oh well hello there my little onions you can't be a great photographer if you don't know
how the exposure triangle works so in today's video I'm going to be showing you how the
exposure triangle works and how to make it work for you
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I am here to talk to you guys today about dog photography and dog photography in terms
of the exposure triangle if you guys are still using auto semi auto or another form of auto
settings or your on manual and you have no idea what to do then you definitely want to
be watching this video because this video will take your photographs from I don't know
how I got that to I know how to get that to I always get that because I am a great photographer
so think of the exposure triangle as an equalateral triangle an equalateral triangle if you remember
from your secondary school actually like primary school maths that is a triangle where all
of the sides have the same length and the angles in each of the corners are the same
so in the exposure triangle essentially what we do is we shift our 3 light controlling
settings to each corner of the triangle those corners are aperture shutter speed and ISO
im going to walk you through each one brielfy and hopefully you'll stick with me and we'll
come out at the end with you as a professional photographer and me as someone who could explain
it well enough for you to understand i'm going to start with aperture because it's like my
favourite thing in the world aperture is the size of the hole within the camera lens as
you can imagine a bigger hole will let more light through it and a smaller hole will let
less light through it the way that the light is controlled is by these things called aperture
blades which close around each other and make the hole smaller as the hole is bigger more
light can get through and the payoff for this is that less of the image is in focus this
can be a brilliant thing for people like me who take portraits because that means the
background is very blurry it also beautifully creates bokeh when you know how to create
bokeh bokeh is like fluffy stuff in the back of pictures the plus side of having a small
aperture ie a tiny hole ie a very large f number is that the image is in focus mostly
from right at the front to right at the back so for example if you're a landscape photographer
most of your shots are gonna want to be at f like 18 or like f22 or whatever else you
want as your f number f numbers all you need to know is that the bigger the hole the smaller
the number and smaller the hole the bigger the number so in a nutshell aperture is the
size of the hole within the lens a big hole lets more light through a small hole lets
less light through and a big hole makes nice blurry backgrounds and a small hole makes
most of the image in focus are you with me moving on to element of the triangle number
2 which is shutter speed shutter speed is quite straightforward essentially shutter
speed dictates the speed at which the shutter flips up to let light at the sensor and then
closes again when using a slow shutter speed the shutter is open for quite a while and
therefore all of the light fall through the hole when using a faster shutter speed the
shutter itself is open for a lot shorter period of time and therefore a lot less light gets
through the hole do you see where we're going with this of course there is a payoff with
shutter speed as well so the higher your shutter speed the more you freeze action but obviously
the less light gets through the lower your shutter speed the more you blur action and
the more light you let through two things that will let less light through into your
camera is a fast shutter speed and a small aperture ie a big f number the 3rd point on
the triangle is ISO now the term ISO is a bit confusing because it comes from film days
now in film days ISO was the sensitivity of the film to the light in modern days we've
just adopted this term and instead we have ended up with ISO meaning the sensitivity
of the sensor to the light instead of the film now as always theres a payoff with these
things and the higher the ISO number the more sensitive the sensor does get to light but
also the more noise there is in your photographs back in the day when this was all film noise
was a beautiful grain that went over your pictures nowadays noise is a horrific digital
mess over your pictures usually the more expensive your camera is the less noise you will see
on your picuture because the sensor can handle it better because the sensor is more expensive
more powerful better the lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light
but the less noise will be in your final images and therefore we like lower ISO numbers usually
if you've got a high ISO high noise image it looks better in black and white because
then you can emulate film noise so we've got the payoff for this with aperture the payoff
is that less of the image is focussed when you're letting in more light with shutter
speed the more light you let in the blurrier things are and with ISO the more sensitive
that sensor is to light the more noise will be in the picture so there's payoffs to all
3 of these now some photographers want the payoff some people want the negative for example
portrait photographers outdoor specifically want a low depth of field so that a lot of
the image is nice and blurry that's a payoff that we're happy to take similarly landscape
photographers who want to blur waterfalls and other such things those people won't mind
that more light is getting through into the sensor with a slower shutter speed because
they want things to be blurry ISO really is kind of the only one where noone wants it
the payoff i mean so just bare that in mind so we've got our triangle and things are on
the triangle we make sense of the triangle what we can do is look at our settings and
the situation in front of us and prioritise because prioritising really is the solution
to everything portrait photographers will want to prioritise their aperture most of
the time and also not want to go very high on their ISO so if they're in a situation
where they're using f2.8 for example which is a very big hole in the middle of your camera
lens and in that situation if you still have too much light coming through you can just
increase your shutter speed and that will knock off the extra light if however at a
arbitrary shutter speed which is 2 times the focal length of the lens because that's what
you need to do to minimise handheld camera shake you have got too little light getting
through at such a wide aperture then you need to increase the sensitivity of the sensor
and therefore increase your ISO just beware that the payoff will be more noise in a situation
where you're wanting to shoot action the tables turn because the priority is no longer aperture
the priority is instead shutter speed and in fact in this situation the shutter speed
should be the first thing that you change if you're wanting to slow down dogs moving
at full speed and by dogs I mean fast dogs moving at full speed you are gonna want to
be on 1500th to 2000th of a second those nths are hard to say in these situations where
you're at that high of a shutter speed the speed of the shutter is very fast and therefore
the amount of light getting through is slim to none in those situation you need to use
your other 2 corners of the triangle to compensate for the lack of light either by opening up
the hole in the lens reducing the number of the aperture or by increasing the ISO or in
most situations both if you're in a situation where you don't know what to do but your picture
is too dark think of all the things you can do to increase the light ie increasing the
sensitivity of the sensor by increasing your ISO number reducing the shutter speed to increase
the amount of light that gets through there or making the hole in the lens wider by reducing
your f number if your portraits are looking a bit flat the chances are that you are using
a aperture which is too small and therefore there is too much of the image in focus this
is why people pay a lot of money for fixed aperture glass which means that your aperture
remains constant throughout the zoom range of the lens in these situations a 24-70 2.8
or a 70-200 2.8 lens come into their own of course primes are also incredible if your
action photos are blurry then the chances are your shutter speed is too slow this is
the most common in fact its probably the only thing that will cause blur in a action scene
so you want to make sure that your shutter speed is high enough the sensitivity is there
on the ISO to compensate for the lack of light and also use a nice big wide aperture a big
wide aperture is as i have said before a lower f number those two things kind of confusing
if you've taken a picture and you're quite happy with the exposure and the settings that
you used but there is still too much noise never fear there is always a way in digital
processing tools to reduce the level of noise and therefore please click the video which
will be linked above and you will find the answers to that question there if you have
any questions about this just drop them in the comments section below I appreciate audience
participation and I read every comment and usually reply to them too i feel like that's
it there's not much more I can say about this to be fair just practice because really that
is the only way that you will get better it takes something to do with 1000 hours of practice
time to become an expert in any field and therefore get your hours in because otherwise
you won't be an expert like I said I really appreciate every single one of you guys thanks
so much for joining me and Im so looking forward to being back next week although it might
be less than a week because that's what I said at the start of this video if there's
something specific you want to see please drop that in comments below send me an email
or a carrier pidgeon because we've been there before and we're gonna go there again i hope
you're safe i hope you're well and i hope your healthy I'll see you again soon