The Camera and Exposure

SLR vs. Range Finder Cameras

SLR – Single Lens Reflex What You See is What You Get In the SLR camera both the image previewed and the image captured are identical The SRL camera has only one optical path, and it is into the lens

It is inside the SRL camera where the image is diverted between the preview and captured modes. A hinged mirror is the diverting mechanism. In the preview mode, the mirror reflects the light up into a prism and out the preview window When the shutter is activated the mirror "pops up", and the light is diverted into the image recording-medium

Basic Camera Operations

Keeping Your Lens Clean

Dirty Mirror inside your SLR

Don’t touch the Shutter Blades

Camera Cleaning Tools

Exposure is a term that is used to express how much light impacts the film f-stop (aperture) and Shutter Speed are Exposure Combinations

Light and the Shutter Speed: To expose film correctly, so that your picture is neither too light nor too dark, you need to control the amount of light that reaches the film. In manual operation, you control both the shutter speed and the aperture (f/stop) opening.

Shutter Speed Small aperture, slow shutter f/16 1/8 Medium aperture, medium shutter speed f/4 1/60 Larger aperture, fast shutter speed f/2 1/500

Aperture: Size of Lens Opening Controls the brightness of the light that reaches film – like the pupil of an eye Size indicated by f-stop Largest admits most light Each stop after admits half the light of previous one i.e. f/4 half as much as f/2.8

Aperture f/2.8 f/4 f/5.6 f/8 f/11 f/16 f/22 Aperture/F-stop Bigger f-stop number, the smaller the lens opening and the less light that is let in. As the number gets bigger (4, 5.6, 8), the aperture size gets smaller and the amount of light admitted decreases.

Depth of Field Depth of field is a phrase that defines a measure of distance that spans a distance ahead of and behind a subject focused on; and, within that distance the image is fairly sharp. The distance ahead of and behind the subject is not equal. Generally the distance ahead of the subject is 1/3 of the depth of field range. This is illustrated in Figure 5.1. The depth of field is shown in color. The red line represents the subject and at the bottom is the camera location.

The two images have the same exposure but with radically different combinations of shutter speed and f-stop. Which exposure combination is producing the largest depth of field? 1/125 1/8 sec 1/125 sec f/4 (Figure 6.2) 1/ 60 sec f/5.6 1/ 30 sec f/8 1/ 15 sec f/11 1/ 8 sec f/16 (Figure 6.1)

Aperture and Depth of Field: “Shallow” f/2 and lens focused on boy (b) in middle – about seven feet away from photographer

Aperture and Depth of Field: “Deep/Wide” f/16 and lens focused on boy (b) in middle – about seven feet away from photographer

Shutter Speed The amount of time the shutter remains open

Shutter Speed: Length of time light reaches film The faster the shutter speed, the more likely a moving subject will be sharp. i.e. 1/125 or 1/250

Shutter Speed: Fast 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000,…

©Alan Sailer

Image by Diego Diaz

Adam Panczuk, Images from In the Rhythm of the Land

Shutter Speed: Slow Camera is steady during this slow exposure, i.e. 1/30 or 1/15

Image by Ondra Soukup

Image by Dean Ayres

Image by Mikel

Adam Panczuk, Images from In the Rhythm of the Land

Alexy Titarenko, from the project City of Shadows

Panning Both the subject and the camera were moving on a slow shutter speed, i.e. 1/15, 1/30, 1/60 – “panning” Rule of thumb: the faster your subjects are moving, the faster you use the shutter, i.e. 1/100

Photo by fabbriciuse

Photo by Flash Parker

How to Pan *Select Low shutter speed *Track your subject *Best to be parallel with subject *Press shutter down to take the picture *You might need to pre-focus and make sure your subject stays in the right area of the shot *Press shutter speed as smoothly as possible and follow your subject through even after you take the picture to make sure there is no motion blur

Some example images using minimum and maximum depth of field and slow shutter

Linda Butler

Ralph Eugene Meatyard