Im sure those settings have some technical name, but I am quite appreciative of your descriptions..."cloud in front of the sun" is something I understand.

I am getting some gray at the temples, so it is time to color. Perhaps Miss Clairol blonde would look good on me. :D

OK - so here is a close up cropped of the best one. I could paint from this.

At some point I wouldn't mind learning the correct names as well. For now though - I dont mind looking silly here if I can learn something. I know everyone reading this is laughing at me - I dont care! So there - :o ;)

What I am wondering about is photographing my art. So far (without knowing about the ISO) I hadnt been using the ones I took outside because of glare. I had been using the same P setting with the WB set at the lightbulb - since I was taking them inside. This is something I really need to learn asap as my photos of my paintings are way off.

Are you noticing your shutter speed as you do this? You only want enough to do the job. If you are using a tripod you aren't proving much (stationary camera, stationary subject). But if it's hand held you can see what the minimum SS would be for you to hold steady.

Yes Mike - I was noticing the shutter speed. I did these hand-held and of course my movement could be a problem as well. It is hard to determine what speed is going to look the best once I get the photos to the computer. I guess that would come with time and experience?

Oh Kim - thanks so much. Being the parent of a troubled teen right now, I am always in need of a good laugh, and you SO helped me this morning. (I wasn't laughing AT you - more like WITH you - because i've been there, right where you are, when i got my Rebel.)

For those who don't have a Rebel, here are the little symbols to which Kim is referring. (Kim - this book came with my camera - did you not get one of these?)

Anyway - I learned a lot from this thread about ISO. My last photo shoot yielded ghost images in my sitter's eyeballs - double-vision - even with the tripod - I was shooting at an ISO of 100. Now I know that was the problem! Thanks, Mike!

Kim - this is page 51 in the manual.

For ISO (page 50).

Cindy -

Thanks for posting this. Glad to be useful this am. ;)

Yes I got the **(*^!! book. It is helpful, but not if you dont understand what ISO means in the first place. I had bought another book just about the Rebel at Barnes & Noble and was working my way through that. I need to now go back and read the original manual now.

Here is the thing - if you are not experienced with this and someone starts talking 'shutter speed' - there is no way to understand. How the heck would I know what the shutter speed should be? Just the other day I took a photo in low-light and it took forever to click. It was an 'a-ha' moment for me. So THIS is when I need to speed up the shutter.

I've been saying for years that I need a class in basic photography. This forum may be quicker and more useful though.

That should have been an "a-ha" moment. A tenth of a second is an eternity for the aperture to be open. Much movement can take place in this amount of time.

For hand held operation an experienced photographer on solid footing without any wind can manage as low as 1/30 of a second. Not something you want to strive for. You might shoot for 1/60 as a minimum. For tripod use this would not be a problem. That takes care of your end of the camera.

For the other end of the camera -- an adult can hold steady enough for 1/30 but again, it's not something to strive for. Children are a whole other smoke. I would want to be 1/100 of a second and 1/200 would be better for the little ones.

Remember, additional speed does not add any quality to your image. It only allows you to stop the action, subtle as it may be. In fact, if you are using ISO to gain SS you are arguably loosing quality as you go farther up the speed ladder.

I have on my Nikon a feature called "Auto ISO" which allows me to set a minimum shutter speed (say 1/60). If the available light is such that the SS drops below this number it will automatically bump up the ISO until the SS gets to my target minimum. Pretty handy, I don't know if your camera has this. If it does I would recommend you use it. I am so used to managing this manually from my film days I have a hard time letting go.

Another stupid question Mike -

When you say 1/30 of a second - that would be an ISO of 30? So when you say 1/200 for kids that would be the 200 ISO setting - correct?

That scares me since in those Barbie shots I didn't get anything decent under 800. And she wasn't moving. Maybe too much coffee.

No my dear. Shutter speed (1/30 th of a second) is totally separate from the ISO number. You can influence SS by changing the ISO, but you cannot influence ISO by changing the SS.

ISO's will range from 100 to 1600 on your camera. Remember when you bought a roll of film? You had several choices of what was called "film speed." That was actually the ISO setting. The ISO definition gets slightly convoluted when going from film to digital, but you could think of it as film speed.

Try this -- without actually taking a picture, set your ISO to 100 and find something specific to point at. Notice the exposure in the viewfinder. You will see two numbers -- the SS and the aperture. It might read: 1/125 ... 5.6. Make note of the one on the left, this is the SS.

Now change the ISO to 400 and point at precisely the same spot. Notice that the SS has increased by a pretty good margin. This is the number you want to monitor. You want to get this number into the 1/125 range with the minimum increase of ISO. At this kind of SS you can stop the movement of most folks in pose. It might not freeze a person running the 100 dash, but that's another story. It's amazing that the SS can go all the way to 1/8000 th of a second. This sort of speed can almost stop a speeding bullet.

See Mike I am not the only blond here!

Maybe Kim wants to know what the 1/30 is by the number that shows up on the shutter speed info. There are numbers like -3 or 3.

If I knew this was going to last forever I would have posted new art work. But thanks for all your help. Now you have to add a Rebel to your bag!

Ahh - Ok. Thank you kind sir. I did this -
The way it was shown was at IS 100 it said 0"03 - then at ISO 400 it said 13. (that would be 1/130 correct?).

This is photography for dummies for sure.


Now - my aperture said 4.5. I have no idea what this is. Just thought I'd throw that out there in case you wanted to explain that as well.

I really do appreciate this Mike!

Kim,

Look at it this way -- The ISO setting is something you set as a parameter, like you would the white balance or the size of your Jpeg image. It remains set even when you turn your camera on and off.

The shutter speed, however, is a very dynamic number that changes constantly as the scene [light] coming into the camera changes.

Beth,

This may be an exposure compensation. My camera will adjust in increments of 1/3 of a "stop."

I think the DPreview site is very helpful in describing the different switches of various cameras.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos300d/

SHEESH, ya'll are WEARING me out! I was following along just fine until these last few and now that ill feeling is sinking over me that I just want to give the camera back. My brain is trying to take in too much today, maybe I should read it again tomorrow. :bewildere

I need to go somewhere quiet.

This was on the DPreview site:

Lets go back to film for a moment. You know that the surface of the negative strip was treated with chemicals and "stuff" that was highly sensitive to light. The more light that it was exposed to the more it reacted. When it was exposed to just the right amount of light it would recreate the scene.

If you turned your camera around and looked into the lens and snapped a picture with a very slow shutter speed you might get a glimpse of what looks like a black curtain that can open in the center and appear as a circle hole (aperture). The camera has the ability to vary the size of the hole opening. The larger the opening the more light will come in to expose the film (chip). The other moderating factor would be how long the hole was allowed to remain open (shutter speed). The combination of the size of the hole (aperture), and duration (shutter speed) will make up the "EXPOSURE."

Aperture is expressed in these terms: 2.8, 4.5, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22 and numbers like that (I may have missed one). These numbers represent different size holes (apertures).To further confuse us they are also refered to as stops or f-stops. Shutter speeds are expressed in fractions of a second: 1/30, 1/250, 1/1000 etc.

Imagine how many combinations can be produced with just these two variables.

The camera magically combines the proper aperture and the proper SS to get the perfect(?) exposure. It's just an amazing thing to me that this gadget can be pointed at something and reproduce the image so well.

So as not to bore you with more test pictures. I just did the same thing Kim did with another still doll model.

I tried out every manual white balance setting on the thing with an ISO of 800, and got nice clear pictures, with obvious differences in color. Then I put it on the automatic setting that just cuts the flash off. Doing that got me the most accurate color, but the face was blurry on the doll. (This was what I was doing the other day with Marc). The next best color was putting it in P mode but automatic WB..they were very close, but the face was clear.

So I suppose, for now, until I really learn this, in order to avoid the blur, I am better off putting it in P mode to avoid the blur and pick the white balance Icon that best fits the situation...which seems like the auto WB was doing the trick. I guess this computerized camera is smarter than me..Whoda thunk it.

Mary,

Be careful how your focusing is set up. Notice on the picture of the race car above that you have multiple possible focus points. This is something that you select on your menu.

With my camera I can choose to have the camera focus on the closest object to the camera (I don't like this method), or have it focus on the center of the viewfinder (I prefer this).

Make sure you are focusing on the face and not the closer knees of the subject, or not focusing on the back of the chair.

I find that when I am trying to learn some aspect of my camera that I concentrate on one feature at a time. It gets too complex when you start mixing different variables into one experiment.

Mary you can just shoot in the RAW instead of JPEG format, then you set your temperature to what ever you want. So put it in "auto" white balance.

By golly I think I am getting this!

Mike - pm me your address - I want to send you something from Texas.

Beth - dont start in on the RAW setting yet. Let me digest first!

I hope it's that trio in your new painting. Would you mind making them all blind?

:D

You might want to give them a few years yet...can you say 'jail bait'. ;)

Wow, did this thread get away from me. It will take me a while to digest all of this. Mary, I apologize for not acknowledging your question about the zoom I have. I think it is 70 - 300 (or something like that)

I really haven't played around with the zoom enough to figure out how to use it for my portrait needs yet so I couldn't tell you if I will like it for that or not. I am in the process of hiring a model to do some full figure reference photos of so I need to figure it out quickly.

I also need to go back and read this thread more carefully because there is a lot of valuable information in here for me.

Hey - swanky new avatar, Kim!

Thanks Cindy - :cool:

got to show off the new hat. I've lived in TX 10 years now and am on a ranch. I figured it was time I finally tried to fit in. Next thing you know I'll be listening to country music. :bewildere

Mike or anyone else who can help,

Do you have a checklist of some sort when you go for a photo shoot or are all of these factors embedded in your brain and you intuitively know what things to change to get the job done?

I find that each time I learn a new feature of my camera in the creative modes, I forget something else that I should have remembered from the last time.

If you do have a list, either mentally or in black and white that you have questions to answer for each step of a photo shoot situation, would you mind sharing it?

I have notes, but there is no order to them. I do much better with order.

Nice hat Kimberly. Now I have to get use to the new photo. I keep picturing you in my mind as the other one.

Janel,

I try and keep the lists to minimum when I head out the door. I suppose I have lists that I don't have to think about. The way to eliminate the lists is to work out the details of your camera settings when your on your own time. If you will practice your settings, even if on a mannequin or a vase, you will become more secure and confident.

You have to give some thought to the lighting conditions which you find. I make my adjustments as far as giving myself enough shutter speed to keep me out of trouble and then I'm good to start, knowing that all the other switches were already thought through and will remain constant. All with an eye toward the unexpected.

The big plus to getting to this point is that your mind is then free to ponder only the creative aspect of what you are doing. I think it's hard to be creative when you are fretting over such mundane matters as switches.

Exactly what I want to avoid. I am pretty happy with the results I get with the Rebel while playing around with the creative modes so I can't complain. Some of it, though, is just plain luck because I forget to change some settings that were there from the last time. Other times, I play around with the switches until it looks good but I don't take the time to jot down what the lighting conditions were for future reference when going back to a photo that I really like. I really need to be more organized with this so it will start to become automatic.

It would be nice to get to a point where I can take a look around me and get all the numbers in the right spot before the model says "cheese".

Thanks for responding.

Janel,

I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from taking notes or using any other methods of learning, we all process these matters differently. My simple mind wants to reduce things to either a donut or a hole. This alone can be suffieciently complex.

I look at it this way -- if you are going to photograph in natural light you have to accept the fact that every moment is different than the moment before. You could break it down into larger categories like outdoor light, indoor light, but unlike a studio setup which may remain stable, the natural light is too elusive and varied to define, as it relates to our settings.

Therefore, we must trust that the camera is friendly to our purpose. I think you should determine, through trial, error and practice, a good and sufficiently broad combination of settings and then let the camera micro manage those subtleties and nuances of condition. The light between 4:00 PM and 7:00 PM can be so different, and the changes happen in degrees that are so imperceptible, that it defies our ability to define it in any meaningful way. I say allow your mind to give this duty over to your camera. It was born to this purpose and if we will give it some up front attention It will do this remarkably well.

All this to the notion that the more we can delegate the mundane matters to those things that are better equipped to deal with them the less our mind is taken away from the matters of creation. This from a fella that, while I fully appreciate a good and proper canvas, I would never set out to build one. I take comfort in the fact that there are those that seek to perfect these materials, I just want to know where I might pick one up. I can't help thinking in this way any more than I can alter my height.

I can appreciate that others approach these matters completely differently and attain results far superior to my own. So to the extent that these meanderings help I am glad. I hope they don't hurt.

If I might further confuse my point.

The following images were each taken with exactly the same camera settings. And these settings are not eclectic, but very close to out of the box.

With one exception -- in the case of the evening shot I had to raise the ISO to a point that would give sufficient shutter speed to allow me to stand and take this shot hand held. I have trained myself to understand the need for this, and how to make it happen. The adjustment took seconds.

Mike, it looks like you're really loving Florida!

These oranges are growing outside my door in the February! I left my windows open until 11:00 PM last night.

Point well taken. Thanks Mike.