Photography 101: Exposure Basics
Amazing! You’ve decided to elevate your creative ambitions and face the challenge of manual shooting with a camera! For many, this is an intimidating step. You look at your camera, and you’re seeing all these words, numbers, icons, and abbreviations.. and think: “Where do I even start?”
Before you put that camera down, take a breath, and let’s understand what everything means. The stronger your foundation, the better your house will stand. Though it may look intimidating, it’s actually easier than you might think.
To jumpstart your photography journey, it’s important to understand the concept of ‘exposure’. In the not too distant past, people used light-sensitive film to record their photos. Simply put, you exposed your film to light let in by your lens, hence the term ‘exposure’.
Nowadays, we use digital sensors to record photos, and your digital camera is an incredibly smart tool. It can measure whether your exposure is perfect, underexposed (too dark), or overexposed (too bright). This helps you quickly achieve correct exposure and become a better photographer by mindfully adjusting your camera settings.
During the film days, the only way to determine if you had a proper exposure was when the film was developed. Fortunately, you can now easily check on a screen if your exposure is on-point. And you have modern technology to thank for.
So, how can you influence your exposure through camera settings? To answer this questions, we’ll be looking at three factors:
Aperture
Shutter speed
ISO
When measuring light and exposure in photography, we refer to the amount of light as a ‘stop’ of light. You can add or reduce stops of by carefully adjusting a single setting or a combination of the three.
I invite you to head over to one of my below articles for the next step in your learning journey.
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