Help needed on f-stops and iso

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11 Jun 2004 - 9:29 PM

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bppowell (e2 Member)

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11 Jun 2004 - 9:39 PM

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ISO - this is a measure of the speed of the film.

If you shooting in low light you have to have a longer exposure, by increasing the ISO value it should make for a better result. Increase too much though and noise will spoil they result. So you have to find a happy balance.

F-Stop, This controls the diameter of the lens. Combined with the shutter speed they dictate just how the shot will be taken.

F-stop controls the depth of field by adjusting the amount and intensity of light getting through to the film/CCD and the shutter speed controls how long the light is allowed through for.

Hope this makes sense.

Barry

ukuwi

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11 Jun 2004 - 9:46 PM

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Thank you Barry for your post and knowledge, the ISO bit I can grasp, and it seems like I will have to do some trial and error, to understand it better, but the f-stop, whooosh, straight over my head, any chance of that in English, the shutter speed bit I get, but how do you know what f-stop setting to use, if possible, could you give me an example, thanks

FrankThomas (e2 Member)

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11 Jun 2004 - 9:52 PM

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Think of a hose pipe, look at the shutter speed as the pressure of water flowing thru the hosepipe and the aperture as the diameter of the hosepipe. For any "Flow rate" (i.e. exposure) there are a number of different combinations of water pressure and hose diameter.

Normally you either pick the shutter speed and let the camera sort out the aperture or pick the aperture and let the camera sort out the shutter speed. If you want control of how the speed of something is recorded, either sharp or blurred then you set the appropriate shutter speed.

If you want to control the depth of field, then you pick whichever aperture gives you the DOF you want and the camera sorts out the rest.

If you want a shallow DOF then you set as wide an aperture as possible (F2.8 or so) but if you want the whole thing sharp front to back, then you stop the lens down to F22 or thereabouts

Hope that makes sense

ukuwi

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11 Jun 2004 - 9:56 PM

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did you add that bit on the end afterwards, or did I just not read your comment properly, sorry for the mistake.

ukuwi

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11 Jun 2004 - 9:59 PM

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Ok, I mainly take portraits, and I want to have nice sharp shots, not bothered about dof, as my backgrounds are usually blank, so does that mean a higher value f-stop?, in auto mode, it normally reads 2.4.

FrankThomas (e2 Member)

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11 Jun 2004 - 10:00 PM

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it depends on the camera - most of the "program" or "auto" modes will try and set as high a shutter speed as possible to minimise camera shake. For an ideal portrait, you want a wide aperture (2.4 or whatever it is) so that the background goes out of focus

(ps - Peter, Mine doesn't have point and hope either, it's manual or manual)

FrankThomas (e2 Member)

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11 Jun 2004 - 10:03 PM

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no worries - took me ages to get the hang of it too