Learn a little more, shutter speed

Have you ever shot a picture and the image been blurry? You probably had no idea why it was blurry. In the last basic education post that I am doing I am going to discuss shutter speed. Shutter speed determines ambient light, or light that is in the area already. The light can be lights that are turned on, sunlight, window light, or lots of other sources of lights. Shutter speed is how fast the shutter opens to the digital sensor. For most portrait pictures you are probably going to have your shutter below 1/200th of a second, especially if you are going to use flash. Most cameras won't allow you to shoot faster than that if you have a flash on the camera. If you are shooting kids, you will probably get blurry images if you are not shooting a fast shutter speed. Sports is the same way. If you are shooting something where you want to freeze the action, you should probably shoot shutter priority, which is S on nikon, or T on Canon. T is for time, S is for Shutter Speed. You want to set your shutter speed to a relatively fast speed 1/400th or even faster if you are shooting sports. To do that you must have plenty of light available. Daytime is the easiest time to shoot a fast shutter speed. Most low light lenses with a wide aperture are the best for shooting fast, because they bring in lots more light. Sports is tough because the real good lenses for Sports cost in the thousands. Canon and Nikon both make a 70-300 lens that will work for sports, but only in daylight because of their high aperture. Your blurry images are because of 1 of 2 things. 1) your subject was moving so fast that while the shutter was open the subject moved so the sensor is seeing the whole motion, it is also called motion blur, sometimes people use it as an effect. 2) The shutter speed was so slow that you moved the camera because you were shaking, also known as camera shake. Most people cannot shoot below 1/50th of a second hand held, if you have a tripod, you can shoot super slow. If you have any questions for me please let me know. I think this post makes sense.

More Technique

     So I actually received some emails after my post on Aperture. I guess that is something people want to read about.  So here we go. Today I am going to talk about ISO, also referred to as film speed. Which if your shooting a digital camera it obviously has no film, but it goes back to the old way that things were labeled. I know most folks my age have never even picked up a film camera. I actually own a Mamiya M645 which is probably about 10 years older than me. The film that I shoot in it was actually made in Oktober of 1980, that is the correct spelling, it was made in Europe. It is two years older than me.
     ISO on a digital camera is essentially the operators way to set how sensitive the digital sensor in the camera is. The higher the number, the more sensitive the sensor is to light. However, the higher the number, the more noise you get in the image. So the object of taking pictures is to keep your ISO as low as you can. So always start at the lowest setting and work your way up until you get what you need. Stay as low as you can to keep the quality the best it can be. Generally most cameras look the same at low ISO's because they all perform well when there is plenty of light. The more expensive cameras like the Full frame D700 and Canon 5D, will work much better in low light than the others. That is where the price difference comes in. Anyone can shoot amazing pictures with plenty of light, when it gets darker, the pro's make it happen. Most digital cameras shouldn't be shot over 800 ISO to keep your images clean of noise. The newer D7000 I know has excellent noise capabilities. A lot of the newer cameras that are coming out now have been greatly improved and should have considerable reduced noise.
     On a happier note, if I can get to 500 likes on Facebook I will be giving away a Free portrait session ($150 value).

Would you like to take better pictures?

     On most of our portrait sessions I always get asked how I get the background to be so blurry. Most people think that it is some Photoshop trick that only pros know how to do. That is simply not the case. Anyone can purchase a 50mm F1.8 lens and get the same look. Lots of times I will use it so that the viewers attention is drawn to the subject I am photographing. Sometimes I use it because it is a pretty cool background. There are three major things to remember when using a camera. I am not talking about your point and shoot, although some have the options now too. I am referring to aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Those three terms are the major terms when talking technically about a camera. Today I will tackle Aperture. 

     Aperture is the only term of the three that is referring to the lens only. The F after the focal length of the lens is the Aperture. The lower the number, the more light the lens brings in. So a 50mm F1.4 lens brings in more light than a 50mm F2.8 lens. The increase in light however makes the depth of field more shallow. In other words, as you open the aperture up you lose the amount of area that is in focus. For instance a F1.4 lens might only have 1 inch in focus, where as a F2.8 would have 4-5 inches in focus. These are not exact numbers, but guesses. But you should be able to get the picture. The lower the number the more the blades in the back of the camera are open. That's right your camera has blades, pretty cool. An easy way to get this affect on your camera is to put your camera on the A setting, not Auto. And then play around with the thumb or finger wheel on your camera. You should see a drastic difference in pictures. 50 F1.8 lenses are a cheap alternative for spending a ton of money on pro level lenses, while still getting a great low light lens. All of them, Nikon or Canon, can be purchased for less than $150.00. Great investment for you hobbyists. 

    The above image is shot at F1.4, see how the flowers get fuzzy as you move away from the area in focus. Thanks for reading, if you are looking to learn more stay tuned, I am going to try and do a few more posts about Technical info.