Help me learn...

[x3ro]

Aperture..... shutter speed..

I'm a complete newb.. I want to take better pics... I have a Panasonic FZ5... The AUTO modes are pretty good... How do I learn to controle aperture and shutter speed together? How do I learn where to use what aperture? And where to learn what shutter speed?

Some other things I dont know anything about:

metering... spot metering, center weighted metering, average???

help! :o :eek:

[StevenUC]

yo Xero, just do what I do. I go to U of T for Crim & Poli Sci, but I head over to the Photography lectures provided by the Fine Arts & Visual Studies Department, a univeristy level education in photography for $0, aside from the money I pay in my own tuition lol .

[akysiev]

For real quick answers, here they are:

1. Aperture - It's measured in f-stops and is an indicator of how wide open the diaphragm inside your lens is. The smaller the f-number, the wider the diaphragm, and your aperture, is. The larger the f-number, the smaller the diaphragm is. A smaller aperture will lead to less light entering through the lens. Why would you ever need a smaller aperture then?

Depth of field. Depth of field is an indicator of how much of the image is acceptably sharp. Take, for instance, a typical image of a tree. If you focus on the tree with a wide aperture, you may find that the foreground and background are all blurred while the tree is in focus. However, stop down (decrease) the aperture and eventually the background and foreground start to be more clear.

The actual depth of field equation uses distance, focal length and aperture. You may increase the zone of acceptable focus by either moving away from the subject, decreasing focal length, or lowering aperture. In practice, aperture will be the determining factor for depth of field because you'll need to modify the other two for compositional purposes.

So, lower your aperture to get more of the image in focus. Simple isn't it? A commonly used method for applying depth of field is focusing at the hyperfocal point. Technically, to find the hyperfocal point you would do this: Focus at infinity. Find where the image starts to be clear. That's your hyperfocal point. Now you can focus at infinity all the time and get clear shots from the hyperfocal point onwards. However, there's a different way to use the hyperfocal point. After determining it, focus at the hyperfocal point and suddenly everything midway from the camera to the hyperfocal point and onwards is clear. So, if a tree is 30 meters away, you need to find an aperture that gives you a hyperfocal point of 60 meters in order to get the tree and everything beyond it to be clear.

If you're interested, the actual hyperfocal equation can be written as focal length^2 / (CoC * 2^(aperture/2)) (I think, someone verify please), where CoC is the Circle of Confusion but I'm not going into that because it becomes too technical.

A great hyperfocal calculator is at http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html.

2. Shutter speed is how long your medium, in this case your CCD, is exposed to light coming through your lens. Slower shutter speeds will allow more "frames" of light to hit your CCD. Thus, when you have a slower shutter speed and a moving object in your frame, the object will become blurred. Often it is necessary to increase your shutter speed in order to compensate from the light loss caused by lowering your aperture for more depth of field.

3. To control your aperture and your shutter speed together, set your camera to the "M" or Manual mode. I'm not familiar with the FZ5 but I do know that it has that capability.

4. Overall, using aperture and shutter speed is a matter of preference. Every photograph for every photographer will have a unique shutter speed and aperture combination based on what the photographer wants to show. Experimentation is a good way to become familiar with aperture and shutter speed.

One example is water. For freezing the water in place, you'll want to use a fast shutter speed. For a smooth, flowing feel for the water, you'll want to use a slower shutter speed. It all depends on what you want as a photographer.

5 & 6. Metering is a way to determine how close to "proper" exposure a spot, subject, or scene is. Camera metering systems are usually TTL, or Through-the-Lens, so they measure the amount of light being reflected from the object that the camera is pointed at. This measurement of reflected light is called spot metering. However, don't be tricked into thinking that your meter is always right! Camera spot meters are made to determine correct exposure from a reflected light source that has a grey value of 18%. So in areas with snow or other odd types of material, your camera's meter will be fooled because it will still assume that the reflected light is 18% grey. However, most common objects do follow the 18% grey standard, or at least come close to it.

7. Center weighted metering is another method used by your camera to meter. Instead of taking the light reflected from just a tiny spot, which is spot metering, the camera takes light reflected from things all around the center of the frame and then averages the results. It's good for point and shoot and can be okay as an alternative to spot metering. If your camera, like mine, does not support spot metering and only a center weighted average, zoom in on what you want to meter and then it should be a more accurate reading.

8. By average I'll assume that you mean full-frame average. It's the same as center weighted, just applied throughout the entire frame. Be especially careful about this one since it can be fooled easily. Bright backgrounds (sunsets) can cause foreground subjects to come out underexposed if you follow the meter since it will compensate for the brightness. Similarly, dark backgrounds and bright foreground subjects (small lamp in front of big dark ocean) will cause the photo to come out overexposed since the metering system compensates for the extreme darkness.

Alright, that was quite lengthy but I hope I answered your questions. Of course, my answers are not so detailed so consider buying a few books about all this if you're really into it. A good book that will help in general, imo, is Lee Frost's Complete Guide to Night and Low-Light Photography.

But remember, the key thing is to keep taking photos.