Went out this morning early to try and get to grips with aperture priority... was really just messing around tyring to work it out for myself!!!! Got a few ok one's, but then found this article that explains it for dummies like me and I wish I have read it before I went out!!!!! Linky I think I only got the shots I did because of the auto focus rather than choosing the right settings, but I will be having another go tomorrow now I have read that article A few questions, my lens has 3.5-5.6 which is the Maximum Aperture but most of the time it won't let me go lower than 5.6, is this due to the shutter speed?? And if so I would need to manually select a higher shutter speed to get down to that 3.5?? Also is it possible to sharp focus on a subject about 20 feet away and blur the background using a suitable aperture/shutter speed setting? For example the picture of this tree below, what settings would you be expecting to use to achive this? thanks for the help
You have some good results there - I especially like the second one. I assume your lens is a telephoto? Due to the laws of physics, it will have different apertures at different zooms. There are four different ways to set up your camera 1) automatic (also includes such things as sports mode/portrait mode) - the camera guesses the settings from what it sees, and sets the best combination of aperture/speed/ISO 2) aperture priority - this is a bit like semi-automatice - you set the aperture and the camera judges the speed according to the amount of light it requires. So if you set a large aperture such as F2.8, the shutter speed will be quite fast. 3) speed priority - similar to above, but you set the speed and the camera judges how much to open the shutter by guessing the aperture size needed to let in the right amount of light 4) manual - you have full control to set both the aperture and speed eg. if you were using studio lights, you'd meter the settings, then set your camera up accordingly. With 2), 3) and 4), if you set really ridiculous settings, you would get some strange results, probably over or under exposed, or the camera would refuse to shoot 'cos you are so much out of range of what it can cope with. The third factor is your ISO - this is the sensitivity of your film/sensor to light. Normally you would use the slowest (ISO 100 or ISO 200) as this give the finest detail, provided there's enough light. Higher ones, up to ISO 1600 or 3200 are more sensitive to light, so you can take photos in lower light conditions, but the trade-off is 'noise' - your pictures can become very grainy, like newspaper pictues. An idea to practice with would be to get alongside a fence, say, then try different aperture settings in several photos. You would then get an idea of which areas are in focus (DoF). Getting the tree in the third pic in focus with the foreground and background would be difficult, but not impossible, as usually the focussed area is near or far, not bang in the middle. Again, have a play around with your settings and show us what you get.
wanted to have a full day of it today but with everything being so dull and covered in snow it's not really going to help me... fingers crossed it's gone by tomorrow, great post btw very helpfull. Just went to a camera shop and had a look at a new lens, but think I might wait and get a decent sony one
One tip would be to try to avoid using live view. You can much better frame a shot using the viewfinder (the way you hold it doing so, makes for a more stable platform). Also you`ll find the camera suffers from `lag` when using live view, meaning you have to wait a few seconds before you take your next shot, whereas using the viewfinder you can take shot after shot (even if not in continuous shooting mode). Particularly important when you`re doing your nightclub shots I`d have thought...
cheers stu, have been trying to learn what the graphs mean etc and use the viewfinder more often than not... trouble I have is when trying to learn I change a few settings and then take more shots of the same thing - and in the viewfinder they look identical, get them back home and get it onto a 24" Mac screen and the difference is huge!!!! would be nice if I knew what was working when I'm out etc.... going to take loads of photo's today as its sunny
The view through the viewfinder will always be the same, regardless of the settings. Best thing to do, is frame your shot, and take the pic. Alter the settings, then shoot again. Do this as many times as you want, then you can scroll through what you`ve taken in `play` mode, so the differences can be compared easily.
youll probably find you have an exposure preview button on the front of the camera near the lens- this will "stop down" the diafragm in the lens so that you get a clear indication of the depth of field in the viewfinder while you compose the shot (although the viewfinder will go darker, you should be able to see how the depth of field will work out). might help you when using Aperture priority
don't have a button, I do have a very small jog wheel next to the viewfinder?? haven't used it yet might read the manual see what it does!!
The wheel will be to alter either ISO/aperture/shutter speed depending on what setting you are using (and can be selectable between each one if in full manual) That`s what it does on my Canon anyway...
mine has two, one large wheel which is similar to where the zoom would be on a compact - right next to the shutter button. But right next to the viewfinder is a really small extra one, might have a search see what it does
viewfinder focus? what does it do exactly? I thought the viewfinder was just a viewing whole? as in it always looks the same?
the viewfinder on a SLR camera actually looks through the lens on the front of the camera, through which the picture is taken, hence "single lens reflex". if you look at a normal compact camera it will have a separate lens on the front of the camera that the optical viewfinder looks through, this gives parallax error at close distances. the veiwfinder uses a mirror behind the lens to reflect the image upwards, and a pentaprism (bit of glass with 5 sides) in the top of the camera to re-orientate the image and focus it on the veiwfinder, as the distance from the back of the lens to the image sensor will be different to the distance from the back of the lens to the veiwfinder. The viewfinder focus is to just fine tune this focus slightly so the people who wear glasses can take pictures without their glasses on.
'Tis just a pity they don't accomodate people who need guide dogs, too! I'm really rubbish at manual focussing!
same here i just set it at 0 and keep my glasses on! DLSR focusing screens are crap anyway, my old canon AE1p was much easier to manual focus as it has a proper fresnel lens bit in the middle of the veiwfinder, which DSLR's tend not to have.
