Tutorial - DSLR Manual Basics
- Creston Wood
- May 13, 2020
- 7 min read
Finally getting a new camera can be exciting. You can't wait to take pictures just like the ones all your favorite photographers show off. Realizing that its not all automated to achieve these sought after shots can be intimidating. Not to worry though! Switching over to that big ol' "M" mode and learning how to apply the settings can build a powerful foundation to set you on the right track and become the master of the camera. You tell it what to do!
In this tutorial, I will go over my understanding of the three basic camera functions (ISO, aperture, and shutter speed) and how they all play a role in forming a cohesive image.
So now let's move on to the three basic settings you'll have to play around with aperture, ISO, and shutter speed.
APERTURE
So you've probably seen the little f/4 or f/5.6 or whatever number may follow that "f/" and wondered what it means? This is your aperture setting which is controlling the blades in your lens to open or close. These blades are either allowing more or less light to reach the camera's sensor. A smaller aperture such as f/16 will cause less light to come in, while a larger aperture such as f/1.8 will allow plenty of light come in. Note the contradiction in terminology, as a larger aperture refers to a smaller value and a smaller aperture refers to a higher value. Odd, yes, but in short the value is a fraction. So f/16 is 1/16, which is a smaller value than, say, 1/8. Still confused? That's okay, don't dwell on that last little bit of info too much.
So then what is the f stand for? Certainly not aperture! Rather, it stands for focal length. If you were to place the focal length your shooting at in place of the "f," you've got yourself a little equation! Calculating this simple little bugger gives you the diameter of the aperture opening if you were to look through the front element of the lens. For example, if I were shooting at 600 mm focal length at f/6.3, 600 divided by 6.3 equals 95.24, but let's just call it 95 mm.
So now we have a fairly in depth knowledge behind all those crazy numbers representing the aperture. In short, a smaller number means more light, a bigger number means less light. They also have another effect though! However open you have your aperture affects the depth of field which is the range of things that will be in focus. A wider aperture tends to have a smaller depth of field. This is advantageous to really separate a subject, making their background a smooth array of colors referred to as "bokeh." A more closed aperture will increase the range of the depth of field, making more in the picture become sharp and in focus.
Enough blabbering, let's see some examples!
Meet Krusty. Krusty is a crab that is perpetually greeting me everyday in my office. Here, we can clearly see Krusty. He is sharp, in focus, and clean, while everything behind him (and in front!) is blurry. What is that blob in the far back? This photo was taken at f/1.8, quite a wide aperture.
Without changing focus, I took another picture at f/5.6. We can start to see the depth of field increase. While Krusty remains in focus, the shell behind him begins to creep into focus and we can make out what the object is in the far back!
Finally, everything is sharp, clean, and in focus at f/16! Kinda... The penguin in the back isn't perfectly in focus. This has to do with the focal length and how close our object was (Krusty), but we'll briefly talk about that in a bit.
Be mindful, as the distance the object is from your camera in relation to its focal length can also affect the depth of field. In short, objects that are closer will tend to be focused in on more, leaving a heavy bokeh at a wide aperture, while distant objects will still seem in focus, the depth of field's range will appear greater.
So now we've covered some basics of aperture!
In short:
A wider aperture (lower value) will increase light intake while decreasing depth of field range.
A smaller aperture (higher value) will decrease light intake while increasing depth of field range.
ISO
ISO is important, but relatively simple. It refers to the sensitivity of the sensor in your camera. When you have a low ISO, such as ISO 100, you will have a grain-free image, but may need decent lighting. In contrast, a high ISO, such as ISO 6400, will produce a grainy image but will compensate for lack of light. However, this is a general rule of thumb to go by, as different cameras performs better or worse along with how high and low you can crank the ISO.
For the most part, you want to keep the ISO as low as you possibly can. While sometimes you need to crank it up in order to get a shot, the lower it is, the less grainy your image will come out.
Let's see some examples!
Hey there, Krusty! He's looking as good as before. We have some nice lighting coming in through the windows along with the lighting in the room, so we can shoot at ISO 100. He's clean and sharp! No worries here! Notice the heavy bokeh? This was shot at f/1.8 and Krusty was pretty close the lens front element! Applying from the aperture section. ;)
Uh oh! The blinds got shut and the lights went out! Gotta crank up the ISO to 1250. It's not bad and certainly usable. A little bit of grain as compared to before.
Let's increase the shutter speed (We'll get to that next!) and crank up the ISO to 10,000! Ick, that's a bit of grain. Salvageable, but certainly not ideal.
Let's go all out. Let's turn this sucker up to ISO H2.0 (Equivalent of ISO 52,000)!
Nasty. Don't even bother! You can salvage it a tiny bit perhaps with a lot of TLC, but realistically not usable.
Play with your camera and find out which ISO you feel is too much! It all depends camera to camera. While I would be wary of pushing 6400 on my D810, my D500 performs fairly well at ISO 6400, and even above!
So now we've covered the basics of ISO, nice! So in short:
A lower ISO is preferred, but requires more lighting. It produces less grain in the image.
A higher ISO isn't preferred, but may be needed when lighting is scarce. It produces higher grain.
SHUTTER SPEED
The final piece to the puzzle!
Shutter speed controls how long your sensor is being exposed to the light you're trying to capture. This is controlled by, well... the shutter! It essentially serves as a curtain that is blocking light from reaching your sensor, only opening for however long you specify it when you hit the shutter release button. While your sensor is exposed, it is picking up everything that is happening while it is bringing in light. If you've ever heard of "long exposure photography," we're starting to get into that.
This number is often represented by seconds or fraction of seconds on your camera settings. A fast shutter speed would be something like 1/2000, which is saying the shutter will open and close in only 1/2000th of a second... that's half of a millisecond... WOW. Essentially, the sensor will capture anything it sees within this 0.5 millisecond. This how you see images where drops of water seem frozen in time or similar fast moving objects are clear. While this sounds fine and dandy, you often need ideal lighting to shoot at very high shutter speeds, as the sensor is only able to bring in light for that 0.5 milliseconds or however long.
In contrast, a slow shutter speed, such as 3 seconds will bring in plenty of light, sometimes too much! This can also lead to fast moving objects becoming blurry. If done right, you can harness this ability to your advantage though. This is how images of fast moving streams turn out to show a dynamic milky white river that really captures the movement of the water. Just be careful not to move your camera while it is taking a picture! Otherwise, the image will come out as one big blur!
So I'll pull up an example of each a fast shutter and slow shutter speed being used.
In this image below, a reddish egret is shaking all that yummy water off. If taken at a normal shutter speed, the droplets of water would appear blurry or as grainy objects flying everywhere. Since a fast shutter speed of 1/2000 was used, the droplets of water seem to freeze in mid air.
If I was to take an image of this waterfall at a fast shutter speed, you may be able to see the droplets of water coming off of it. Since I used a slow shutter speed of 3 seconds, the dynamic power of the water movement appears in a milky, smooth blanket.
Shutter speed is completely essential and often one may have issues with when photographing fast moving objects. Practice and play around with it, and soon you will already know how fast that shutter needs to close to capture that osprey coming in for it's lunch!
In short:
A fast shutter speed will freeze objects in place, but requires good lighting.
A slow shutter speed will blur moving objects, but bring in a ton of light.
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER
With an understanding of all three, the most important step now comes into play... GETTING ENOUGH LIGHT. If it's twilight and you want to get a photo of a swooping owl at 1/2000 of a second, ISO 100, and F/16... Well it ain't gonna happen. You'll go home with a nice image of... black... just black. You're not letting in enough light, especially if it's during twilight or other low light times/areas.
Now, if you were to risk it at 1/1600 of a second, ISO 6400, f/5.6... you may get something usable (depending on how deep into dusk we are!)
The same goes for if I wanted to take a long exposure of a river at 10 seconds, ISO 100, and f/1.8 on a sunny day. While the ISO is good, your aperture may be way too open, and you'll end up with a completely white image. This is too much light! While there are things to purchase to compensate for this, such as dark neutral density filters... well... that is a different story.
If you were to try again at 3 seconds, ISO 100, and f/16, you'll probably have better luck and get that image you were hoping for.
The main takeaway should be that all of these play a role together, and adjusting one setting often means you're going to have to adjust another setting to compensate and maintain a good exposure.
How did I learn to get a grip on these? Play around... play around... and play around... Who cares if your image is completely blown out by lighting? Adjust the settings and try again! Try fast moving objects, still photography, low light photography, indoor photography, anything. Just play around on Manual mode and don't ever think about putting it back to automatic.
Don't let the camera produce what IT wants, tell it to produce what YOU want!
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