Saturday, November 8, 2008

Photojournalism Tip #2: Get to Know Your Camera’s Exposure Settings (Maya Robinson)

Before you can confidently go on an assignment it is really important to understand your camera’s exposure settings. They control how much light strikes the image sensor and whether you have an image that can be published. The three most important things to know how to change are the aperture, f/stop, and ISO and then to understand how they are interconnected.

No matter the type of camera you have, all cameras have these settings. I started my photography with a simple Olympus where there were minimum features and I could focus on making the correct exposure choices. You don't need an expensive camera to take great photographs!

Once you know how to change these settings you'll be able to take better photographs. The best way to get to understand these settings is to take lots of pictures, experiment with those exposure settings and study your results. In photojournalism you need to know how to make exposure decisions quickly and confidently because news or sports happen fast.

~Maya

2 comments:

Johan said...

"The three most important things to know how to change are the aperture, f/stop, and ISO..." It should be Shutter Speed, Aperture (f-stop), and ISO. :-) I learned those on a nearly-all-manual Olympus OM-2, and knowing them and their relationship (reciprocity, I think) have sure come in handy now that I have a D-SLR. Thanks for the post. :-)

Jude said...

Interestinng thoughts