to 30 seconds. The smaller the increment of the shutter will let in less light and the longer increment of shutter will let in more light. A shot at 1/1000th sec.  will freeze the action but a shot at 1 second will blur the action.  Longer exposures will require a Tripod to keep the subject of still objects in focus and not have blur from the movement of your hands. A general rule is _MSP2682
that anything under 1/60th sec. Blue Water Splash Shutter speed should be on a tripod but with modern cameras and camera's with stabilization this is no longer the case and you can go lower than the 1/60th sec.  This is also very handy for Night Time Photography with shutter speeds around 20 seconds to start with. But remember if you make a change to this setting one or both of the others will have to be changed.

Learning how these three settings and mastering  how they work will make you a better photographer and let you control what is coming out of your camera. If you shoot in manual mastering these three is a must. If you shoot in one of the auto modes when your camera gets it wrong you will be able to quickly adjust and overcome the mistake your camera made and get the proper exposure. The exposure triangle is used by every photographer on the planet and is very easy if you take the time to learn it. Until Next Time ! Get out and Shoot!

Hey Everyone! How's it going this week? I'm doing fine thanks for asking. This week I want to get into basics a little. The last couple of weeks I talked about specific kind of photography but this week and maybe the next couple of weeks I want to dive into the basics of photography. We have some new photographer members of my camera club and since the majority of my readers are in the photography club I thought I would go into the basics. So this week I want to talk about what camera modes to use and why?  Back when I started photography there was only one mode "Manual" and that is what I used for decades before the newer and smarter cameras came out. Then I had to learn what the other modes were and why would I ever use them? I didn't need them before why do I need them now?  Even auto focus had me puzzled and I had to figure all of that out. Modern cameras now are just small computers that take in all of this exposure information and make decisions on how to focus and what the proper exposure is, they do this in a mili-second. Now many photographers will say I only shoot in manual that is the only way to get it right. I was apart of this club for a long time  because I just didn't know better. We spend a lot of money for our cameras we should use it and take advantage of the tech that is built into it. Most cameras today are light years ahead of what I started with as a new photographer. They all shoot video that is of the quality that you could film a feature movie with and you could use any of them to shoot high fashion shoots and make lots of money as a product photographer. I 11-sony-a6300 mean any modern camera can do this now. But just shooting in manual all of the time and not using the features is like buying a new "Corvette" and putting it in neutral and pushing it down the street. Sure you can get it to where you want but really what can it do on the open road when you put it in drive? The same with your camera it will work perfectly well in manual but what will it do if you put it in drive? Or in our case, camera modes. Let's talk about the different camera modes and what you as a photographer can do with them. There are four main camera modes, most cameras have more but we will talk about the four Main ones. Manual, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, and Program mode. _MSP9733

Manual Mode, In manual mode you ,the photographer, make all of the decisions. What the Aperture , Shutter speed, and ISO. The Exposure Triangle that we will discuss in another blog next week. You can even go as far as manual focusing if you want to go to extremes . But auto focus always does better than my old eyes. The advantage to this mode is that you control everything. Perfect for the "A personalities" in the world. The MetroCommuters waiting for the Metro in Washington DC. This used to be a hard one to master when it was the only choice. You shot a roll of film and sent it off and a week later you see if your decisions were good enough. But now a days you can see instantaneously what your decisions have done make learning easier. I think that everyone should be able to manually operate their camera if the camera doesn't get it right. You should be able to over-ride the camera and know why.

Shutter Priority- We use shutter priority when Shutter Speed is the most important part of the exposure  Sandstone Falls New River Gorge NP triangle that we want to control. The camera will make all other decisions for you.  It will manipulate it and also it will adjust your Aperture upon the decision you made for shutter speed. Shutter speed is used to mostly control motion. If you want to freeze your subject like sport or wildlife shutter speed is important. If you want to slow down the shutter speed to show flowing water you could use Shutter priority but I would suggest that you use a tripod when you get to 1/60th a second or so to eliminate camera shake and making the image blurry. So Shutter Priority is for motion.

David Aperture Priority- This is the one that I use the most and its when the Aperture is the most important thing in taking the photograph. The Aperture controls the "depth of field" how much of the photograph is in focus. When we see with our eyes everything is not in focus all of the time. When you look at something everything else blurs a little. I like to do the same with my photographs. For me it is the Art in Photography is with depth of field guiding your viewer to certain portions of the photograph or making a busy scene less busy by bluring out the background.  And just the opposite you can use Aperture to make as much of the scene in focus like a landscape.  When you adjust the aperture the camera makes all other decisions just like in shutter priority except it controls , shutter speed and ISO if in Auto. This mode is great for portraits , street and candid type of photography.

Program Mode- We make a joke that the "P" on your camera stands for Professional. But it stands for Program mode. In this mode the camera makes all of the decisions for you except for ISO but if your in ISO Auto It will do that too.. Sometimes this is a great way to start. By putting your camera in Program mode and looking at the settings it chose you can go into one of the other modes and put those settings in for a start if you don't know where to start with your settings. Using program mode basically turns your fancy camera into a point and shoot camera. Which could be good in certain situations. If you keep your camera in program mode and something happens right in front of you like a car wreck all you have to do is lift your camera and start shooting and you will get well exposed shots. Maybe not the artistic shots that you want but those first few will be usable then you can switch over to one of the other modes.

_DSC6457 Your fancy camera is trying to have a perfect exposure every time. But it is set to make the scene 18 percent grey. If you are in that kind of light the auto modes work great and maybe say 60 to 70 percent of the day its like that but what if its dark outside? Your camera will brighten it up and it won't look natural and you will have to over compensate for it by knowing the exposure triangle basics and being able to adjust the right setting on your camera to get it back to where its supposed to be. Most cameras have an exposure compensation dial that they can use when in the program modes , Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority or Program Mode. The advantage of using the program modes is speed. The camera automatically will make the adjustment on the fly. So say your doing street photography in Aperture Priority mode if you go from a shady to sunny spot in the street the camera will adjust for you on the fly. If Man Waiting for T Boston you are in manual you can make the adjustments but it take more time and you might not get the shot of the person passing by. The last decade or so I have become more dependent on Program modes and only use manual when my camera is on a tripod. Maybe 10ish percent of the time . The other 90 percent I'm usually in Aperture Priority mode. But by knowing my camera I can quickly go into manual or use exposure compensation if I have to to correct the exposure.

Other modes. Depending on the manufacturer you camera could have many other cool modes . Not all are the same. Mine has an auto mode that I control ISO and everything else is controlled by the camera. I have scene mode where you can pic scenes and the camera will adjust accordingly to the scene for example night scene, or fireworks, or sunset, many scenes. Mine also has a video mode and a Slow and Quick mode that works with video where you can shoot in slow motion or hyper lapse. I'm sure your camera has many of the same .  Knowing your camera and reading the manual watching operational videos on your specific make and model camera will  make you more proficient in using your camera thus a better photographer. Well I have blabbed enough on this subject so until next week. Get out and shoot!

Hey Everyone! Hows your week going? Mine Great! Thanks for asking. Today I want to talk about your first prime lens. There are so many which one to get? Why a prime? What is a prime? All good questions and we will answer them. When your new into photography you get a entry level camera which is awesome and the company, no matter what brand you get, will put an inexpensive lens on so you can shoot right away. Its usually a zoom lens that give you many focal lengths to play with. These Zoom lenses are called Kit lenses and can be great lenses but more than not they are cheaply built and have smaller aperture ranges. But for someone just starting they are great! So after you've shot with them a while you start thinking about your next lens purchase. Really this will be your first lens purchase. You do some research and see what all the popular pros are shooting and those lenses are expensive and seem to be made out of un-obtainium. I think your first lens purchase should be a prime lens. It only has one focal length. Instead of being a 16-55mm its AMT2016-sony-a6300-review-0423-2Photographer: Anthony Thurston a 35mm or a 50mm. Instead of having a variable maximum f-stop rating of f3.5-5.6 it may have a rating of f1.8 or f2.8. These lenses are cheaper have wider apertures and are sharper than the kit lenses. So there is the why to get a prime and the what is a prime. But which one? Well let me tell you about my story. When I started in photography long, long time ago zooms were made out of un-obtainium and weren't that good or sharp. So when you bought a camera it usually came with a 50mm prime lens usually at f1.8 or 2.8. That is what you learned on and your feet were you're zoom. Now how does that help you? It doesn't I just wanted to talk about the old days. LOL Lets talk about some of the different focal lengths.

24mm is a very popular focal length now a days for VLOGing and for video most phones shoot at the widest in the 20's and the photo's that are on instagram and face book shot with phones are starting to be the normal for some folks. I think of 24 being a specialty wide angle lens and would not get this lens for my first prime. Unless your a VLOGer.

35mm is another popular lens.  It's not as wide as the 24 but wide enough for environmental portraits and Art Museum street photography to capture the whole scene. This lens is very popular with street photographers being able to get into tight corners of the city and still be wide enough to get the shot. This is a good choice for a first prime lens if you shoot in the city a lot or love to shoot environmental portraits.

50mm is the bread and butter lens. It is said to be the closest to how we see the world threw our own eyes. This is a good street although not as wide as the 35 but also great for portraits with the least amount of  Max Stansell Photography distortion.  Good for head shots and full length as well. They are sometimes called the nifty 50.  They can be had for just a couple of hundred or even cheaper used. This is a great value lens and I think every photographer should have one in their lens lineup. But the first one?

85mm is a portrait beast for head shots. Maybe a little too tight for everyday David street but I would have one on me if I shot a lot of street for the longer shots that can compress a little. One of my favorite lenses to shoot portraits with. I just love how one can really blur out the background. If you take a lot of Portraits its a must have in your lens lineup. But the first one?

135mm this is another great portrait lens and the first focal length that I bought as a teenager. This lens is long enough that you can do some telephoto work with it and shoot scenes that compress (bring the background in closer) .  I actually still have that lens that is so old that it is a screw mount lens as it screws into the body of the camera instead of a bayonet type that all modern camera's have now. 

Sarah So which one to use? Well it depends on what type of photographer you are. If you notice in all of the descriptions above I never mentioned Landscape. I don't think that a prime lens would be my choice for landscape although you could certainly use  one It would not be my choice. The easy and simple way to check is if your using Lightroom look and see which focal length you use more often by sorting your photos by focal length. The one with the most photo's wins. That would be the focal length that I would get. But take into consideration on what your going to use the lens for .  If you take portraits then the 50 or the 85 would be great choices. If you like environmental shots then the 35 would be great. If your a VLOGer then the 24 would be great. I really don't think the 135 should be the first. I think its too specialized in what it can do and the others are more versatile. My opinion.  So there you have it which prime to get first. So until next week . Get out and Shoot!