A Path Into the Woods

(Note:  This is lesson 10 in my “How It’s Done Series“)

This is the final lesson in the technicalities chapter of “How It’s Done”.   By now you should be able to take technically competent photos.  You have been issued a license to experiment.  The subjects we covered might have seemed complicated.  But, believe it or not, with enough practice everything we talked about in the past nine lessons will become second nature.  You will be able to make decisions by feel rather than thought.  In this lesson I am going to try to show you how I think about the technicalities while I am out shooting photos.  This is intended as both a review of the material already covered and hopefully an insight into how things become easier with some practice under your belt.

The camera setting I always base technical thought process around is aperture.  I almost always am in aperture priority mode (Av mode).  When I am in Av mode I feel like I am standing on solid ground.  For instance, imagine I am shooting hand held in marginal light.   I have my camera in Av mode and the aperture is set to f/8.  Let’s say the meter is giving me a shutter speed of 1/20th second (remember in Av mode the photographer sets the aperture value and then the light meter calculates the correct shutter speed for the light).  Since I am hand holding the camera I am not happy with that slow shutter speed.  While in Av mode I know I have two options that will get me a faster shutter speed:  open the aperture or increase ISO.  Now, I have to decide what trade off I am willing to make.  If I bump up the ISO I’m going to increase the noise in the photo.  If I open the aperture I am going to loose depth of field.  What choice I make depends on the subject.  If depth of field doesn’t matter, I’ll open the aperture.  If I need the depth of field then I bump up the ISO.  Or maybe I split the difference and do a little of both.  That thought process takes less than a second and, most likely I will change my mind a switch settings a few shots down the line.  Photography is not about knowing an exact setting to go to for every situation.  It’s more important to know how to adjust, and readjust, and keep dialing things in until you’re happy with the results.

What about exposure compensation?  It’s important not to over think exposure compensation.  If you are taking a photo of something darker than neutral gray try dialing down the Ev a little.  Take a photo and look at the results on your LCD.  Does it look alright?  If the photo looks too dark move the Ev back towards the center and try again.  Or, maybe your photo still looked too bright.  In that case pull the Ev back another notch or two.  It’s really that basic — lots of trial and error.  After you do enough of this mucking around you’ll develop a feel for your meter.  Pretty soon you’ll find yourself dialing in the right Ev value by just looking at a scene.  You won’t have to bracket much anymore.  Other times you’ll get stymied and you’ll have to do a ton of bracketing.  It happens to the best of us.

Now that you kind of know what you’re doing it’s time to do some playing.  Use all sorts of apertures.  Fiddle with the exposure compensation.  If your camera is set at f/8 and Ev +0 for more than a couple frames in a row, you’re doing something wrong.  Don’t be afraid to fall flat on your face.  The best opportunities for learning come from mistakes.  I have a hard drive full of garbage photos.  They don’t haunt me.  They are my foundation, my path to the top of the mountain.

So where do we go from here?    I’m sure some of my more astute readers have noticed that we haven’t touched on white balance since lesson two.  There is a reason.  Remember way back in lesson one when I told you to shoot in RAW mode?  I wasn’t joking.  You should be shooting in RAW and, that’s where “How It’s Done” is headed next — Photoshop RAW converter.  I’ll teach you how to set the white balance and about 500 other things.  Stay tuned.  I am going to take a break from the lesson writing until after the holidays, but in January come back ready for some Photoshop Learnin’.

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