Wednesday, February 6, 2008

shooting manual questions

Still trying to shoot manual. I know it will take a while to get used to it.
This is what I remember but for some reason I don't have the info written down in notes so:
1. Shoot wide open aperture
2. Set the shutter speed
3. Select Kelvin temperature
4. ? was that ISO

I was shooting today and I was in the shade and I was trying to expose for faces, but it still seemed like it was missing something. Are those 4 above what I am controlling or is there something else. Does exposure just kick in where it needs to be or am I supposed to control that also.

7 comments:

Chris Diset Photography said...

I will jump in here since I too have been working on this. Your aperture and shutter speed will give you your exposure. Now you want a low ISO so your images will be the cleanest, but you want a faster (high) ISO so you can have a shutter speed suitable for what you are trying to achieve. (Freeze the image, fast shutter like 1/250. Or show motion with a slow shutter like 1/30) Now kelvin does not affect exposure. Its affecting whether your picture is too cool or too warm.

So if your faces were too dark, youre probably still underexposed. The camera doesnt know you want the faces to expose and not, lets say, a sunlit area in the background.

If the faces are not too dark, but maybe have a grey tint, thats where Kelvin comes in.

Hope this helps.

"Go Canon!"

Chris Diset Photography said...

I almost forgot, when shooting Kelvin with Canon, you not only dial in the temperature on the back screen, but you have to hit the button on top that lets you change from "awb" to "k"

John Loyola said...

A tip Mike mentioned is shoot in av mode first at f2.8 (using 70-200mm L lens). The camera will automatically set the shutter speed. That is your starting point. Then move into manual mode using that shutter speed and aperture and adjust accordingly by under or overexposing.

For Kelvin, you set that by what your current environment is (Sunny, Overcast, Indoor lighting, etc...). This controls the colors of your images. Remember the RGB histogram? Your peaks and valleys should match. If they don't, then adjust your kelvin by going colder or warmer.

ISO will also help when your are in poorly lit environments. Say a very grey and overcast day (like the model shoot) Setting your ISO to 400 gives better exposure and faster shutter speed.

Hope I didn't confuse you even more. John

Zoom-Bug Photography said...

I recall Mike mentioning that if your white balance is off, then your exposure is off. I only remember this, because he showed us the blown out blinkie red's on his big plasma screen and said that once blow out say your reds or blues, then that's information you are completely losing, even sometimes when shooting RAW. I was noticing that on my notes, thought I'd share :-)

Mandy Hank said...

Thank you Chris for reminding about the K on the top- oops! :)
Kind of important, huh? :)

Amy Wellenkamp said...

Hey Tami,
I typically use my in-camera light meter if you don't want to be switching from AV to M. It gets me really close. I usually have to increase the exposure a little bit from there depending on the position of the light source.

Tammy M. said...

thanks guys. Great info. yesterday when I was shooting all my levels seemed to be to the left, Red, Green and Blue does that makes sense?