RH.

Set your camera to apeture priority and shoot
the same subject with every F stop
your lens is capable of. Should be a dozen
or so setting from around 4.5 to 22.

Notice that at a wide open setting like 4.5
Only the subject is in focus, while at a small aperture like F 22 both
Foreground and background are fully in focus.
Shooting lots will help lots.

The moon is fuking boring...no offense. And kill those ducks and put 'em in a labs mouth if you want some worth looking at. Hugs and kisses.

Lol...you could have sent me a thank you pm back to you pile of chit.

Dave,

interesting, kinda got basic knowledge now, buuuut, theres a catch... this camera doesnt take "that" great of pictures in low light or really inside, so i have to use the flash, thats why you see the green glows in all of my cats eyes obviously you would know that... the buuuuut part, i started at 3.8 (lowest) and went to 32 (highest), and each time the picture got darker and darker... that leads me to think that the higher the stop, the less amount of light allowed in... correct?

CT, you had some good points as well, and i started thinking, i know about ISO since im not new to film or digital, but didnt know how it really worked, just that what i was taking pictures of, i needed 400-800 speed film... so, after i did what Dave suggested, i switched it to the Tav mode, which is Ap and Shutter priority, and started messing with the front dial as well... then it all made some sense on what ive been doing...

what i gathered, is that even outside, i can make the pictures too dark, especially when the shutter is high, it doesnt allow enough light in... so i started messing with shutter and apperature and figured out a general consensus of what i can do, right now, without even reading into it... buuuut, it was more complicated than i thought lol....

thanks for the help, its only gonna get better

I'm gettin me that dang ol ts4. No fancy shots, but a camera for my lifestyle. Thnx coley an co.

And a go pro to catch the tweekers that stole my tools....

Rh

Correct low F stop equals wide open shutter and very
little depth of field. High F stop equals
small shutter opening and more depth
of field


To shoot in low light with no flash require slow shutter
which means you need a tripod
A higher ISO will allow faster shutter
but photos will get grainy at ISO greater than
800.

". . . i started at 3.8 (lowest) and went to 32 (highest), and each time the picture got darker and darker... that leads me to think that the higher the stop, the less amount of light allowed in... correct? . . ."

RH,

If you're just figuring this out after playing with cameras for years, you're still on page one of basic photography. Check with shops as well as your community college for a one or two-day photography class or workshop. They will teach you more than you've taught yourself in the last 10 years or more.

Vedder is getting you in the right direction.

Another way to 'cheat' low light/ indoors, is to shoot with a very open aperture (low f #) which gathers the most available light. You will also have to slow down the shutter to gain more light. Try not to go below 1/40 sec, or you will see blur just from your breathing/etc., without a tripod. Don't go past 800 (I don't go past 640) on your iso.

Also watch your white balance settings (WB). These can realllllly effect the color tones and brightness . Each setting has a symbol; lightbulb for incandescent light (indoors), sun for sunny outdoors, shade/cloud for overcast or shady situations, flor. tubes for indoorflorescentlighting.

Take LOTS of shots, take notes on what you like/don't like, then look at the image properties for clues/settings.

I don't see these settings on my I-phone.

one way to get better brightness at small f stops, f22 for example is to adjust the ISO.

You'll probably see them at the family reunion this summer.

Salmo, pretty much correct, although i can do alot more with what i have than most basic people can do with theirs, i can also operate pretty much any camera and get decent results, but you are right, im pretty much on square 1, just at a little higher level than just "basic"...

Dave and Twitch, thanks, i do plan on taking a ton of pictures, and just figured something else out just a minute ago... there was a chopper flying around just a second ago, and i grabed the camera and went outside, well, 1st shot was really bright, and you could barely see the helo, second wasnt as bad after i raised the F stop and ISO, but i didnt get very clear shots as it was cutting through the trees and stuff... so what i learned, is that even on overcast days, if i point directly at the sky and take pictures, i will need to adjust the shutter and ISO so that the image isnt too bright and it drowns out the actual subject... this will come in really handy when i go to airshows this year...

THANKS!!!

If you are in desperate need for available light, set your iso on 200 - 400, and leave it alone.

Adjust shutter more than any other setting. WATCH YOUR LIGHT METER (usually some sort of bar system on the display/viewfinder) then adjust your shutter to balance.

Run aperture from 4.0 - 7.1 for run of the mill picture taking. Run higher than 7.1 if you reallly want a lot of depth, i.e., landscape shots. Run lower then 4.0 when you a) really need light b) really want shallow depth of field. Everyday shots: f/5.0 - 6.3

Taken inside, no flash.

f/2.2 - Notice that this was too shallow to capture the full depth of the flower in focus.

Shutter: 1/800

Iso: 250 - as low as possible to avoid grain

Say you want short depth of field (open aperture, gathering more light) but you are in bright sunlight... adjust with shutter speed.

f/3.2
Shutter 1:1600
Iso 250

i was just messing around outside, i dont have live flowers to take pics of, so i took pics of dead ones... i can get decent shots with ample light (its getting dark here) but the shutter speed needs to be around 1/10th or 1/20th, when i go to 100-4000, the picture gets darker and darker, untill you get so high up its just black...

so with that said, i can go higher on shutter speed when in bright light, but not in overcast/limited light, i need to stay with 1/20th to 1/50th or so shutter to allow the little available light around in... correct?

i think i need to just breathe and slow down, ive been doing so much lately that i forget what i did, and start confusing myself... plus im just taking pictures of random sh!t, instead of stuff id like to take, like a river bank, or an osprey eating a fish or something... im gonna head to the river in the next coming days just for photos since its closed to fishing, and get in the situations of where i like to actually take pictures... which isnt of dead flowers in my neighbors yard LOL...

thanks Eric and Dave, you guys have helped me tremendously, still got a ton of reading to do, ill try and knock half that out tonight...

if theres enough light, ill take some shots of my dads Strat tonight, much more eye appealing than dead flowers...

Or, say you want to blur motion (this case water) by sloooooowing the shutter down, but you don't want too much light (from the slow shutter) then combat it by closing down the aperture.

f/13
Shutter 5 sec.
Iso 400

so THATS how you guys get water to look like ceran wrap over the water... with that slow shutter speed, thats using a tri pod right? obviously?

THANKS!!!

Nothin' wrong with dead flower shots