Aperture and Shutter Speed - CONFUSION

[shp]

Okay, I was trying out for the candle theme and while taking the pictures I learned something interesting and yet confusing.

I used the candlelight setting that the camera had, and took quite a few good pictures, both in color and B+W. To me, the B+W looks better.

But, here's the thing. While looking at the bottom, I spotted the aperture and exposure settings.

F3.6 and 1/5

I was like, that's not right... They're both the "lowest" settings on my camera, and I learned that if one's "lower", the other has to "higher". Either the way
I'm thinking of this aperture/shutter speed (exposure, sorry) is wrong, or the camera was dumb... lol

Could someone please explain to me?

If I wanted to lower my aperture from f5.0 to f3.6, and let's say the exposure was 1/250 at its default, and then I would increase the exposure to 1/500 or 1/800.

Am I going the wrong way?



ALSO, the pictures came out rather blurry, but part of it's clear... Care to ellaborate why that is so?

[Saknika]

They're blurry from camera shake. That happens at low shutter speeds.

And if both are low, then it means you didn't have a lot of light. The less light you have, the wider you need the aperture and the slower you need the shutter, unless you're using a fill flash in some way.

[shp]

I was using a tripod. I will have to try again, though. I was at least nine, ten feet away from the candles and had used the zoom. It was broad daylight, too, but when the pictures were taken it looked like they were taken at night. I think I will use a lamp this time, lol.

And there wasn't any flash - the candlelight setting had disabled the flash, which I found useful.

[Saknika]

Without the flash you need longer shutter speeds. And clicking the shutter button, even when on a tripod, causes camera shake. Put it on timer mode as well, so that the camera has time to settle before the picture is actually taken, or it won't work right. On DSLRs, we tend to use mirror lock up mode to avoid it, but your camera doesn't have that.

[ScottWood]

Please don't use the term exposure to express shutter speed. Shutter speed is a component of exposure, as is the ISO setting and the aperture.

Aperture - This is how open the iris of the lens is. The lower the number, the more open it is. The more open it is, the more light that reaches the sensor. f:2 lets in more light than f:5.6.

Shutter speed - This is how long the shutter stays open. It is measured in a fractions of a second. You example had a shutter speed of 1/5 which means one fifth of a second. This is a very slow shutter speed. 1/5th of a second is much slower than something like 1/100th of a second. Some math is involved in this, but it is basic, and I am not here to teach math. :-)

ISO - This is how sensitive your sensor is to light. The lower the number, the more light that needs to hit the sensor. You can shoot in much lower light as the ISO setting goes up, but you have to be very careful as noise will work it's way into your images. You are always better off using the lowest possible ISO setting that you can.

All three of these things combine to determine what an exposure for an image will be.

[ScottWood]

As for the blur, it was because you had a very slow shutter speed and the flame was moving during the shot.

[ŋєт™]

Also try not to take pictures in B/W mode. Take everything in color to get the most information possible and change it to B/W in a photo editing program.

[Saknika]

Feb 3, 2010 14:11:56 GMT -5 ScottWood said:

As for the blur, it was because you had a very slow shutter speed and the flame was moving during the shot.

This idea never even occurred to me, but now that you say it, it does make sense.

[shp]

Well, the flames were actually quite clear. It was the roses that weren't. I don't plan to use the roses this time around - got a nice idea that might work.

I will resort back to using manual settings and starting at F3.6 and 1/5 (and go up while I work on the shutter speed), using macro mode and no-flash mode, along with the timer mode. It would only go as long as ten seconds, but I will use a tripod. Wish I had a shutter remote or something, lol.