fbpx

DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

Search

Submit A Story

If you’re struggling to understand stops and exposure, you need to watch this

by 6 Comments

What is a stop of light? Essentially, it’s a relative quantity of light. Either half or double of a pre-existing amount. But what does that really mean? And why does it take Rob Hall 8 whole minutes to explain it? Well, that simple concept comes with a lot of implications in photography, and it applies to everything from our ISO, aperture and shutter speed to flash power, flash distance, neutral density filters and more.

Understanding what a stop of light is and what it implies are vital for creating good and consistent exposures in photography, and it’s one of its most basic principles. If you don’t understand it, it can be difficult to figure out what problems might be occurring when you shoot an image and it isn’t what you expected.

[Read More…]

Watch YouTube’s most informed sock puppet teach you how to shoot with manual exposure

by 6 Comments

For those who’ve never seen TheCrafsMan SteadyCraftin on YouTube, you’re in for a treat – even if you already understand everything contained within this 25-minute video. For those who have, you know exactly what to expect. I’ve been following this rather unconventional channel for a while now. It covers a lot of handy DIY and crafting topics as well as the occasional random tangent.

Today’s random tangent is the topic of exposure as it relates to photography. Although our host is a sock puppet, the principles are explained very well, in a manner that most people will be able to grasp quite easily – and probably find quite entertaining, too. So, if you’ve struggled to make that switch to “M”, this video may just help you out.

[Read More…]

ISO has nothing to do with your exposure – Here’s how digital ISO really works

by 27 Comments

Everybody knows the exposure triangle by now, right? ISO, aperture and shutter speed. Once you know your scene’s exposure value, you can just balance out the three to get a good exposure. And as you adjust one up or down, you need to adjust another in the opposite direction to compensate. Well, what if one of them isn’t really anything to do with exposure?

That’s the argument put forth by Chris Lee of the YouTube channel pal2tech, and it’s a compelling one. Back in the days of film, it was a little different, and your ISO really did reflect the sensitivity of the film stock to light. These days, though, with digital cameras, not so much.

[Read More…]

A comprehensive visual guide to equivalent exposure

by Leave a Comment

If you’re just starting out with photography, the relationship between ISO, aperture and shutter speed is one of the crucial things to learn. However, it can be difficult to grasp if the concept is new to you. In this great animated video from Apalapse you’ll easily learn the relationship between the three parameters and how they affect the exposure and the look of your images.

[Read More…]

This in-depth beginners guide shows everything you need to know about manual exposure

by Leave a Comment

Manual exposure. It’s probably the scariest term out there for new camera owners. Stepping out of automatic or semi-automatic exposure modes for the first time can be a daunting task. When you’ve only ever shot in the automatic modes, understanding the manual and the exposure triangle can be difficult to wrap your head around.

Well, this 26-minute video from photographer Sean Tucker should help to demystify it for you. He goes in-depth to break everything down to the basic fundamental principles. He explains what each of the three settings means, how they function, and how they all work together to create a good exposure.

[Read More…]

Understanding the exposure triangle with a little help from Star Wars Lego

by Leave a Comment

Understanding exposure is vital if you want to make informed decisions about your photography. And specifically understanding the exposure triangle. The relationship between ISO, aperture and shutter speed. It’s a delicate balance that newer photographers can often struggle with. But let Aaron Nace guide you through it in these videos with a little assistance from Star Wars Lego.

[Read More…]

25 essential terms that every photographer must know

by Leave a Comment

Getting used to the sheer number of technical terms and numbers in photography can be pretty overwhelming for beginners. There are a lot of them out there. But you don’t really need to know about all of them from day one. But there are some that you’ll want to learn and understand first.

You’ll hear these terms quite often if you hang around other photographers or partake in any of the photography groups on Facebook. They might confuse you at first, but this video from Apalapse goes through 25 of the most important and breaks down exactly what they mean.

[Read More…]

Here is how to determine exposure by looking at the path of the light

by 1 Comment

We all know the exposure triangle. The exposure triangle deals with the relations between shutter speed, Aperture and ISO. Those three aspects are dealing with the way that the camera sees light.

To better understand light, we can look at the complete path light goes through from the second it leaves the light source (say a strobe), through hitting the object, reflecting the light into the lens , and going through the different lens and camera elements, until it hits the sensor (or film).

This is quite a journey, and it sheds some light (sorry) on many of the aspects that contribute to exposure.

[The Science of Exposure and Metering | Filmmaker IQ]

You can all stop asking about camera settings now. Here’s all of them

by 7 Comments

If there’s one thing of which we can be sure, it’s that if we post a photo to social media, somebody will ask us what settings we used. Tony Northrup recently put out a video begging people to stop asking for the settings used to get a shot. Why? Because it’s useless information. The settings were unique to those circumstances. The camera, the lens, the amount of light available

Now, though, he appears to have caved, and posted this one, showing off around 50 sample photos, along with settings. But don’t think for a second that this means you can go and use those settings to replicate the shot. Tony talks about his thought process for each photograph, and why the settings were what they were. Understanding the why

[Read More…]

Learn the exposure triangle easily with a little help from Kool-Aid

by 3 Comments

The exposure triangle is something every photographer really needs to learn and understand. It’s the relationship between ISO, aperture and shutter speed. It’s why a good exposure can have many different combinations of settings. But understanding the relationship between all can be difficult for new photographers to wrap their head around.

This video from Jonathon Walters explains it in the simplest way possible. Using Kool-Aid. It’s an unconventional way of explaining things, but it’s the easiest one to understand. If you’ve ever struggled with the exposure triangle, you won’t after watching this.

[Read More…]

Recent Posts