DSLR and Mirrorless: The Fundamentals of Photography

1. Introduction: I'm Franklin Minghella, professional photographer and photography teacher with the Perfect Photo Company, based here in Liverpool in England. Over the last 10 years, I've taught thousands of people how to get the best from their cameras. It's been an absolute joy to be part of their photographic journeys and to help them to become accomplished photographers. For understanding the camera controls that determine exposure is a fundamental part of that journey. Once you have this understanding, you can simply dial in the correct settings to capture the perfect photo in any situation. For me, photography is more than just the image, it's the emotion that it delivers, and the emotions it passes on to others who see it. It's the story it tells and the place it takes your imagination. It's the excitement you feel when capturing a shot you know you couldn't get any better, and the passion you feel for it. It's the memories you create in the moment. Fantastic photo opportunities are all around us and the whole world is waiting to be photographed. This photography course really will unleash your creativity. It's going to be a lot fun and even though they are for all of us exposure the beautifully animated explanations. I've really enjoyed putting the whole tutorial together, and I'm sure you're going to love it. One of my earliest memories was watching A Hard Day's Night, Beatles film with my mom as she was ironing my dads shirts. I was struck by The Beatles, and I wanted to be Paul McCartney or John Lennon or George Harrison, maybe not Ringo, I wanted to be one [inaudible]. I was determined to be a rock star. I remember my dad buying me first guitar and how I annoyed the neighbors on the farm we lived in while I practiced away and I trained to be a designer. Once I was qualified, I went off to work for the BBC in London because I figured if I get close to where the bright lights are and the cameras, I might just be a rock star. Now obviously that didn't happen. When I returned to Liverpool, I was part the pilot project that went on to be called The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, and over the years I was in many bands. But along the way I developed an interest and a passion for photography and the guitars were replaced with cameras and lights. I pretty much tried every style of photography and my favorite would be photographing people. I think once you know all of the camera and the controls and you understand exposure, you can pretty much photograph anything and whatever style you fancy having it go off. As long as you know how to use the camera. You're half way there. I got into teaching photography completely by accident. A friend of mine called me and said she was feeling unwell, would I step in and take the photography class that she had planned that day. Now I never taught a class before, but I absolutely loved it and I decided to do a teacher training class. Eventually I settled my own photography business, The Perfect Photo Company. I've taught thousands of people how to use their camera. It's been a 10 year journey. It's just been amazing honestly. I like to think I make learning how to use to the camera a lot of fun, and I take away a lot of the job and simplify things because once you know how to use the controls on your camera, you really can unleash creativity. I've got such wonderful comments that are being left on my Facebook page or on my Google business page. I've made so many great friends, but I've also helped a lot of people to become professional photographers, and to have a career in photography. Its honestly a lovely feeling to think that I've set them on the way. I watch with great interest, their creativity grow when they post photographs online and stuff. It's a lovely feeling. It seemed a logical thing to do for me and after this 10 year journey is to put why now my teaching style, the way I do it, to put it in a video format and put it online and have a wider audience. Liverpool's being great. As I say, I sometimes feels like I've run of students in Liverpool because I've taught that many people. But for me to go to a bigger audience with my teaching style, I just really love putting this whole tutorial video together, and I think you're going to really enjoy it too. 2. Module 1 What is Exposure?: In this module, I'm going to introduce you to the concept of exposure. Because that's what a photograph is. It's an exposure. Your camera is a box that gathers light and it's the gathering of that light that creates a photograph. Now all these cameras share the same principle, how they work. So this is the first film camera that I owned many years ago, right through to a modern mirrorless camera, this one, through to a DSLR, they all work in exactly the same way. It's basically a box that gathers light. Which brings me to the story about camera Obscura. Camera Obscura is a Latin term, and it basically means a dark chamber that has a small hole in one of the surfaces. Now, in the right lighting conditions, if you let the light float in through that small hole, it will project an image of whatever is outside that chamber, through the small hole onto the opposite surface inside the chamber. I don't know how that works, but witchcraft, but that's where it does. Now centuries ago, artists used to use this phenomenon to create artwork. So you would have an artist who would run off into the countryside with this chamber, this sort of structure, a director out in the wilds, run inside, lock the door, open the latch to let the light float in, and then the scene outside the chamber would come floating in and it would be projected onto the opposite wall inside the chamber and the artist would get his paint brushes out and he would create a painting. Now, over the centuries, some clever person came along and said, "Hey, we could cut out the [inaudible] and we could just put a piece of light-sensitive paper inside a box and that would work the same, Wouldn't it?" It did and lo and behold, cameras existed and do exist because of that phenomenon. Now, I have another camera here, and it's a cardboard one that I made earlier and you can see this box here is the dark chamber. At the front, we've got our lens or we've got our hole basically and the light is going to enter in just like camera Obscura, and it's going to be collected inside the box and A camera works exactly the same. So if you look at this old film camera of mine, we can say we have, let's first of all, let's take this lens off the front. We'll take that off there. It's basically like this toilet roll isn't it? It is a hollow tube. It's a bit fancier than that though, because it has glass elements, that allow us to focus and to zoom in and out. Also it allows us to make the internal diameter bigger or smaller, more about that later. So that's what we have at the front and then that leaves us with our dark chamber. So this is our dark chamber. If we look at the back, obviously with this being a film camera, that was how the roll of film pulls across here. But there are shutters, just there are our shutters and at the moment and same for all cameras, it's completely dark inside. It is the dark chamber of camera Obscura, until you press the shutter release button and then you expose your sensor to light. So let's do that. There you go, the light would be floating in and now being captured, in this case on a roll of film. But in your camera, on a digital sensor, and that's the way it works. Then when the process is over it returns back to total darkness. All the cameras work exactly the same. Now, I know some of you would be saying, "Well, a mirrorless camera works a bit different." Well it does, but we're going to look at that. But the principle of how it captures a photograph is exactly the same. So this course is all about exposure, and you're going to learn how to control that exposure. Because that is what helps you to be creative and that's what I want you to be, super creatives, by the time this course is over. So I'll see you, I'll catch with you in the next module. 3. Module 2 The Three Elements : Hi, in this module we're going to take a look at the three elements that determine exposure, and they would be Aperture size, shutter speed, and ISO. It's a balance of those three that gives us the perfect exposure. Of course, as well as that we use the three elements to achieve our final result, perhaps you want to take a portrait where you have a shallow depth of field and blur the background. We might want to take an action shot where you freeze the action, and of course we use the three elements to achieve that final results, as well as balancing our exposure. The best way for me to show you those three elements, would be to take a look inside a camera. Let's do that and I prepared this little animation. Here is a typical DSLR camera and I'm going to use this animation to show you the three elements, that go on to determine exposure. In later sections of this whole photography class, we'll go into them in a bit more detail, but for now, let's just take a look at those three elements. I'll make it as simple as it can for you because it's not quite simple really. The light is going to enter into the camera through the lens of the front. Now as I've mentioned previously, the lens is just a hollow tube, but we've got the ability to make the internal diameter of the hollow tube bigger or smaller, and we do that with aperture size. An aperture, trust me, is just a fancy word for hole, and over doing is making the hole bigger or smaller. So the bigger the aperture or the bigger the hole, more likely going to enter the camera, and obviously the smaller the hole or aperture, less light is going to enter into the camera. Now we're going to do a whole section on aperture size and you'll see that as well as determine how much light or helping to determine how much light enters the camera it also helps us to be really creative and we'll take a look at that later. But for now, all you need to know it's one of the three elements that we use to determine exposure. So let's follow the light then into the camera. When it ends the camera, then it hits a mirror and it bounces up to the top of the camera and finds its way to a pencil prism and then eventually to the viewfinder. When you put your eye to the viewfinder, you're actually looking out of the lens and that's pretty cool, by courtesy of the mirror and the pencil prism that's what happens. When you compose your shot, look through the viewfinder and you're looking through the lens. Now, mirror less cameras are slightly different, as I say, we'll take a look at that a little bit later. At the back of the camera, we've got our sensor and our shutters. Now currently in stage the cameras asked before we've actually taken a photograph, the sensor is in complete darkness, because remember we're going to expose that center to lights and that's what our photograph is. So until you press the shutter release button, the sensor is in complete darkness. The second way to control exposure then is shutter speed. When you are about to take your photograph and you press the shutter release button, the mirror will flip out the way and the shutter will open and you can determine how long that shutter stays on for. It can be rarely fast or it can be rarely slow, and that process you've just watched there, we've captured the photograph. As well as being our second way of determining exposure, shutter speed allows us to be really super creative. You can get some amazing effects which is shutter speed, and in the shutter speed module, I'll take you through all the different shutter speeds and what we can achieve with them. All you need to know at the moment is that shutter speed is our second method of controlling the exposure. Our third way of determined exposure is ISO. What that simply is, it's how sensitive the sensor itself is to light. We can make our sensor more or less sensitive to light, so the more sensitive we make it, then the more likely it's going to find in a darker environment. It's very similar to when we used to use film cameras and we buy a roll of film based on whether you're going to use it. A roll of film with a low number back in the day was called, ASA. So a low number, ASA, we'd use a roll of film with this low number when we have plenty of light and we buy a different roll of film with a higher ASA value if we were going to be shooting in the darker environments. An ISO is the same sort of thing, we use low ISO numbers when we have plenty of lights and then we increase the ISO number when we're in an environment that is not as bright. But what we're trying to, with a caveat and want to interject here, what we're trying to, is keep the ISO as low as possible. Now, when I get to the ISO pass of this tutorial, I'll explain in greater detail. But just to give you a heads up, why we do keep the ISO number as low as possible, is because higher ISO numbers tend to introduce digital noise, and digital noise is not very nice, so we try and avoid that. When we're setting our cameras exposure with these three elements, we can use ISO as our method of last results. All will be explained in the ISO module where I will show you exactly what digital noises is, and give you some tips about different ISO values. But that said, all you need to know at the moment is that ISO is our third element that we can use to determine exposure. Just to wrap that up, we have aperture size, which is the size of the opening in the lens, we have shutter speed, which is the length of time the shutter stays open, and we have ISO, which is the sensitivity of the sensor. Yeah they are the three elements that determine exposure. Now, that is true for a DSLR camera, and of course, a mirror less camera is slightly different. Spoiler alert, it doesn't have a mirror and I have a mirror less camera here and in fact, the camera that I'm staring at, at the moment is a mirror less camera too. It seems only fair that we look inside a mirror less camera and have a look at the mechanics. I say that because it's only the mechanics that's different. The principle of how it takes a photograph remains the same and of course the three elements remain the same, so let's take a little look. Here we have a typical mirror less camera. You will be surprised to learn that it's called a mirror less camera, because it doesn't have a mirror. But the principle of how it operates and captures a photograph is exactly the same. The three elements that determine exposure are exactly the same too, it's just the mechanics that are changed. So let's follow the light into the camera. It passes through the lens, has the same aperture arrangement where you can adjust the size of the internal diameter or aperture size. The differences though is that the sensor is exposed, it's permanently exposed to light, it needs to be permanent exposed because you need to be able to compose your photograph so when you look through the viewfinder or you look on the screen on the back of the camera, you need to be able to see what the lens can see. Of course, that is one of the reasons a DSLR has a mirror, it bounces the image up to the viewfinder. With a mirror less camera, we simply have an electronic viewfinder. The sensor itself is going to be identical to that is found in a DSLR camera, and it will have the same range of ISO values, so that remains exactly the same. Now there's a slight change in the shorter, but only in the mechanics because obviously the shorter needs to be permanently open, as I say so you can look through the viewfinder or the screen on the back, but the principle is exactly the same. You can determine how long the shutter stays open for very fast, or keep it open as long as you like. As you can see, the three elements that determine exposure are identical to what you can find inside a DSLR camera. The only difference is the mechanics of how it all works. As you can see, it's just the mechanics that difference, the three elements remain the same, whether you've got a DSLR camera or a mirror less camera it's the principle staying the same. In the next module, we're going to look at how we balance those three elements together to get the correct exposure. I'll see you in the next module. 4. Module 3 The Exposure Triangle: So now we know there is three elements that determine exposure. We need to look at the relationship between those elements. In the next module, we'll look at how we balance those elements but for now, let's take a look at the relationship and the best way for me to show you that is to take a look at the exposure triangle. So, let's put our three elements then onto the triangle. We have aperture size, which as you know, is the size of the opening in the lens. We have ISO, which is the sensitivity of the sensor, and we have shutter speed, which is the length of time the shutter stays open. Now all three share an equal amount of space on the triangle. The triangle illustrates the relationship between the three elements. We need a balance of those three to get the perfect exposure. Now, if we make a change to one of those elements, if we change the aperture size, for instance, then at least one, if not both of the other two elements would need to be adjusted to maintain that perfect exposure. If you change the shutter speed, same thing, you would need to make a change to either the aperture or the ISO or both of them to maintain that perfect exposure and get the desired results. Now it might sound difficult. It's not really, honestly it's so simple. As we go along, you'll see how easy that is. So I think the exposure triangle really does illustrate the relationship between the three elements and how you have to balance them to achieve that perfect exposure. It's very simple sort of diagram, isn't it? But it's powerful because it's true. That's exactly what happens. As you go through your photographic journey, you will always remember the exposure triangle. It's just three elements that you have to balance to achieve that perfect exposure. So, there you have it then the exposure triangle. It really does illustrate that relationship, doesn't it? Between the three elements? Now in the next module, we'll look at how we balance those three elements to get the perfect exposure. So I'll see you in the next module. 5. Module 4 Balancing the Elements: As you can see, the exposure triangle really don't illustrate that relationship between the three element, and that if you make a change to one of those elements, at least one, if not both of the other two elements would need to change also to maintain that exposure. So it's a balance, isn't it? We're going to look at an animation that perfectly illustrates that balance. One point to bear in mind, when you watch in the animation, it's the principal of how it works don't get hung up on the numbers because the numbers don't mean anything it's just to show you how it all works. The other thing is, you're going to be introduced to the exposure gauge. The exposure gauge is only available when you're in the manual setting. That makes sense, doesn't it? The gauge helps you to get your exposure right. If you were in an automatic, for instance, you wouldn't need the gauge because the camera's doing all the work for you. Also, in other modes such as the semi-automatic mode the same thing. You might tinker around with the aperture, but the camera will set the shutter speed for you again, you don't need the gauge there. Just in case you going looking for it when you're in aperture priority, for instance, it isn't there. You will see something that looks like the gauge, but that's for something completely different, which we'll talk about later. With that in mind, let's take a look at this animation. Let's introduce our three exposure elements into the mix. We've got aperture, shutter speed, and of course, ISO. Now, at the bottom, I'm going to introduce an exposure meter. Now, your camera has an exposure meter too, but more about that later. You can see that meter is going to indicate if our photograph is overexposed too bright or underexposed too dark. Now, let's introduce an ISO value, and I'm going to pop in an ISO value of 100. Because remember, ISO is our method of last resource and we like to hit the ISO as low as possible. Let's pop it in as 100. Now with that particular aperture size, that particular shutter speed and that particular ISO value, my exposure is perfectly balanced. Now, how do I know that? Because I'm going to look at the exposure meter and the little red pointer is in the center. There it is, and that indicates to me that I have the perfect exposure. I said your camera's going to exposure your meter but we'll look at that later. Let's make some changes and remember the exposure triangle if we make a change to one of the elements, then at least one if not both of the other elements needs to change to get that perfect balance and create the perfect exposure. Let's make the aperture size smaller. We're going to make the aperture size as small as possible. When we do that, let's have a look at how that's affected the exposure meter, and of course, we're now under exposed because we have a very small aperture and a very fast shutter speed. There's not much like common in through the lens and it's not being allowed to stay on the sensor long enough because we have a particularly fast shutter speed. We need to make some changes. But that's obvious anyway, isn't it? Because remember back to the exposure triangle, if we make a change to one element, as I say, we have to change one or two of the other two elements. In this case, let's change the shutter speed. Just simply make it slower. I'm going to make it slow as that gauge will let me go down to a second. Now if we look at the exposure meter, we'll have achieved that balance again, and that makes sense. It does make because we've got a really small aperture or a longer shutter speed. So the light has been allowed to fall on the sensor for a longer period of time, and that has given us the balance. I hope you're with me so far, let's make some more changes then because we can let us say, I didn't want to shoot a second, I wanted to shoot at a faster shutter speed. Maybe I didn't have a tripod with me but for wherever reason, I didn't want to shoot at that slower shutter speed. Let's take it to a 125th of a second. Now, let's look at the exposure meter and were under exposed again. Because the combination of that very small aperture and that particular shutter speed, it's not going to give us the balance that we need. We're not going to get the red pointer or the exposure meter back to zero. This is where we introduce our method of last resort and we turned to our ISO and I could lift the ISO value higher. Let's do that then. Let's take up to about 320 and like I said, don't get hung up on the numbers, it's more the principal. Now increase the ISO. When I look at the gauge, it returned to zero. You can see that when you make a change to one element, you need to make a change to one of the other elements, if not both of them. One more quick example then let's make the aperture size bigger. Imagine I decided to shoot portraits and you'll learn this later. Portraits look better with bigger apertures spoiler alert. Anyway, here comes the big aperture. Now, let's take a look at our exposure meter, and of course, we're over-exposed because a combination that now larger aperture in combination with that particular shutter speed, and don't forget we lifted the ISO value we are now overexposed. To balance that, I would first drop the ISO. Because remember, we always want to keep the ISO as low as possible, that would be my first thing, I'm going to drop it down to 100. It's native ISO as we call it. But again, you'll learn about that later, but we're going to drop it down to 100. Now the needle will drop too. But in this case, it still hasn't returned to zero because our shutter speed is a little too slow for the size of the aperture and the lowest ISO set that we can choose. All it's simply need to do there is increase the shutter speed and now we'll return our needle to the center, achieve perfect exposure. I hope that animation sources of makes things a little bit easier for you to follow. So this animation in combination with the exposure triangle, it just proves that the three things are linked and it's quite simple really, isn't it? You'll always try to achieve perfect exposure. Now, more on that exposure meter that you have on your camera and you can find it. It's actually in your viewfinder, and it will also be on the back screen on your camera, and you can see here on the bottom of this little animation. In this particular case we've got negative one, negative two, positive one and positive two. There's our little green needle and it's currently on zero, which would indicate that the exposure is perfect. You can use that. Now, we're going to look at modes, obviously later and different modes that you'd put your camera into. Now, we'd say that the little meter comes into play when you are shooting in manual, it does something else when you're not in the manual mode. Just bear that in mind. But yeah, it's a great little aid for when you're shooting in manual. Taking a look at how that works on that camera, then, let's have a look at this image that I'm about to capture on this Canon. We can see that the shutter speed is a 125th of a second, the aperture size is 4.5 and the ISO is 100. There's our gauge and if I just half pressed the button on the camera, you can see that we're almost three stops on the expose. What could I do to fix that then? Well, obviously I can play around with the settings. The next thing that I'd like to do then is to open the aperture size. Let's try and do that. Unfortunately, the biggest aperture size I can get this 4.5. Let's take the shutter speed slower than, and if I take it right down and let's just try it now. Half press the button. Yeah. So around about a 20th of a second, I am getting a pretty decent exposure. Now, imagine I didn't want to shoot a 20th of a second because that's quite a slow shutter speed when you're hand holding the camera. Now, I've got the camera at the moment on a tripod, I'd be fine to take that shot. But imagine you didn't have a tripod, 20th of a second is much too slow. Let's put onto a shutter speed that would be okay let's put it on to 60th of a second. Now, if I half press the button again. You'll see that the images now are underexposed. But that makes sense because I've made the shutter speed faster. This is where I'll jump to my method of last resort and I would go into the ISO and I would lift the ISO to a higher number. Let's try 800 and accept that and then if I half pressed the button. Now, let us just see what we're getting, we're overexposed. I could quite simply, go back in and perhaps change the ISO. Let's take it to 400 and accept that and see where we are now. We're still even if 400 is slightly overexposed so I can easily just increase the shutter speed until I am happy with the results. That as a pretty well exposed photograph. All the information that you need, including ISO, shutter speed, aperture size, on that gauge, the exposure gauge is always available on a little information strip inside the viewfinder. If you look in your viewfinder, it's always there. Also it's available on the back screen as well. If you're not using the live view mode, you will get an information screen on the back as well. As I say all cameras have this gauge that help you to get your exposure balanced when you're in manual mode, and this mirror-less camera is no different. It looks a bit different though because it doesn't have the same plus three to minus three sliding scale if you like. This just as a minus two to plus two flushing numbers. On here you can see that this photograph is massively underexposed at 1250th of a second. I'm quite simply just going to slow the shutter speed down, watch that number, and I needed to go to zero obviously. There you go zero and it's an 80th of a second and perfect exposure. Although it might look different, it's operates exactly the same. With this exposure gauge in manual mode, it's easy to get your exposure right. I hope that all makes sense to you. I think it's quite easy, but you can see that when you're in manual mode, we're going to talk about modes later in a future module. But manual mode does take a little bit of time because you have to monitor what you're doing. There's other ways of doing it on other modes that make it more easy, but we're going to look at those later. I'll see you in the next module. 6. Module 5 Aperture Size: In this module, we're going to take a look at aperture size, which as you know, is the size of the opening in the lens. Now of all that aperture size did was to help us to control exposure. Photography would be a really dull hobby to have, and that's because aperture size does a lot more. It controls something called depth of field, and depth of field is just a ratio of how your photograph, how much of it is in focus opposed to what is out of focus. Now, why is that important? Well let me show you a little experiment. If I put my hand in front of the camera, then all you guys behind my hand are completely blurred. But my hand is in focus and a little advise for you guys. My hand will be in focus, but my face will be out of focus. That is depth of field, and you can create some amazing effects just by changing the size of your aperture. We're going to start off with an in-depth guide into aperture sizes and what sizes to use and when. Then later on, I want to take some photographs with various aperture sizes and you can see the results. Now I'd like you to take part and to do that your going to need your camera, a tripod and a remote control if you've got one. If you haven't don't worry, and a nice big window where a lot of light is coming in because we're going to use some small apertures, and of course you need a lot of light, and this is where obviously a tripod is going to come in handy. But if you haven't got a tripod and maybe try and rest it on a table or something, and you're going to need some interesting household objects to photograph as well. I'm going to be using my trusty little friend here, which I've had for many years, and various little bits just to show you how it all works. But first of all, let's have a look at that guide to aperture sizes. The first thing you need to know about apertures is that they're all given an f-number. The f-number denotes the particular size of aperture. Now the numbering system can be really confusing because it's counter intuitive. If you look at the bottom of that selection of aperture sizes, the biggest aperture at the bottom has the smallest number, and at the top, the smallest aperture has the biggest number, and that can be really confusing when you first start your photographic journey. But don't worry because you'll soon become familiar with the sizes. Just think opposites. If you want to select a big aperture, remember, it has a small number, and if you want to select a small aperture, remember, it has a big number, and as I say, you'll soon become familiar with the sizes. Now, as well as being one of the three elements that determine exposure, we use aperture to control depth of field. That's how much of our photograph is in focus. Now we see the world in 3D, and if you look at a subject and focus on that subject, then the background will be blurred. Now we try and replicate this with our photographs by using the correct aperture size to do that, and it's the big aperture that will give you that blurry background. A combination of getting closer to your subject matter and using a big aperture will ensure that the background is out of focus. Now, it's a great compositional aid. I do love a shallow depth of field. That's what we call it when the background is blurred or the foreground, you could have the foreground blurred, but the background in focus, and we control that with our focus in points, but more on that later. But it's a great compositional aid because we can direct the viewer's eyes to the subject matter, and it's used in all types of photography, from nature to portrait photography, product photography, wedding photography, anywhere where we want to draw the attention to the subject matter. Conversely, small apertures, large F-numbers, we use those to maintain a sharp focus throughout the image. Landscapes, cityscapes, group shots anywhere where we don't want any part of our image blurred, and that is true of a landscape. A good landscape photograph maintains sharp focus right throughout the image. We wouldn't use a big aperture to do that, we'd would use a smaller aperture. Now let's look at some aperture sizes and a little guide to when you should use them. As I mentioned then, big apertures give us the shallow depth of field. Big apertures would be anything from 1.4 to f4. Now you may well have just the kit lens that came with the camera, and the biggest aperture size will range between 3.5 and 5.6. I strongly recommend that you run out and buy a prime lens because that's the cheapest way to get into buying lenses with bigger apertures, and you can pick up a 50 millimeter lens with a f1.8 aperture relatively cheaply, and the difference will be amazing in your photographs. If you love that shallow depth of field, then you will love the 50 millimeter lens. As I say that 1.8 aperture really, really will separate your subject from the background, especially at 1.8. That big 1.8 aperture, or the biggest aperture you can use, really does help to isolate your subject from the background, and it's ideal for portraits, product shots nature, as I mentioned earlier. Aperture sizes of 5.6 to f11, that's like it's not fully open, your aperture, and has not fully closed. It's in the middle isn't it. Now it's great for general photography. Now when you do use a big aperture, there is a danger that you might, I wouldn't say a danger that's putting it a bit harshly. But your image will be a little bit soft or potentially could be a little bit soft. When you use a really small aperture, there is a chance that you might get some distortion in the corners of your photograph. It's nothing to worry about. That middle range, f5.6 to f11, it's considered the sweet spot of the lens and it's generally considered the best quality. Now that's not to say if you use a big aperture, you don't get a quality shot or a small aperture.You will, but just be aware that for general photography, if you not really interested in blurring any parts of you shot and it isn't landscape, it's just a general photograph of a building or a person, and you're not interested in, say, those creative effects then 5.6 to f11 is a good option and as I said, it's a nice sweet spot of the lens. When you close the lens down to say f16 or f22, and you've got those smaller size apertures, they give you a greater depth of field. In other words, more of your photograph will be in focus, and these sizes are ideal for landscapes, cityscapes, group shots, etc. If you think about it, if you close the aperture down to as small as f16, f22, then your shutter is going to stay open a lot longer, and this is where you're going to need a tripod and perhaps a remote control as well, because you can't really hold your camera or touch it with the slower shutter speeds. For my landscapes, I like to choose f16, but by all means experiment. Now, let's take a look at some examples then, and I'll talk you through the various aperture sizes that have been used to create them. This first one then of a flower board. I'm not great on nature, but I did take this photograph, but anyway, I've used a big 2.8 aperture. Now the thing about getting a blurry background, shallow depth of field, is that it's a combination of using the big aperture but also getting close to your subject, and that makes sense really, doesn't it? If you're standing in front of a great landscape and you're looking around, absolutely nothing is blurred is it? If somebody moves in front of you while you're looking at that landscape and you focus on them, well then of course, the background's going to be blurred. The closer you get to that person or that subject, then the more the background will be blurred. It's a combination of the big aperture and moving closer, and of course with a zoom lens, you don't have to move closer because the lens will do the work for you. Just bear that in mind then. Now this one f3.5, and what I wanted to do was to separate the guy who's about to burn himself from the crowd in the background. Now 3.5. was ideal, and I've got the desired result there. This one again, another 3.5, and I love this photograph because that lady is absolutely mortified that her husband is stealing her potato chips. It does make me laugh, and it's a little bit of secret street photography, and again, I've used 3.5 just to isolate them, and it creates a little bit of drama, doesn't it? You know, if you could see everything in the background was in focus as well. Its what's the photograph about? But by blurring the background. The only thing that is in focus are the two people on the bench, and that's what you're looking at. It really does help you to direct the viewer to what you want them to look at. Now this shot was taken by one of my students. Now it's f5.6 and that was the biggest aperture that they could use on their camera. Now another thing about blurring the background in a photograph. The viewer has to use their imagination, and that's what I really like. Now obviously you can see that there's a ship in the background but that rope tells a story. How many ships over the years have been tied up using that rope, and you don't need everything in focus, and as I say, it creates a bit of a story, it creates a bit of drama, and the viewer can fill in the missing parts, and it works really well, and of course. Because the student that took the picture only had a 5.6 aperture, I made them get as close as possible to that rope. It really has isolated the rope hasn't it, and thrown the background out of focus? This one was taken with a 2.8 aperture, and it's some steel railings around a very famous building in Liverpool, and I just focused on one particular part, one particular spike, and you can see it's a creamy depth of field. Now that depth of field, by the way, it's given a name. It's given the name Bokeh. It's the measure of creaminess. It's the better the bokeh the more creamy the bokeh, the better it looks. You'll find with more expensive lenses that that bokeh looks better. Now, I know that sounds elitist. You need to go out and spend money. But trust me, as you get better with your photography, you will notice the difference and bokeh will become important to you. That's why lenses are so expensive. Because lenses that give you that blurred background and that lovely bokeh tend to be really expensive. They're expensive for a reason because they're expensive optics inside the lens. So talking of bokeh, we have this wonderful shot captured by Meg Ryan and he used F6.3. Now the focal length on this lens was 420 millimeters. So [inaudible] was a far distance away. Of course, being a fair distance away, and using a telephoto lens, you can kind of get away with using a slightly smaller aperture. The F6.3 is kind of, "Ensure that the images aren't too soft." But the subject has been isolated in the background and it looks fabulous isn't it? That bokeh is really, really creamy. This one I shot in my local park, F8, good old F8, middle parts of the lens of the aperture sizes. I don't want to blurr anything could just want a nice sharp photograph. You can see everything's in focus and it looks, looks great, doesn't it? Little tip here, I probably haven't mentioned this, well I know I haven't, is that we always shoot in color and then convert your shots to black and white later. So never shoot in black and white. Some come out as fantastic picture profiles that do a great job of black and white and by all means you can have a little play around with them. I know Fuji cameras have a great black and white profile, but I prefer a most photographers prefer to shoot in color and then convert to black and white. That way you've got the color version of the photograph as well because you might change your mind. Lastly, another great photograph from Meg Ryan, and that is a F16 and that sharpness is being maintained throughout the image. That's what the smaller apertures do. It looks marvelous, doesn't it? So F16 for that one. So you can see with your apertures, you can be so creative. You can have that wide depth of field or you can have that shallow depth of field. It just depends what type of photograph you're trying to create. So as I promised, I'm going to take some photographs of my mannequin's head. Now I got a little setup here. My mannequin's head, and in the background I've got a print from an artist called Shepard Fairey, particular favorite of mine. What I'm going to do is I'm going to photograph the mannequin, and show you how it looks with different aperture sizes. Now I want you to try this with your camera, but I'll talk about that later. So for now you can see that my sentence here, our 40th per second, F2.8, an ISO 100. You can see that the print in the background is really blurred and that's what I want. So I'm going to take that photograph. There you go, you can see exactly what I've just described. Mannequin's head sharp and the Shepard Fairey Print blurred in the background. Now the beep and noise that you heard was the self timer on the camera. I've got it set to two seconds. Now the only reason I'm doing that is because I don't really want to touch the camera. It wouldn't make any difference, I suppose, because it is only a demonstration but when you do it, perhaps set your camera to that self timer and just put it to two seconds if you've got it, okay? Normally I'd use the remote control, but I'm operating this camera that I'm speaking to with the remote control. Let's make some changes then. Let's pick an aperture size of F11. Now of course, when I choose F11, everything goes dark, that's because I've made the aperture size smaller, so less light come into the camera. So I need to change the shutter speed or the ISO or both. In this case, I'm going to change the shutter speed and I'm going to make the shutter speed slower. Now I don't want to go too slow. So I'm going to go say a quarter of a second. I'm just slightly under exposed at a quarter of a second. So I'm just going to lift the ISO to say 125. That's perfect, isn't it? So now again, I'll take that photograph. Self timer again. Now there's more of a Shepard Fairey Print that is in focus. The emphasis is still on the mannequin's head but there's more of that print coming through in the background. Let us try an even smaller aperture. When we do this, we should get both, more or less, both in focus. So let us try that then. So I'm going to close the aperture down to F22. So now it's a tiny little aperture size, as you know. You can see that we are two stops under exposed. For this then I'm going to use my method of last resort, which is the ISO. I'm going to go in and I'm going to lift the ISO. Let's try 400 and see what that looks like. We're slightly under exposed, only a touch. Let's just say, I just raised the ISO to 500, we might go over them. Now, that's perfect. Again, the light just changed in the room, but mine is 0.3 we fine. Again self timer, and we'll take that shot. When I look at that now, both the print and the mannequin's head are in pretty much in focus. So that's the way the aperture sizes work. Let's take a look at those images. F2.8, F11, and then through to F22, and then back to 2.8. There's a real differences, now let's take a look at the three images together. [inaudible] Now you might have noticed the little square over the mannequin's eye, and that's just my focus point. You'll have focused points. You just basically put the focus point where you want the point to focus to be. I can move this, let me move it then to the back, I'm going to put it onto the face at the back. I'm going to change this back to F2.8 When I do, I'm going to be massively overexposed, obviously, but that's okay. We can increase the shutter speed. First of all, let's take the ISO back down to it's native 100. We'll want stop over. So we just need to increase the shutter speed. That should do it, 30th of a second. Now watch what happens when I press the shutter release button now? Because I've got the focus point at the back on the Shepard Fairey Prints that is now in focus and the mannequin's head is out of focus. So I'm drawing your attention to the printer at the back. That's the beauty of using a shallow depth of field because you can direct the viewer who looks at your photograph to what you wanted them to see. You can use it for all types of stuff. Product photography, portraits, you name it. Obviously when you close the aperture size down to a smaller aperture, that is when you're getting most things on focus, which is ideal for landscapes. So you can see the way it works. Now, I want you to have a go with your camera. Now if you got an entry level camera, this one is a expensive one. I'm not showing off because all cameras to me are fantastic. But yeah, this is in a cage with the wire coming off as I said before, only so I can put this wire in and it doesn't fall out. You don't need a cage or anything. But we all come, if you've got a kit camera, then you're likely to have the kit lens that come with it, which is an 18 to 55. If that's the case, make sure that it's on 55. So turn your zoom way around to 55. I guarantee that your biggest aperture size is going to be 5.6 in that case. When you do that, it will still work. You might not get to dramatic results that I'm getting at 2.8. I mean, you pay for lenses that give you that big aperture, but it will work for you, honesty, trust me. Now, don't be too far away from your subject matter. I'm probably about three foot from the mannequin's head and that's a comfortable distance to photograph a human being. You're not encroaching on people's space. So it should work. I would love to see your results. So if you want to post some to me, that would be fantastic. I'd love to see what weird and wonderful things you have in your home. Enjoy, and I will see you in the next module. Take care. 7. Module 6 Shutter Speed: It's time to take a look at your speed, and that's quite apt rarely because that's what just speed is as the length of time and it's just it stays open. Now we can achieve some fantastic results just by varying the length of time that of such stays open. That's what we're going to look at in this module. We're going to start off with an in-depth guide to shutter speeds and the various uses the results that you can achieve. Also we're going to look at a bunch of photographs and you can check out which particular shutter speed was used for each shot. At the end of the module, I'm going to take some photographs and you may have know this stuff got a Newton's cradle, the old 1980s Desktop ornament. So I'll be freezing the action with the Newton's cradle. I've also got this, this is Newton, my repertoire of props. This is a little robot on a motorbike, and I've never photographed him before. In pair, I don't know as that's whizzing around the table, I want to catch it some motion shots. That's the plan, and I'm looking forward to doing that. Now I'd like you to take part in this module. To do that, you're going to need your camera, a tripod, or remote control. If you've got one, don't worry, we haven't, and a nice windowing where there's loads of light corner because we're going to be using some, well, I wouldn't say fast shutter speed, but fast shutter speed for indoor shots. Because remember indoors is so much different to be an outdoors likewise. So as well is that you're going to need some items to photograph now, I don't know what you have lying around your house, but maybe some of the kids toys or even just a bone, a ball along the table or pushing a toy car, there's loads of things you can do. So let's take a look at that in-depth guide, that I promised earlier. So let me tell you all about shutter speeds then. Now shutter speed is measured in seconds and fractions of a second. Now, as well as being one of our three elements that determine exposure. We also use shutter speed to freeze the action or to capture motion. Then we can also use extremely long shutter speeds to record the passing of time with a very, very slow shutter speed. Now using the control wheel on your camera, you can select your shutter speeds ranging from as fastest 8,000 of a second if your camera supports that to a slow as 30 seconds. Now your camera the fastest speed, maybe 4,000 of a second. Now don't worry about that because believe me, that's incredibly fast. Now you can also switch the camera to BULB mode of B-U-L-B. When you do that, you are able to keep the shutter open as long as you like. So you can keep it open for minutes, hours if you wanted to. Fast shutter speeds are going to freeze the action of a fast movements subject, whereas slow shutter speeds will record motion. The extremely slow shutter speeds in BULB mode as a so we called that passing of time. So that could be clouds, could be a body of water, and you may well have seen landscape photographs where the water actually looks like mist. That has been achieved over a longer period of time, perhaps where the waters has been hidden. Rocks and it just all the energy just becomes missed. It's hard to explain that. But I think, I'm sure you've seen photographs like that. Now it's generally accepted that shutter speed of a 60th of a second is the slowest speed at which you can hand hold the camera. Now, why is that? Well, the very fact that you are breathing and have a pulse means that your body is moving slightly. At speeds over a 60th of a second, that movement in your hands isn't recorded. But speeds lower than 60th will record that movement and it's known as camera shake and there's nothing he can do about it really, you [inaudible] that's what happens. Now, clever camera manufacturers give you the ability to use image stabilization and that's great. On some cameras, you can hand-hold a camera for up to a second. But what you've got to remember is, it depends on what you are pointing the camera at. Your pointing the camera at a building that isn't moving, then yet a second is fine because there's no movement in the shot. But if you point your camera at a person that is chatting away, moving the hands, obviously over a second, they're going to be blurred. It just depends what you're actually point your camera at. Now, a good benchmark is a 60th of a second. But I would say if you are point your camera at a person that is going to move in the hands of [inaudible] , then I would suggest a minimum shutter speed of a 125th of a second. So that's one over 125. Now if you struggling for light, one over 60 is fine. Just try both anyway, but as I say, I would suggest that minimum of one over 125. Now it's slower shutter speeds below a 60th of a second, you will need a tripod. Now as I say, you might have image stabilization up to a second perhaps. So you wouldn't need a tripod. But, a tripod generally for the slower shutter speeds. Obviously when you get really slow and you go into a couple of seconds or wherever, you will most definitely need a tripod. Because as I say, there's just no way you can hand hold the camera without getting that camera shake. Now also when you photograph in outdoors, on a longer shutter opening, you will need an ND filter. ND just stands for neutral density, and you can get these filters in various strengths. It just depends what you're trying to achieve, and it fools the camera into thinking it's darker than what it is. So it allows you to get that longer exposure outside. It's like putting a pair of sunglasses on the front of your camera. Okay, let me show you a little guide than shutter speeds and when you should use them. Firstly, we have the fast shutter speeds. I'm looking at shutter speeds of say, 500 of a second to 8,000 of a second. Now as I say, your camera might only support 4,000 of a second. But don't worry, because as I said that is really fast. We use the fast shutter speeds to freeze that moment in time. So we look at this runner where she stops, that's what we're looking for. We want to freeze the action where she's in midair. Now, there's no way I can judge when that moment is going to happen. So what we do when we use the fast shutter speeds is we put the camera into continuous mode, continuous or burst mode, what ever it's called on your camera. Keep your finger on the shutter release button and it will take a number of shots, and then later on, you can just pick the shot that captures exactly what you were looking for. In this case, the runner who is in midair, then that's the way we do it. So as a say, 500 of a second to as fast as 8,000 of a second. Now the slowest shutter speeds a quarter of a second, to say a 40th of a second, one over 40. We use them to capture motion. These can be really, really dramatic shots. As I say, I'll show you some examples shortly. But the great because if you can capture the motion of a person or perhaps a car, but something that's moving, an animal may be, but the background is completely still. As I say, it can be a really, really dramatic effect. So That's how we do that then the slowest shutter speeds for recording motion, a quarter of a second to say a fourth of a second. Now if your cameras got image stabilization, you can actually hand hold and get those shots. If you haven't got image stabilization, then you will need a tripod because we're back with our old friend, camera shake. The fact that you've got a pulse and you do get that source of movements. Now we have the longest shutter speeds and that's half a second and slower, and they record the passing of time that these shots can be amazing. Now I'm not a great landscape photographer. It's not why I do, but I have taken them and I have used the longest shutter opens and it just look really dramatic because clouds moving in the sky, you can actually capture over say, two minutes, for instance, imagine exposure of two minutes and how much the clouds can move, perhaps on a windy day. Again, a body of water where the water is constantly hitting rocks on the shoreline. That sort of splashing of water because it's over a couple of minutes. For instance, if it was a couple of minutes exposure, that just becomes missed and it looks really, really atmospheric. So it need patients though, because you have to stand there and time the shot for however long it's going to be. It's couple of minutes. You've got to stand there for a couple of minutes. Now, to do this type of photography, obviously need a tripod. If it's in the daytime, you obviously going to need an ND filter to fill the camera like I say, and you need patients as well. But say it, it gives you some really dramatic results. Now, let's look at some examples then. We were very lucky this day to bump into this guy. He was practicing his parkour free run and and he performed that jump for some number of times, very good of him. Now at a full class of students and they all got the similar shot to what you can see here. It's 4000th of a second, and remember you have to use continuous shooter mode or burst mode just to make sure you record that optimum moment where you're capturing the action. As I say, you can just throw the other shots away, but just keep the shot that really captures what you are going for, let's look at another one then. This is down the other end, isn't it? This is 10 seconds, a full 10 seconds. I shot this in my local park. Over that 10 seconds, all the energy has been taken out of the water. You can imagine there'll be ripples and there'd be movement in that body of water. But the 10 seconds exposure has removed that and that has given me the opportunity to capture a really great reflection in the water. Now the water itself is moving and you can see that, if you look at the rocks and the twig in the water, you can see that it's almost jelly like isn't it? Or jelly like if you're in America but it's got that sort of real softness to it. That's why we use the longer exposures, now, obviously, camera was on a tripod, and I also used an ND filter and a remote control. I forgot my remote control that day, I used the self timer on the camera, just set it to two seconds. It's really dramatic, isn't it?, and atmospheric. Now this is a motion shot, a 30th of a second, 1 over 30. I shot this in Madrid and I had the camera on a very small tripod on the pavement or sidewalk, I was with a friend of mine and we just waited for a cyclist to go past, there was plenty of them that evening and a 30th of a second just ready to capture the movement. Now any slower and the people in the background would have been blurred too, I didn't want that, you can see those movement shots can be really dramatic, can't they? In the atmospheric. Next one, good old, 125th of a second, as I say, I can handhold camera at that speed, if anyone's moving they're not moving too much, you can see the gentlemen in the background laughing, he's in-focus, well he is. He's not actually, is he? It's depth of field. That's paramount out of focus, but do you know I mean? There's no sort of camera shake, the two people at the front exchanging that greeting are nicely sharp. A 125th of a second has done that for me. Now this is one I talk in Liverpool and it was 1.5 seconds, now why was it 1.5 seconds? Well, what I did to capture this shot is, I set my camera up on a tripod and I waited for a bus to go past, a bus or a coach, I timed how long it took to come into the frame and then leave the frame, it worked out to be 1.5 seconds. So I set my shutter speed to 1.5 seconds, then I waited, trick then is to wait for the bus or the coach to come into the shot and then press the shutter release button, then over that 1.5 seconds, hopefully, you've caught the movements of the bus going past. Now this is a great technique for the light trails from traffic, that looks great, obviously, the longer you leave the shutter open for, the longer the light trail from the passing traffic. You can see fast and slow shutter speeds has amazing amounts of control and creativity, you fingertips really. A nice fast one, a 1000th of a second, this is another widely shot from many years ago, and I selected a 1000th of a second because I needed to freeze all the young ladies as they're waiting to catch the bouquet that's being thrown from the bride on a hotel balcony above. Again, don't forget, it's Continuous Burst Mode because I got this shot and a number of other shots, obviously, this shot of the bouquet, actually landed in the lady's hands knew she caught the bouquet. I have that shot too, but this shot for me, I just loved that expectation in their faces and a 1000th of a second was ideal to do that. Now I do love it when my students take such wonderful shots, this one was captured during one of my DSLR part one classes, it's wonderful, isn't it? I love the angle that she's chosen for that as well, and the shadow is fantastic, isn't it? Again, a nice fascia as a speed to freeze the action. Now that angle is called a Dutch angle and it works sometimes, in this shot it works because of the angles, isn't it? The angular shape of the building in the background, I suppose the angle he's jumping each as well, but it just works, it's a lovely shot. Now you may well be surprised to see that the shutter speed in this shot was a 60th of a second, that's because the image is sharp, but the car is moving. Now it's a technique called panning, so as the car has gone past, as it's driving past, you actually move the camera at the same speed, your hand holding your camera, you can do that at a 60th, remember, you pan the camera at the same speed as you're pressing the shutter release button, pan the camera as the same speed as the car. What happens is, if you get it right, the car is in perfect focus and the background is moving, that movement is being captured over that 60th of a second, as you're moving the camera, you can imagine the shutters open, it's called that movement basically of the camera. As I say, if you time it right with the car you actually freeze the action of the car. It's a great technique, but it's not easy to do, but when you get it right, the feeling of pleasure is amazing. That's how you do that. It's called panning, 60th of a second, match the speed of the car and you will get that movement in the background, I think for action shots like this, it looks fantastic, doesn't it? Another great shot from Mc Ryan, a good friend of mine. Again, he's put the camera at a lovely low angle and a 20th of a second just to get that movement. Now isn't it funny, you might think, "Well, I don't really want a blurry photograph." But blurry photographs can look great, I hope this shot and a couple of the others that you've seen prove that, it might not be your thing, but it is really atmospheric. It tells a story that, where are those people going type of thing, it's recording people's lives great for travel, like I say, travel photography. Finally, we've got this photograph that I captured in Liverpool of some street performance, it's another quick shot of speed 4000th of a second, it's frozen the action, and by now you know what to do, continuous mode, isn't it? Continuous burst mode, continuous shutter mode, take a number of shots and then just pick the best one. I hope that gave you an insight into shutter speeds and also how to think about your photography, because in the previous module on aperture priority, what you're really concerned about is the size of your aperture and how much of the image you want in focus. Now when you see a moving subject like this one or some of the others that you've seen previously, it's all about shutter speed, your first consideration is what shutter speed you should use. Time to take some photographs then and as I promised, I have my Newton's cradle all setup ready, my camera here, it's about 40 centimeters away. It's on the table top, and not on a tripod. One of the big reasons behind that is normally when I do this, the whole workshop with a classroom full of people, I operate the Newton's cradle, and they take the photographs. But today I'm doing everything. I don't have an assistant, so it's easier for me to do it this way. That's why it's not on a tripod, but it's fine on the table here. I've got it on a little tripod shoot type of thing, so it's fine. For the fastest shutter speeds, I can easily just keep my finger on the shutter release button. I don't have to worry about camera shake. For the slow ones, I can use a self timer or I can use this remote control. But we'll get to that later. The first thing I want to do is freeze the action. Now, before I start, I just want to mention the lens that's on this camera. It's a prime lens and it has a big aperture. Now you may not have a prime lens. But if you think back to a previous module, I did say that you should run out and buy a 50 millimeter lens. Now this one is a 30 millimeter lens, but it does have a big aperture. It does help when you're shooting fast shots indoors because there's not much light and of course bigger aperture, as you know, if you want to have a fast shutter speed, a bigger aperture is what's required to let the light in, or lift the ISO. In this case we'll probably do both. The first shutter speed I want to use then is 500th of a second, and that's quite fast indoors. Let me set it to 500th of a second. It's currently at 20, isn't it? Let's change that to 500. All the way up to 500. Okay, now obviously the image has gone really dark. We'd expect that because we've made the shutter speed really fast, but we haven't done anything to the other two elements yet. Let's do that next then. Again, because I have that big aperture, I'm going to open the aperture up bigger. Just for now am going to leave it on F2. We're still underexposed by 1.3 stops. We have an ISO of 800. Let's lift the ISO up then. I'm going to try 3,200. We're just slightly overexposed. I'm going to just nip in and drop the ISO to 2.5. Yeah, that looks fine, doesn't it? I have my focus point, more or less. We'll just move the camera slightly. It's on the center ball of the Newton's cradle. Now, you need to fix the focus point somewhere, and that's where I've selected. All I need to do now is release the balls, as they say in the quiz shows, release the balls over to the lottery, isn't it? Release the balls and take the shot. I'm just gonna make sure I'm on continuous burst mode. I am. It's on high. Let's just change that to mid. It doesn't really matter, but I want to put it on mid. Make sure I've got the shot setup. It's still in the center. Then, basically you just let the balls go. I will have taken a selection of shots. Let's just take a look at those then. That's amazing, my hand is still in the shot, but that's okay. It can be cropped out. But, you can see that ball is on the right-hand side, it's just perfectly frozen in time, isn't it? It is an amazing thing. Let's have a look at some of the others. That's how rapid fire is. Well, yeah, there's some really good shots there. The next thing to do then is to capture the motion. To do that, I'm going to select a shutter speed of, let's try half a second and let's see what happens then. We switch the speed first, all the way to half a second. Now, you're going to see something strange. Now you're going to see this, what looks like speech marks, and it says naught point five speech marks, and the little speech marks, quotation marks, they indicate seconds or part of a second and of course this is naught point five. Naught point five, as you know, is half. That's half a second. Your camera might actually have one over two, which is a fraction, isn't it? It's the same thing. Okay, we're massively overexposed and that's obvious, isn't it? Because we've now allowed the shutter to stay open for half a second. We need to adjust the other two elements. The best one to do obviously is the ISO. Let's take that down, all the way down to it's a native 100. We're still massively overexposed, but we can now close down the aperture size, all the way down. What we're going to get here at 5.6, half a second and the ISO is 100. Now am going to use my remote control. Oh tell you what, I going to use the self timer. Let's use the self timer instead. I'm going to nip in and select the self timer. The one am going to go for, now I don't know what your camera's going to have, but this one will give me a 5 second count in, and then it will take five images. That's quite clever, isn't it? I know then when to let the balls go because it will count me in. Let's do that then. Just going to check if the exposure is fine. There's that beep. Like magic, it takes five shots. Let's take a look at those. That's amazing, isn't it? It's caught the travel all the way from the left-hand side to the right-hand side. In a big sweep, hasn't it? The difference between freezing the action and capturing the motion is amazing. It all happens just by adjusting how long the aperture stays open for, and as I say, you can create some amazing effects. Now, just for a bit of fun, I did say that we'd include this little robot and I'm gonna try and get a shot of him, sort of moving past. In this little scene that I've created down here with this little miniature camera. I've selected a shutter speed of a 20th of a second, at 5.6. It's just gone slightly under because the light changed outside but it's 800 and that'll be fine, minus 0.3 is not worth worrying about. I'm going to let this go and let's just see what happens and the same thing, I want to put the camera on self timer. Let's just see what happens. Now let's take a look at what happened there. I'm quite excited to see these shots. Crazy, isn't it? The little ghostly robot going past in the background? Yeah, you can have tons of fun honestly, with shutter speed. I just thought I'd throw that one in. Let's have a recap then. First of all, we took a shot with a fast shutter speed, 500th of a second. You can see we've frozen the ball in midair. Then we changed to half a second and we caught the whole sweep of the balls as they went on their travels. Then we changed to a 20th of a second to capture some movement blur. That took all three together then. First of all, 500th of a second to freeze the action, half a second to capture that lovely sweep of the balls, and 20th of a second to capture the motion of the little robot. I would love to see what shots that you come up with, what little desktop toys that you buy, and by all means send me them because I'd love to see them. Now, as I said this experiment was successful because I had that big prime lens and I didn't go to the biggest aperture, I could because it goes to 1.4. Opens up that big. I think the biggest to use was F2, wasn't it? But it just shows you that having that prime lens does really help. However, today is really overcast outside and there's not much light coming through the window. I guess on a sunnier day, you would probably get away with it. Of course, if you are shooting outdoors, you don't have to worry about it at all because you've got that lovely natural daylight. Hope you enjoyed this module and I'll see you in the next one. 8. Module 7 ISO: In this module, we're going to take a look at ISO. As you know, ISO is one of the three elements that help us shape exposure. Now it's not as sexy as aperture size, and it's not as sexy as shutter speed. That's because those two guys help us be super creative. All that ISO does is make our image darker or lighter. But we can't be super creative without control and exposure, and ISO comes into play when we've set our camera to a specific aperture size or a specific shutter speeds, if our image is too bright or too dark, this is where we can use the ISO to correct the exposure. The other thing about ISO is we try and keep the ISO value as low as possible. The lower the number, the less chance of introducing digital noise. The higher the number, the more chance there is of you introducing digital noise, and digital noise is not very nice. We try and keep that number out. Now there will be many, many, many occasions where you can't do that in a dimly lit environment, for instance, when you set your shutter speed, you set your aperture size and the image is simply too dark. Of course that when you can raise that ISO value and lighten your shot and increase that exposure. But ultimately, we try and keep that number as low as possible. But if you take a photograph and the ISO value is high, don't worry because that is why its there for, it's there to help you. It's just that you have to keep in mind that the lower the number, the less chance there is of digital noise. If your photograph has some digital noise, then always know that with software, you can lessen that if not eliminate it altogether. Let's have a look at an in-depth guide at ISO. Also I will show some photographs that have digital noise, and I'll also show you how I corrected the noise or eliminated it. Let's take a look then. Take a look at ISO, first of all, ISO values simply measure the sensitivity of the image sensor. ISO is also one of our three elements that shape exposure. Adjusting the ISO size will brighten or darken the exposure of a photo. So increase the ISO number and your photographs will grow progressively brighter. Conversely, lower the number and your photos will become darker. In our group of three elements that determine exposure, increasing the ISO number is our method of last resort. That's because the higher the ISO number, the more chance there is of introducing digital noise into our photographs, and digital noise looks a bit like interference on an old TV. It's not very nice. Now grain in a photograph looks really nice, but don't get confused, noise is not nice. We try and keep the ISO as low as possible. It's called the base ISO, your camera will have a base ISO, it might be as low as 100. It's going to be around about that mark. We try and keep the ISO as I say, as low as possible. Now it's not always possible to do that, especially when you're shooting photographs in a dark environment. Really should only raise your ISO number when you are unable to brighten the photo using shutter speed or aperture size. Like I say, it's your method of last resort. Now don't get me wrong, ISO is really, really, really useful and you will use it a lot. But if you're careful, you can actually opt to use the automatic ISO function and let the camera determine the ISO for you. This works great in most situations, and it will allow you to concentrate on the aperture size and shutter speed. However, you should always switch back to manually adjust on ISO when you have control of the light on the studio lights, for instance, or when you have the option to reduce the shutter speed during long exposures. An example of this would be uneven shoot. Imagine you are photographing a cityscape at night. Now if you left your camera on auto ISO, it would detect that the scene is dark and it would increase the ISO number. As you know, high ISO numbers introduce digital noise, and digital noise loves an area of one flat color. Of course the sky is generally one flat color of an evening. Believe me, there will be lots of noise in the sky. If you think back to your exposure triangle, you can quite simply increase the shutter time. Increase the length of time, the shutter stays open to let more light into the camera rather than increase the ISO and balance your exposure that way. That way, you won't get any noise in the sky. Now, I tend to shoot nighttime shots. It could be a cityscape, it could be the light trails, my car, passing car the lights and I did like that, I don't go above 400 ISO and I just keep the shutter open longer. Now of course, there will be situations when you're shooting outdoors in dark situations, where you may have to increase the ISO and the trade-off is that you will get noise. But there is software that can take that noise out, but we'll talk about that later. Now, let's look at some examples then. Now I remembered a caption I shot many years ago, it was a rock band playing at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. Let me show you first two settings that I used. I'm going to save the ISO to explain the eventual number I decided to use. First of all, think about it. The band is on stage and I want to take advantage of the stage lights. I'm obviously not going to use flash. Now, the Cavern Club is very famous club in Liverpool and it doesn't have any windows, I know that looks like a window in the shot, but it's a light panel. It's very dark in there, and as I say, I wanted to take advantage of the stage lights. Shooting in manual, I set the aperture to the biggest aperture accord, which is 2.8. The next consideration was shutter speed, at the back of my mind I'm thinking all the time that I want to keep the ISO as low as possible. However, I couldn't really use a shutter speed slower than 125th of a second. If you think back to the shutter speed module, that was my recommended slowest shutter speed for handhold in the camera when the subject is moving about. Now to be fair to me, he wasn't moving about too much, but you can see he's actually in mid movement. Although I could have used a slower shutter speed, he would have been slightly blurred and I didn't want that. Let's recap. That's the biggest aperture size I can use. Its all about getting the light in the biggest aperture you can use, and that's the slowest shutter speed I can use. Then I turned to my method of last resort, which is ISO. But first of all, I checked my exposure meter and I could see I was drastically underexposed. I had to lift the ISO all the way to 3,200. Now that is quite a lot. Now let me just zoom in so you can see the noise. The guy who's playing the bass guitar in the background he covered in noises, isn't he? But I can get away with that. It's more the guy at the front playing the guitar, the singer, the noise is all over his jacket. It's not pleasant, is it? Now using software, I can remove a lot of that noise. As you can see, it's a lot better, isn't it? If I zoom back out. It works. I've got away with it. I revisited this shot recently and I was able to take the noise out. Now ideally, I wouldn't use 3,200, but you can see it was my method of last resort. I didn't really have any option. Let's take a look at another shot then. You may have seen the shot earlier on in the shutter speed section. Let's take a look at some of the sentence then. F 5.6 shutter speed of a 30th and an ISO of 2,500. Again, my only option rarely. I suppose I could have made the aperture a bit bigger, but I didn't really want to do that. I had to lift the ISO to 2,500. Now remember I said earlier that noise loves an area of one flat color, and if you look at that sky, I bet you can't see one tiny little piece of noise. That's because it's been edited and the noise has been removed. Let me zoom in and I will show you the noise. It's quite bad, isn't it? There's a lot of noise. As I say, cause noise loves that area of one flat color on the buildings it's not as noticeable, but it certainly is in the sky. Again, using Adobe Lightroom and the noise reduction option, I took the noise out and it is amazing to see it disappear, isn't it? It has softened the image a little bit, but unless I pointed that out to you, I guess you wouldn't see it. Again, 2,500 ISO was my method of last resort. One more shot then. This is a shot I took in Liverpool. Let's have look at the sentence then. Now F 16 because I wanted to get the stone arch and the buildings in the background all in focus. I chose a nice small aperture. Now you might be surprised to know that the shutter speed was 15 seconds. Now 15 seconds allowed me to do two things. First of all, it allowed me to run into the shot with a torch and paint the heart. I've done some light painting with the torch and over 15 seconds I'm actually in that photograph but you can't see me because I've run in that fast, paints the heart and run out, and I am replaced with new pixels and events, the eye will just disappear from the exposure. It's amazing the way that happens, but it's a little bit witchcraft to think. But the other thing about having a 15-second exposure allowed me to keep the ISO really low. The ISO in that shot is only 200 and there's not one speck of noise anywhere. You can see in the previous shot of the cyclist in Madrid, I had no option but to use 2,500. In the first shot of the rock band, most definitely I had no option, it was the only way of increasing the brightness of the exposure. In this shot, my option was to increase the shutter time. I could do that. I could make it longer. I could have made it perhaps 20 seconds and dropped the ISO even more, but 200 is fine. The only thing about this type of shot is, if there was a person standing there and you are trying to include them in the shot obviously, they will be heavily blurred because 15 seconds is a long time, isn't it? But for these cityscapes shots, it's ideal to use a rarely long exposure because there's nothing moving in the shot. Hopefully that gives you an insight to ISO and how we use it as our method of last resort and in some cases, how we use it as the first thing we think of. In a shot like this one it's the first thing I think of. I'm going to lock the ISO at 200 and then I can concentrate on the other two elements that determine the exposure. Now you know all about ISO. I'll see you in the next module. 9. Module 8 RAW v JPEG: Did you know that your camera shoots in two file formats. You have the RAW format and the JPEG format. Now I am pretty sure that you have heard of a JPEG because we use them every day, don't we? We post them to social media and even our smart devices shoot photographs in the JPEG format. What's the RAW format? Well, it's what professionals use and it's what I want you to use. By the end of this module, I want you to be a dedicated RAW shooter, because honestly it's the best way to get the best from your camera and that's what you are trying to do, isn't it? We're going to take a look at an in depth guide to RAW vs JPEG. I'll show you the pros and cons, but hopefully by the end of this module, you will be a RAW shooter. Let's take a look at that in depth look then on the comparison between the two. RAW vs JPEG, which is the best? Spoiler alert, I use RAW, and I would suggest that you use RAW, but we'll go through the differences and you can make the decision because it's all about you, isn't it? It's not about me. First of all, a JPEG is instantly available, which is great because when you return home and you want to send you photographs off to a friend or you want to put them onto social media it's a simple thing, isn't it? Having things done for you and you just quite simply take the image off your card. Some cameras have Wi-Fi and you can link that to your smart device. In that respect, they are really good. Also, a JPEG file size is much smaller than a RAW image. Now there's a reason for that. When you think about it bigger is better isn't it. There's going to be more information in a RAW file, and so the quality is going to be better. JPEGs are instantly compressed inside the camera, and this compression process affects the dynamic range. What that means is to get the file size smaller, because as I say, JPEG is much smaller than the RAW image, internally in the camera, your camera will compress the image. Now how it does that is areas of highlights. The camera will analyze those highlights and group them together and throw away some of the information. It will do the same in the shadows and that process makes the image size smaller. Now that doesn't happen with a RAW file. You can later on reclaim those highlights and lift the shadows. Now, don't get me wrong. You can do that with a JPEG as well. But as I say, it's much more unforgiving in the editing process. When you are editing a JPEG, there's a chance that when you try to reclaim the highlights or lift the shadows, the image quality will deteriorate. That's what you've got to bear in mind, but you may not be interested in editing your photographs. That's another thing for you to consider. Picture profile and white balance are baked into a JPEG. If you get the white balance wrong, if you're in the JPEG mode, then it's baked in and it's very difficult to fix the white balance later on. Now when we get to the white balance module, I will show you an example of that. But the picture profile and the white balance, as I say, are baked in. This doesn't happen with a RAW file. If you selected the wrong white balance, you can retrospectively change that very quickly. As I say, when we get to the white balance module, I will show you that. JPEGs are also saturated and sharpened inside the camera. They are instantly sharpened and saturated. I like to do that myself. I like to add the sharpness and the saturation when I'm editing the photograph. It's a better way of doing it rather than trust the camera to do it. But as I say, JPEGs are ideal if you actually don't want to edit your photographs. Eventually what happens with the RAW file, by the way, is that you edit it, gets to look the way you want it to be, and then you export it as a JPEG. A RAW file will eventually become a JPEG anyway. But that RAW file allows you to edit and get it to look exactly the way you want it to look. A RAW image cannot be instantly viewed and shared. It has to pass through a RAW conversion engine. That sounds a bit mad, doesn't it. Before conversion, it's simply a collection of RGB pixels. This is what a RAW file looks like. It actually isn't a photograph at all. It's a collection of RGB, red, green, and blue pixels. Although when you take a photograph in the RAW setting, a thumbnail will come up on the screen of your camera and that will show you what the photograph will look like. It's a representation of what it will look like. It's a very quick thumbnail. But it actually, oddly enough, isn't the photograph, because those red, green, and blue pixels have to pass through the RAW conversion engine. Now it looks nothing like that. It's just a piece of software, but I thought that graphic was quite nice. But it passes through this RAW conversion engine and then through to your computer to a piece of software. I use Adobe Lightroom. You might not have Adobe Lightroom and you might not want to subscribe to the Adobe package, but it doesn't matter because you can download the free software from Canon or Nikon whatever camera you're using. I'm sure you can go on their website and download their RAW conversion program. It'll be free. It'll be a rudimentary version of Lightroom if you like. But you'll be able to do a lot of the same things that you can do in Lightroom and it doesn't cost you anything. Now as I said earlier, a RAW file has that wonderful wide dynamic range. It allows you to edit the photograph in the way you want it to look. Allows you to reclaim the highlights and the shadows details. It really is amazing. All professional photographers will shoot in RAW. Also, if you're serious about photography, please shoot in RAW. That is my recommendation. Now when your learning, your camera will allow you to shoot in RAW plus JPEG. Let's take a look at that then in the menu system. Jumping into the menu system on my Sony camera, I'm going to locate the quality image tab. You can see that the top file format, so if I select that. It now gives me three options, I can shoot in RAW, I can shoot in JPEG, and I can shoot RAW and JPEG. Now, one and three are obvious, if set to RAW, it's going to shoot RAW. If set to JPEG, it's going to shoot JPEG. But the second option is quite interesting, RAW and JPEG. What that does is it captures one photograph, but create two files, a RAW file and a JPEG. I think this option is fantastic. When you are discovering how to use your camera, and it can become really useful in that learning process. Also, it's a great option to use. Let me give you a little scenario. Imagine you're on holiday in the Himalayas for instance, and you opt to shoot in RAW plus JPEG. Then when you return back to your hotel, you could instantly pop up all the JPEGs up onto social media and tell everyone all about your day. When you return home from your trip, you have the RAW files and you might discover you've got the most amazing photograph of the Himalayas. It's a RAW file so you can reclaim the shadows and the highlights. You can lift the shadows, reclaim the highlights. You can do all that good stuff. At the moment you may be thinking, do you know what, I only ever use JPEG, but wouldn't it be a shame if further down the line, you thought, why did I think that? Why did I say I'd only shoot JPEG because RAW is so much better. Then if you've shot in RAW and JPEG on your trip to the Himalayas, you will have a copy of those RAW files, hopefully saved, and then you can edit them then. It's a good way forward, isn't it? Here we have the screen on a Canon camera. I'm just going to activate the quick menu by pressing the letter Q. Now I can navigate round the various functions. I'm going to pop across to the image quality tab. You can see all the different options. I have different sized JPEGs. We're not really interested in them. I guess you do need to know that though, that, that little symbol there means that's the best quality JPEG. Put scrolling through different sized JPEGs and there is the RAW plus large JPEG option. Also you have the RAW. You can just shoot in RAW or large JPEG. If I just select that, there you go. My camera's now set to RAW plus large JPEG. I would always suggest you shoot in RAW, but only you know, if you are up to the challenge of editing your photographs using software. I hope this module has given you something to think about. If you decide to shoot in the JPEG format, there's absolutely no problem in doing that. But I hope that you consider moving onto RAW at some point in the future. I'll see you soon in the next module. 10. Module 9 White Balance: You may have seen a button on your camera that says WB and wondered what it is. But WB just stands for white balance. But what was white balance? Well, every environment that you find yourself in, either indoors or outdoors, has a specific color temperature. That sounds a bit technical, isn't it? But it's not really. If you press the WB button, you'll be presented with a bunch of icons and huge assembly after match the icon with the environment that you find yourself in. Sunny day, under fluorescent lights, etc. You will also see AWB or auto white balance. In most cases, auto white balance does a great job. Sorry about the spoiler alert, but let's take a look at an in-depth guide then to white balance. Every location indoors or outdoors has a specific color temperature. Color temperature is measured in degrees Kelvin. Natural daylight has a color temperature of 5,600 degrees Kelvin. Do you need to know that? Not really. What you do need to know though, is that our eyes are just instantly to changes in color temperature, and a camera is not as reliable in reading that color temperature. If I was outdoors wearing a blue jacket, under natural daylight, and then I came indoors under fluorescent lights, wearing the same blue jacket, the jacket would still look the same color. But to a camera, it might look slightly different. We've got the ability to change the way the camera reads color. You can select a white balance to suit your surroundings. Let's go through the symbols then. We have auto white balance, where the camera decides the white balance. We have sunny day, we have overcast day, we have shaded, we have incandescent light bulb, we have fluorescent light, and you can also read and set your own custom white balance, but more on that later. Now in most cases, auto white balance is fine. Now when you shoot in raw, it doesn't record the white balance. Now if you think back to the raw vs JPEG module, and remember that a raw image is not yet photograph. It's just red, green, and blue pixels, so it doesn't actually record the white balance information. That's great because it means you can retrospectively change the white balance. Now, why is that important? With you're shooting in JPEG, for instance, and you're shooting indoors under fluorescent lights, you may change the white balance setting to fluorescent. Now I guess that's correct. However, if you forget to change it to a daylight setting, sunny day for instance, or overcast day when you're shooting outside, your photographs will have a terrible color cast, trust me. If you're shooting outdoors with the wrong setting, fluorescent for instance, like I mentioned, your photographs would ever a terrible color cast. You're much safer using auto white balance. I pretty much always shoot in auto white balance because I use the raw format. As I said, I can retrospectively change the white balance when I'm editing the photograph. Then I will set a custom white balance if it's a product shot, because I need to get the colors absolutely perfect. If somebody's going to buy a product online, then when it arrives, it has to be the exact same color that they can see on the screen or in the catalog. Let's take a look then inside light room and I'll show you what happens if you incorrectly set the white balance, and how difficult it is to fix with a JPEG, and how simple it is with a raw file. You're currently looking at a photograph that was shot with auto white balance. It's a JPEG and trust me, the colors are perfect. Absolutely perfect. That's what I remember that scene looking like. I'm going to jump to a raw version, and that's the raw image. That was shot on auto white balance too. That's perfect. There's no real difference between the two. One might be slightly lighter than the other, but that's probably the way the sunlight changed in the room when I was taking the photograph. This photograph is a raw image with the incorrect white balance notes. It was set to incandescent deliberately to put that blue cast on, just so that you can see it. This is a JPEG version, again with the wrong white balance setting, set to incandescent. Now I want to jump back to the raw version. This is the raw image, and you can tell it's the raw image because it has the file extension ARW, and that's Sony's file extension for raw. All you need to know is that's a raw image. Now when I come over to the basic set of tools and locate the white balance section, and drop down this little menu, you can see that I can now retrospectively change the white balance. All I'm simply going to do is click on auto and you'll see that photograph miraculously back to where it should be. There you go. The white balance has been fixed. I have retrospectively changed it to auto white balance. As you previously saw, the auto white balance version was perfect, wasn't it? So I can retrospectively do that, which is ideal, isn't it? Now if I click on the JPEG version, so this is now a JPEG with the incorrect white balance, and you can see that it's JPEG up here with the file extension. Now if you come across to the basic set of tools, locate the white balance section again, and drop down the same menu, you can see, I have not got the options now to change it to a different white balance. I do have auto, so I could click on that and I will do. I'm going to click on auto, and it hasn't fixed the photograph, has it? Now it's got a purply color. It's just not right, is it? It should, remember, look like this. Because that white balance was set incorrectly with the JPEG version and it's had that white balance baked in. If you remember, that's what JPEGs do, they bake in all information, so you can't change parts of it. I will struggle to get the white balance right in that photograph. Now lastly, let's take a look at this. This again is a raw photograph, and we can see the file extension ARW. This one has got a white card included. I can use this to fix white balance. Again, I'm going to go across here to the basic set of tools and drop on this menu down and select on auto. When you use the eyedropper, and when I bring the eyedropper across, I need to click onto the gray area of this card. When I do that, it will fix the white balance. It's amazing that, isn't it?. If I put it back to As Shot, and just show you that again. Pick the eyedropper tool, come across, click on this gray area and it's fixed. That's what a raw photograph allows you to do. Easily fix errors. It's great for editing. But in this case, because it's all about white balance, you could see how quick I could fix that white balance. Now the same photograph, this is a JPEG, and I'm going to do the same thing. Basic set of tools, white balance section, click on the eyedropper, come across the image and then click on this gray area. Again, we've got the horrible purple color. You can see shooting in the raw format is much better. Shooting in the raw format in the auto white balance is great, isn't it? I'm just going to change this back to the way it was. This is the raw version with the incorrect white balance, and I'm going to jump to this shot. This is the raw photograph with the auto white balance, and as you can see, the colors are perfect. Let's jump back to this one, incorrect one, the raw shot. Again, correct the white balance. Now you've just watched me correct that white balance, and if I go back to the auto white balance, that was also white balance and this is the one I've just corrected. They're identical, aren't they? You can see the power of shooting in raw,, gives you that ability to be able to fix your photographs. I can't recommend it highly enough. My tip is always to shoot in auto white balance. If you're shooting in raw, that's what you'll do anyway, I guess. But certainly when you're shooting in the JPEG format, I would still recommend you use auto white balance. In most cases, also white balance is the way to go. I'll see you in the next module. 11. Module 10 Camera Modes: In this module, we're going to take a look at camera modes. Now, what is a camera mode? Well, automatic is a camera mode and so is manual, but we have others besides these two. We have the aperture priority mode, shutter priority mode, the program mode. So what do they all do, and when should you use them? We're going to go through an in depth guide, and I'll take you through all the different modes they uses, and when you should use them. Now to access the various modes, it's simple. You just spin the mode wheel on the top of the camera. Now you will find that you jump between camera modes, but that's only natural, isn't it? Because you will be trying to achieve different results. I find myself about 25 percent of the time in the manual setting, and about 75 percent of the time in the semi-automatic modes. That's because, the semi-automatic mode get you to where you want to be a lot quicker than manual. Don't get me wrong manual is fantastic, but you need a little bit more time to make sure you've got the right settings. The semi-automatic mode gives you a little bit of help, and you're going to find out all about that in-depth guide that we're going through now. So let's take a look at them. Almost all cameras have a mode wheel. So let's take a look at three typical mode wheels that I know they are very important, and you won't be surprised to learn that they change the camera mode. We're going through the different modes, and what they do in this little section. So here we have a Sony, a Canon, and a Nikon mode wheel, and they might look different, but trust me, they do exactly the same thing. So if you another brand of camera other than these three, don't worry because they all operate the same. So first of all, first thing I want to do, is demos of the stuff, we're not interested in, the automatic stuff. So there they go, disappear on each mode wheel. We are only interested in the creative aspect and the creative controls. But before I move on, a word about the auto setting. Because the auto setting, I think is really clever, and it's clever because if you think about it, if you point your camera at a scene, and you press the shutter release button, by enlarge, you have taken a well exposed photograph. But really all you've done is to press the shutter release button. The camera's done all the work. Now I'm going to introduce you to a very strange concept. Inside my camera, there's a little guy that sits there all day at Mission Control. He's locked in at a big screen. So wherever I point my camera, he can see it on the big screen. He's got access to the light meter, and he can see how much light is coming into the camera. In the auto setting, when I'm about to take a shot, he has got access to a lot of different lightning scenarios and settings, and he makes sure that the right settings are on the camera to get the correct exposure, and he's done all the work, and then he puts his feet back off and he waits for the next shot. He works well, and he worked hard that little guy in the camera. Now, if you look it back way as we go forward and we look at some of the other modes, it'll start to make a bit more sense, and maybe you won't think I'm so crazy about having a little guy living with me in the camera. Another word on those auto settings done as well is that there are scenes settings, and you can see there's the profile of a lady's face for a portrait, there's a running man for an action shot, there is even a knife and fork on the Canon mode wheel for a food shots, and they are just presets. They are preset modes, automatic modes, and if you switch to one of those, the little guy in the camera, he has an idea about the photograph you're about to take. But you won't always get it right. The action shot, for instance, maybe you don't want to freeze the action, maybe you want to capture motion, and he have no idea. Just like when you're in the auto setting rarely, he has no idea whether you want to capture motion or blur the background. So it's a bit hit and miss the auto setting. The scene setting is slightly better, but again, they're automatic. So we want to avoid them. If you look on the Sony wheel, there isn't any scene setting at all. There's an SCN, which means you can access the scenes. But again, it's just there, it's a token gesture. So back to the creative modes, then we've got P, S, A and M, and we're going to go through those in detail and at turn the wheels round to where they should be, and also, we'll just put a little list of what they are. Now before I explain what each one is, just a little word on the Canon acronyms. Because as you can see, P, S, A and M on the Sony and Nikon, but, Canon uses different acronyms for S and A. So Canon uses TV and AV. So S stands for "Shutter," obviously. But on a Canon, its TV does exactly the same thing, just a different acronym. TV stands for "Time Value" and obviously A stands for "Aperture," but on a Canon it is AV, and that just means "Aperture Value." So don't worry if you jump between camera manufacturers and you switch to canon and you think, oh my god, where's the S and the A? It's just the acronym, not different, so don't worry. So P stands for "Program", S, or TV stands for "Shutter Priority" A or AV stands for "Aperture Priority," and M stands for "Manual." When we going to look at those four modes then, and what do they do? First of all, P for "Program." Now it's also known as Programmed Automatic. You can think of this mode as full auto with benefits, and the benefits being that you can make adjustments to any of those three exposure elements and your camera or the little guy in a camera, he will do his best to maintain the perfect exposure. Now it's a very underused setting on the camera, and it's underused for a reason. Because I think when you're in program mode, you can twiddle around with the settings, and there's a danger that you don't really know what you are doing, but the little guy in the camera is doing his best to help you out. By the time you have realized what you doing, you've moved on to shooting in manual. So it's a very underused mode for a reason, and it's a mode I never used. But you might find a use for it, but trust me, a lot of photographers don't use the program mode and you'll see why when we look at the other three. A or AV for "Aperture Priority." Now in this mode, you as the photographer set the aperture size, and this is really cool because this is where the little guy comes into play again inside your camera. I know you think I'm mad, saying that but it's a great way to remember how it all works. You select the aperture size, the little guy in the camera is watching the scene that you're about to shoot. He's reading how much light comes into the camera, and he will set the shutter speed and the ISO, if you have an automatic ISO, he will set those to other elements, to make sure you get the perfect exposure. Or you could just be an aperture priority. You set the aperture size, as the camera select the shutter speed and you could set the ISO. I think it's a great way of being creative switched to aperture priority, because you want to blur the background or very sharp image wherever you want to use it for, and little a guy in the camera step up and do his role. Honestly, he does a great job, so something to think about. I do love aperture priority, and it's one of the most popular modes on that mode wheel for a lot of photographers. In fact, I would say 75 percent of the time my camera is in aperture priority mode. Now conversely, the reverse of this would be shutter priority in that you select the shutter speed and you let the little guy in the camera select the aperture size, and the ISO, if you've got the ISO set to also ISO, like I said earlier. Or you can just set the shutter priority. Let the little guy select the aperture size, and you could select the ISO. As long as you balanced the three exposure elements, that would be fine. Now again, it's a semi-automatic mode, and you can use shutter priority to capture motion or freeze the action, and be confident that the little guy in the camera again is going to read the light coming out of the camera, he's going to make a note of what shutter speed that you selected, and he will select an aperture size and possibly ISO to give you the perfect exposure. So it's fabulous isn't it? I often walk around with my camera in aperture priority, and I'm taking photographs, general photographs. Maybe blurring the background, maybe getting things sharp, whatever type of photography I'm doing. Then if I happened to turn around, and I see that somebody is say, perhaps on a skateboard, or doing some tricks on a cycle, or maybe they're on a trampoline, maybe they're juggling, and you can catch that movement. You can quickly turn mode wheel to shutter priority S or TV. Set your shutter speed. So if you want to freeze the actions, set it to a faster shutter speed and quickly get a shot. It's very quick to jump between aperture priority, and shutter priority, they are very, very popular modes. Lastly, we have M for Manual. I used manual mode about 25 percent of the time. Manual for me is when you have more time. So when I have a model in the studio, and I'm on the studio lights, I'm in control of the light. I can take my time, I can even use a light meter as well. One reason that I use a light meter is because in manual mode, the little guy inside the camera, he goes to the local bar with his friends and you're left all alone to sort the settings out. Now that's fine, because you've got your exposure gauge to help you to make sure you've got the correct exposure. For keeping an eye on that gauge and mess around with the settings, it obviously takes a little bit more time because you haven't got the help of that little guy. That's not a problem. Just as long as you know it takes a little bit more time. When I'm teaching a class at the hotel, I often say to the students, imagine the hotel manager knocks at the door and says next door, Morgan Freeman is sitting there and you have 10 seconds to take his photograph. I guess I could probably do it, but I am a professional photographer, but 10 seconds would be totally fine. I were drawn in, and if I make the wrong turn with the settings, Morgan Freeman could just put his hand up and say, "Nope, sorry, your 10 seconds is up." In aperture priority I could easily just switch it to bigger aperture, and let the little guy helped me in the camera, and I would have a great photograph of Morgan Freeman. If I had Morgan Freeman for longer, I will be shooting in manual. So I think manual is fantastic, and I use it for when I've got more time. Even at shoots, for instance, if I'm doing cityscapes at night, I will always be in manual. Any landscape photography, I will always be in manual. Because these are the situations where you've got more time. But I do love using aperture priority, and shutter priority. As I say 75 percent of the time, they're the mode that I am shooting in with 25 percent manual. So have some fun with camera modes, and I will see you in the next module. 12. Module 11 The Camera Controls: When it comes to making changes to the settings of your camera, you have a number of options. You may have dedicated buttons for the likes of ISO, white balance, et cetera. You will also have a comprehensive menu system. But as well as this, you have the quick menu. The quick menu is great because you can simply click on the quick menu button and navigate to the setting that you want to change and then quickly make a change. Hence why it's called the quick menu. But honestly, you will find yourself more in the quick menu and in most cases, you will rarely visit the name menu. To make the changes once you have navigated to that particular setting, you've got a number of options. You may have a touch screen, but you can also use the command or control wheel on the top or on the back of the camera. Let's take a look then at the quick menu and the control wheel. Here is a typical Canon camera. You can see on the back it has dedicated buttons for ISO and white balance. It also has a quick menu function, like I said, and there is access via that little button with the Q on. When I press that, the quick menu will appear on the back of the screen. You may well be familiar with the screen anyway. When you switch the camera on, that's what you can see. All you have to do is press that Q button and you have instant access to all the items in that quick menu. Quite simply go in and change them. You can change them using this little keypad system here, you can use the command or control wheel to do it, and if your camera has got a touch screen, you can just simply touch any of those items to make changes. Once the quick menu has been activated, you can just simply navigate round using the keypad or the control wheel. If we jumped here, for instance, this is white balance. Pressing the set or the Okay button, depending on what camera you've got, you can simply then just select a particular white balance for instance. Once you're happy, press Okay or set, and then you will return back to the quick menu. Then, as I said, you just scroll through, change the file format, for instance, the image quality. Again, you can either use the keypad or the scroll wheel. The other thing you can do is, whilst you in the quick menu, you can just simply spin the control wheel. You don't necessarily have to go into that particular item to make the change. But it works really well on most cameras. This is a Canon camera, but they all work very similar. Here's a Nikon camera or Nikon, if you're in America. Again, you can see the button is on the back. There's a dedicated white balance button, dedicated image quality button, dedicated ISO button, and also there, at the bottom, and I button. That's the same as the quick menu. It doesn't say Q, but trust me, that's the access for the quick menu. Again, you might be familiar with the screen when you switch your camera on, but pressing that I button will give you access to that rear screen, and then you can make changes to any of the items in that quick menu, all very easy. You use this little keypad to do it or you can use the command or control wheel, or, like I say , if you got a touchscreen, you can make changes that way. A typical Sony camera. I can see one dedicated button that says ISO. But I can also see a C4 and a C3 and another one on the top, that's C1 and C2. What that means is this comes a little bit more upmarket. I could program those buttons, they are custom buttons, so I could put the white balance button wherever it suits me. That is a pretty cool feature. There is access to the quick menu. Then when I press that, again, this little quick menu will appear. With this Sony camera, you can actually customize the quick menu as well. You can add or subtract items from that quick menu and put stuff in that's more suitable for what you want to use, the stuff you use more often. You can add or subtract, which is quite good. All the changes you can make to that quick menu, you can make via that little wheel or, again, if it's a touchscreen, you can make changes with the touchscreen. I know on my Sony, it has a touch screen for focusing, but not for menu items. I have to use the little jog wheel that you can see there. It's a mirrorless camera. When you're using a mirrorless camera, when you look in the view finder, you can actually see the menu. Because remember, it's a little video screen, it's an electronic viewfinder. Whatever you can see on the rear screen, you'll be able to see in the viewfinder. For making changes while the camera is at your eye, for when you're looking through the viewfinder, its ideal, isn't it? Because if you press that quick menu function, you'd be able to make changes while you're looking through the viewfinder. Of course, you can't do that with a DSLR because it doesn't have an electronic viewfinder. What all cameras have in common is that when you look through the viewfinder, you can see this little menu strip along in the bottom. It gives you the information about the three elements that determine exposure, shutter speed, the aperture size, and the ISO. Also the little exposure meter. If you look through your camera's viewfinder, whether it's mirrorless or DSLR, you will always have access to that little menu strip, which is very useful. Control wheels, also known as command or control dials, depending on camera brand you've got. I'm going to call them control wheels because they are wheels. Let's look at this typical Sony mirrorless camera then. I'll take you through what the do. They are used to adjust aperture size and shutter speed. But they're also used for navigating through the menus and controlling other functions like ISO, white balance. In conjunction with pressing the ISO button or the white balance button, you could turn the command wheel round and change that particular setting. Of course, you can always use the touchscreen if your camera has one. But if we take a look at where the wheels are, we've got one at the front here which is going to control the shutter speed, and there's one at the back that's going to control the aperture. If you take a look where they're positioned, it makes so much sense, doesn't it? Because imagine, you are holding that camera, your finger is going to be very close to that wheel that controls the shutter, and your thumb is very close to the wheel that controls the aperture. In theory, you could keep the camera to your eye and make changes just by looking through the viewfinder. You wouldn't have to use the rear screen at all. Traditionally, that's how changes were made to the various settings. Of course, along came touchscreens and people started moving the cameras away from their eye and touching the screen.That is very popular, isn't it? I think that's part of the new generation of smartphones and tablets. We are also accustomed to just touching the screen and making changes on our smart devices. It feels logical thing to do on your camera too. But just bear in mind when you do do that, you're actually taking the camera away from your eye. The traditional way of making changes has always been the control wheels because they are at your fingertips and you can instantly make those changes. Let's have a look at another camera then. This is a typical Canon full-frame camera. We can see here the control wheel at the front, and this controls the shutter. Then on the back of the camera, just here, this controls the aperture. Again, you've got the same thing on here. You've got your finger at the front, which would control shutter, and your thumb at the back, which would control aperture. In conjunction with pressing various buttons, ISO for instance, you can spin either wheel and make a change. A typical Nikon full-frame. There is the shutter control wheel at the front and then on the back of the camera, we've got the aperture wheel. Again, in conjunction with pressing various buttons on the back, we could change the image quality, the white balance, just dependent on what button we pressed in conjunction with spinning that wheel around. Again, they fall on the finger and on the thumb, at the front of the grip and at the rear of the grip, it's ergonomic. Let's take a look then at an APS-C camera. This is a Canon APS-C. These are the most popular size cameras. They have what's called a cropped frame, which is a smaller sensor inside. Very popular and you may well have an APS-C camera. One of the things about APS-C cameras is they tend to just have one control wheel and it operates the shutter. Obviously, it will change the ISO, white balance, depending on what button you've pressed. But if you are in manual, how would you change the aperture? Because you only have one wheel. There's just one wheel available, that control shutter. On the back of the camera, there is a button, and it's just here. As soon as you press your thumb against that button, you are now in control of the aperture. This only happens in manual because, as you can see, the button has other functions on it. It's got exposure compensation on it and it also has the dustbin. It's only in manual mode that when you apply your thumb to that button, you take control of the aperture. That's how that works. A typical Nikon APS-C, it's the same thing. You only have one wheel and that controls the shutter or other functions depending on which button you pressed. Also here is our aperture button and you can see there's a little icon there of an aperture. Putting your finger on there and turning around the control wheel, you will now be changing the aperture. Of course, when you're not in manual mode, that button does something else. It does expose your compensation. Of course, it's entirely up to you whether you want to use the control wheels or use the touchscreen. I think using the control wheels makes things a lot quicker. As I've been a photographer for many years, the control wheel just comes natural to me. But I am guilty of using the touchscreen and actually taking photographs with the live view more than I thought I would do. Maybe I'll change over the years. But I will always use the control wheels. If you think about it, where they are, they're logically placed to make changes really quickly. Hope that makes the controls a lot clear for you, and I'll see you in the next module. 13. Module 12 Aperture Priority: In this module, we're going to take a look at aperture priority. We're going to start off with a little recap and a little guide to what aperture priority is, and then when I return, I'm going to photograph my lovely model here on the table. Now I'd like you to take part in this module, and to do that, you're going to need your camera, you're going to need, as always, a window where there's a lot of light coming in, and something interesting to photograph. Now as well as shooting the model in aperture priority, I'll also shoot it in manual as well, and we can compare the results of both, and they should be pretty similar. So let's have a look at that guide then. By now, you know that the acronym for aperture priority is the letter A or Av if you are using a Canon. It's only the acronym that's different, the actual function is exactly the same. Now when you're in aperture priority, you take full control of the aperture size. So it's up to you to decide what aperture size you want to use, and obviously, you make that decision based on the particular result that you're aiming for. In aperture priority, the little guy in the camera is controlling the shutter speed. He will make a note of the particular aperture size that you've selected, he'll read how much light's coming into the camera, and he will decide what shutter speed to use. He'll also select the ISO if you have the Auto ISO selected. But either way, he will read that light meter, he makes a note of your aperture size, like I said, and he makes sure everything is going to work for you. It's a great way of working because it releases your creativity, and all you have to really think about then is the aperture size, because you know the camera is going to ensure that you get the perfect exposure. So let's take some photographs then. As you know, my camera is set to aperture priority, and I have it on a tripod just here. As you can see, I've got my model just on the table here, and you can see what distance it is. Now I've selected f5.6 as a starter, because if you've got a kit lens, then your biggest aperture is going to be around about 5.6, so it's only fair that I start off with 5.6. Now in selecting 5.6, don't forget the camera is now going to select the shutter speed for me, and it will also select the ISO as well because I have the camera set to Auto ISO, and so very quickly, I can just now take this shot. Just checking my settings, we have f5.6. 1/125 of a second and ISO AUTO. If I just half press the button on the camera, it will reveal the ISO. There we go, it's 1250. So the camera's doing that for me, it's selected the ISO 1250, and also that shutter speed. Now I'm going to talk about the shutter speed selection a little bit later, but let me just take this shot first. Now you can see I have a little square around the model's face, and it's on face detection basically. So if you camera's got face detection and you're photographing a face, why not use face detection? So let me take this photograph then, and there you go. Perfect. It was so easy to do. All I had to do was select 5.6. Now I'm going to change it now to 1.8 because some of you out there might have a 50 millimeter lens at 1.8. So let me change the aperture size then to 1.8. All the way to 1.8, and let's do the same thing. Let's half press the button and see what setting we get. So the ISO has now gone to 100, and it stayed, if you've noticed, on a 1/125 of a second. So let me take that shot then. Perfect. Easy. I just jumped from 5.6 to 1.8. I didn't have to worry about the ISO, I didn't have to worry about the shutter speed. It was all done for me in camera by the little guy sitting in mission control. Now why did it select a 1/125 of a second again? Let me explain what I've done. In my camera's menu, I've gone in and I've changed a particular setting. The setting that I've changed, let me just show you what it is. I'm going to jump into the menu and I can show you a bit better then. So into the menu we go. I've navigated to the ISO Setting. Now your camera will have something similar. If I just go into this setting here, you can see that here, minimum shutter speed, Min. SS, and I've set it to a 1/125. So that means when the camera is selecting the shutter speed, it will do its best to not drop below a 1/125 of a second, and that's a safe shutter speed if you remember back to the shutter speed module. I can change that though. If I just press the button and go into it, I could perhaps change it to a 1/60 of a second. So let's do that then. I've changed it to a 1/60, and I'm going to make a change now to the aperture size and put it back to 5.6. So at 5.6, let's see what readings it gives me now then. You can see the shutter speed has dropped now to a 1/60 of a second, and that of course will bring the ISO down. The ISO was a little higher before. But now it's dropped to 500. So I'm just going to take that shot, and there we go. Hopefully on your camera, you will be able to find that setting where you can select that minimum shutter speed. If not, don't worry, because all you have to do is keep an eye on that shutter speed, and if it does drop below a 1/60 of a second, then you could just take the ISO off auto and just raise it until your shutter speed gets a bit faster. Either way works perfect, honestly. Now let's take the same shot then, 5.6, but we're going to use manual, and you'll see how long it takes to set that shot up. So first of all, let me change the mode to manual. So we're now in manual mode, and I'm going to come off Auto ISO. Let's put it on 250 for now. So we're massively under exposed. Imagine you switch your camera on, and you've taken the photograph of this bust, and that's what you're presented with. Let's see how long it takes me to get the settings right. Now it's already on 5.6, so I'm going to leave it there. First thing I'd do then is drop the shutter speed, and let's take it to that magic 1/125 of a second. We're still massively underexposed. Now I would increase the ISO. Now let's try something like a 1000 and see what that gives me. Half press the button. That was a good guess. So a 1/125 of a second, 5.6, ISO 1000 gives me the perfect exposure and I'll take that shot. Now, it took a little bit longer in manual. Not much longer, but it did take a bit longer. You can see that in aperture priority, it's so much quicker. Now as I'm now in manual, I'm going to jump back to aperture priority and take a shot at 1.8. Let me just jump back to aperture priority, and you'll see how quick that is then. So basically just going to turn this wheel to get it to 1.8. There we go. I could take that shot now. Now it's 1000 because it didn't put it back to Auto ISO. But if it was at Auto ISO, it would have been even quicker. So there you go. I'm all set to take that shot at 1.8. As I said, the little guy in the camera is doing a lot of the work for me. As you can see, manual's fantastic. It needs a little bit more time, but using the priority mode, setting the aperture priority, it's a lot quicker. So practice with both, and only you can decide which is best for you. You may always decide to shoot in manual, and that's fine because you've got your exposure meter which is going to help you to achieve the perfect exposure. But if not, and you shoot in aperture priority, what you're going to get is the little guy in the camera who's going to help you out. Either way works perfect. I'll see you in the next module. 14. Module 13 Shutter Priority: In this module, we're going to take a look at shutter priority. We'll start off with a little recap to what shutter priority is. Then when I return, I want to photograph my little friend here on the table using shutter priority and a couple of it in shutter speeds. I will also shoot in manual as well and we can look at the differences if there is any. There shouldn't be. I'd love you to take part in this module and to do that, as always you need your camera, a tripod, and set-up close to a window where there's a lot of light coming in. Of course, you're going to need something that moves, maybe a clockwork toy. You'll find something. I'd love to see your results. But first of all, let's start off them with that little recap to what shutter priority is then. The acronym for shutter speed is a letter S, but you knew that. Didn't you? However, if you've got a Canon camera, it is TV. Again it is exactly the same, it's just the acronym that is different. In shutter priority mode, you control the shutter speed. The camera will select the correct aperture size. The little guy and the camera sitting there is reading how much lights coming in, and he makes a note of your shutter speed, and selects the correct aperture size to balance the exposure. Of course, if you have auto ISO selected, he'll do that too. Obviously in shutter priority mode, your main concern is what shutter speed to use, and it just depends whether you want to freeze the action or capture motion, but you can be really confident that whatever shutter speed you choose, the little guy in the camera is going to select an appropriate aperture size, and ISO to give you the perfect exposure balance. Ready to take some photographs. Now, I have my camera set here on a tripod and it's in shutter priority, and I've got my robot here all ready to go. What I want do is just capture some motion. I'm going to try two shutter speeds and I want to start off with a full second. Let's have a look at the settings then. Full second would give me F10. Now, we just half-press the button, it will reveal the ISO, and the ISO is a 100. Now we'd expect that a low ISO because obviously the shutter is open for that full second, so ISO is dropped right down. Now don't forget the camera has selected that ISO for only and also the aperture size. The only thing I have to think about was what shutter speed to use and as I say in this case, I'm going use a second. Let's get this robot moving then I'll take some shots. I'm going to try and use my remote control for this. Because I don't really want to touch the camera, this is the thing you've got to think about. If you touch the camera at such a slow shutter speed, even on a tripod, you still run the risk of introducing some camera shake and we don't want that. I'm going to try this remote control. Fingers crossed it works. Let's kick off the robot then. Just to show you where my focus point as well. Focus point is right on the robot. Yeah, that's fine. It's in continuous focus as well, because the robot's going to be walking towards the camera. I've set it to continuous, and you can do that on your camera. It's very easy to do. Let's kick the robot off then and see what happens. That's enough for that noise, isn't it? Now, that worked rather well. Let's take a look at those shots then. That's fabulous isn't it, that you can really see that it's called that spin and movement, and I think the second worked really well. Yeah, I'll try two seconds then and see what happens. Allow me to robot up again, ready for take two. All I need to do is just spin the wheel on the top just to change the shutter speed. Let's take it to two seconds. Now we've got a full two seconds and I would just check on the ISO. Again, obviously it's going to give me ISO a 100, it's going to take it to lowest. But in this case, it closed the aperture size down to F16. Remember it's all about balancing the exposure, isn't it? The camera's done that for me, the little guy in the camera. Let me take some more shots then. Let's set this robot or everything in set. Just check the focus point. That's perfect, and let's kick this robot off then. Sorry about the noise. It's enough for that noise, isn't it? Let's take a look at what looks like then. As I said, we shot that at two seconds. Let's have a little look then. Looks amazing doesn't it? It's just shows you what you can do now. As I said to achieve that, you really do need a remote control, or you could use the camera self-timer as well, which often on a previous module. It's up to you, but if you've got remote control or a recorded remote control, they're not expensive, and you can get great results. I'm going to do the same shot now and I'm going to use manual for this, and we can just see how longer it takes me to setup basically. Now the camera is now set to manual. If you just take a look at the settings then, it's 60th of a second at 3.2 and an ISO of 500. Now what I want to do is to set the camera to take the shot of the robot at a full second. Let's just see how long that takes because you saw how easy it was before. Basically just turn the wheel and had to change the shutter speed. Now obviously in this case, I've got to change all three. Let's do that then. The first thing we want to do then is change the shutter speed to a full second. Let's do that then. I always do that. Let's go the long way, anyway. Full second, which as you know, there's little quotation marks, means seconds. Now we're massively overexposed. The next thing to do then would be to change the aperture or the ISO. In this case it's going to be both. Because I'm using a really slow shutter speed, I know that that ISO was much too high. I would do that first and take it down to the negative 100. We're still overexposed. The next thing to do then would be the aperture size. Let's change the aperture size and basically just keep close, and the size of the aperture all the way down until I get it to zero or your little gauge, the little pointer goes to the center. But that's all ready to take the shot, and you can see how long it took to set that up. Now the shutter priority, I just simply selected the shutter speed and the little guy in the camera did the work for me. With this, I've had to do all. Let's capture the shot then in manual. Start the robot. That I'll do on it, that's noisy. Let's take a look at that shot then. Looks fab, doesn't it? Now, there's no difference between that and the shot I took previously, which was a priority. That proves that it's so much quicker with shutter priority. If you got the time, then manual's great. In a lot of situations you haven't got the time, especially street photography. You can see that shutter priority achieve the same result but a lot quicker. Now, I'm not putting you off shooting in manual. I'm just saying you have a great alternative in the priority modes. I think that little experiment proved that. Of course we can also increase the shutter speed to freeze the action. Let's do that then. Let's take it up to say 1,000th of a second. All the way up to 1,000th of a second. Remember the camera will put the other correct settings to achieve that perfect exposure. Let's try a 1,000, and that's going to give me an ISO of 2,000. Let's set the robot off then, and let's see what happens. Of course I can keep my finger here. I've gotten on continuous mode. Because we want such a quick shots of speed, there shouldn't be any camera shake. Let's try this then, and gain. It's noisy, that is't it? Let's take a look at some low shots then. You can see it's perfectly frozen. The action now it's not as dramatic as the slower shutter speeds, is it? But just to show you that how it works. All you have to do is spin the wheel to change the shutter speed, and you can always be confident that the camera will select an aperture size and an ISO that'll give you the perfect exposure. Please try this at home. You normally [inaudible] don't try this at home. I'm telling you should try at home, and I love to see your results. Remember you can always shoot a manual and it's up to you whether you want to shoot a manual or shutter priority or aperture priority. The decision is yours but as I've always said, I shoot in manual about 25 percent of the time, and the rest of the time, I'm in those priority modes because they're a lot quicker. To shoot manual is great when you've got more time. I'll see you in the next module. 15. And Finally...: Hi. Now before you jump is the final lesson. I would like to ask if you can leave a review when you've completed the class. Now you can simply choose one of the four options provided by Skillshare. Or perhaps if you've got the time, maybe you could leave a short review. Now, either would be really appreciated because your inputs rarely will help others have the confidence to take the class. Okay, Thanks, Best wishes. Now let's go back to the class. 16. Module 14 The Final Edit: So sadly, we've come to the end of this photography course, but I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have in producing it. I hope I've helped to lift your photography to the next level. Now, I'd like to talk a little bit before we finish about photo editing. Photo editing gets itself a bad reputation because people confuse it with photo manipulation, which is something completely different. I guarantee that every great photograph that you've seen in your lifetime has being edited. of course, it was known as editing on a computer because before computers, it was done in the dark room. Photo editing just means that we enhance the photograph to bring out the best. That's all it is. No manipulation. We just want to get the best out of the photograph. With that in mind, I'm going to tell you a great story and stick with this because I love this story. A good friend of mine is a music producer and he runs a recording studio. We were having a drink one night and my local pub. He said to me, surely, if you know how to use your camera and you know what all the controls do, then when you take a photograph, you should never have to adjust it, alter it. In fact, it should come off the camera. Absolutely perfect. So thoughts about it for a bit. My answer was this. I said when you have a singer in your studio and you record their voice, they sing the whole song. When they finished singing. Do you leave the voice exactly the way the singer has just sang it, or do you make any adjustments to the voice? So he thought about it and he said, well, of course not. He said I go in and I use graphic equalization to adjust the highs and lows and the mids. I use a compressor to even out the level of the voice. I use ACO and reverb to warm the voice. I said so you don't leave the voice the way it was sang originally. You actually go in and make a lot changes. He said yeah so I said to him. That's what we do with our photographs and it's exactly the same. We want to bring out the best in our photographs just the way my friend wanted to bring out the best in the singer's voice. We use software to do that. So to give you a little idea of photo editing, I'm going to show you a photograph. An iconic photograph of James Dean from the 19, late 1950's or I would mention. You'll see the photograph that was shot by the photographer and the lab technician has developed it. The photographer has written on the comments and things he wants change in for the re-edit. So let's just take a little look at that then because it is fascinating honestly. So here is the iconic photograph then of James Dean and you can see all the comments that have been added by the photographer. That would then go back to the lab and the lab technician would read those comments and make the adjustments. It's called dodging and burn and on you would actually put your hands as the light was being projected onto the paper, you would use various methods to, as I say, dodge and burn. In other words, make lighter or darker parts and make changes to them. Which the lab technician did and eventually looked like this. If you look long enough, you can see the amount of changes that have been made to make it a better photograph and that's what we do. You have to remember that in photography, the most important part, rarely is composition. It's a great photograph for James Dean. The actual composition is fantastic. It just needs the best brought out and we do that. In this case, it was done in a darkroom, but obviously up-to-date we do it in a computer. In a computer, we do on a computer using software like Adobe Lightroom, which we're going to take a look at that a bit later. So before I show you inside Adobe Lightroom, I'll just show you some basic editing. I want to introduce you to the histogram. The histogram is a representation, a graphical representation of the lights and whites and blacks and shadows and general exposure within your photograph. So on my camera here I have a photograph I took recently in my local park and if I press the display button a number of times, it will change and eventually I can see the histogram. It's on the right-hand side here. As I say, it's a graphical representation. We use the histogram when we're editing and he helps us to get the exposure eyes. Let's take a look at a little animation that will explain histograms in more detail. So as I mentioned before, a histogram is a graphical representation of the tones in your image from black on the left, to white on the right. So you can see we have blacks and shadows in the left-hand corner. General exposure or mid tones in the center, and whites and highlights on the right-hand side. If I introduce a histogram, that is an average histogram. That's a pretty well exposed photograph because it goes right from one corner to the opposite corner. Now the shape of the histogram will vary with your subject matter of course. The higher the graph at any given point, then more pixels of that tone are present in the image. So let's just take a look then at this histogram. This photograph would be totally underexposed. It's underexposed because there's plenty of blacks and shadows. There's some mid tones, but there's absolutely no whites or highlights. All the information is on that left-hand side where all the dark tones, if you like, are located. Your histogram looks like this, then your photograph would be underexposed. Now this histogram indicates to me that that photograph would be overexposed because all the information is on the right-hand side where the whites and the highlights live. There's some mid tones, but there's no blacks or shadows. That image would be overexposed. If you take a look over here in the top right-hand corner, you can see a line that goes right up to the top of the histogram and that's called a spike. When a spike happens, it means it's completely blown out and any information in the area where that spike is on your photograph would be lost. So we obviously try and avoid the spikes. That's histograms then. Now we're going to jump into Adobe Lightroom and I'll show you a histogram inside of Adobe Lightroom and I'll also add it's photograph. You'll see just with some minor adjustments the difference you can make now obviously heavy editing and the things you can do with Adobe Lightroom are beyond the scope of this tutorial. But at least I can give you an introduction. Let's do that then I'm going to jump into Adobe Lightroom. So here we are then inside of Lightroom, and here is the histogram in the top right-hand corner. Now by just mouse over and staff from the left-hand side you can see there are blacks, moving across shadows, general exposure in the middle, highlights, and then eventually whites. This histogram isn't too bad in this photograph. Now it doesn't have to be super accurate from one side to the other. There's a bit of a gap and this one but, if the photograph looks fine, don't worry too much about it. It's there to help us know. Now, if I jump down here to this exposure slider and I drag it all the way to the left-hand side, then obviously I'm going to make it dark. That is reflected in the histogram because all the information is now on that left-hand side. Conversely, if we go all the way to the right-hand side, that photograph would now be overexposed and as you can see, all the information in the histogram is now on the right-hand side. So let's put it back to the center. I'm going to show you a photograph then when an editor photograph as promised, and just show you some basic edits. But even if you just do these basic edits, you will see that you can get some amazing results. So let's just change the photograph. This is the photograph I captured in my local park and it's of this lovely old lady sitting on a park bench in the snow. This is the image that came straight from the camera. It's little bit dull, and it's a little bit flat. Now, I edited this photograph and eventually it looked like this. It looks much better, it's warmer and it's basic editing, it's nothing too difficult. Jumping back to the previous one, that's the way it looked, and after the edits, it looked like this. I'm going to show you how I did that, and as I say, it's only basic, but I will show you anyway. Let's get this image off, completely ready to go blank canvas and let's see what I can do. One of the first things that do is the actual histogram looks fine, so I'd start off with some adjustment to the white balance. Now, think back to the white balance module, I actually shot this in auto white balance, however, I still think it needs warming up slightly. You can actually go in and change this part, or you can do it manually, and I'm just going to take the slider to the right hand side and probably up to about 6,000 degrees Kelvin. We do it before and after on that shot. You can see how cold it looks there, and then I've just warmed the shot and it looks great straightaway, doesn't it? The next thing is the lady is, she's a bit dull, I knew that hair coat that she was wearing was a lot more vibrant than that. What I do there is I'm going to lift off the shadows to around about here, as a starting point. For now I'm going to leave the shadows on 59, and then I'm going to put my finger on the Alt or Option key, and that will turn the screen white, and I can pull the slider until I see. I'm looking for the blacks to start coming through, and they're coming through roundabout there, so that's that one done, and the whites, a bit difficult because we got some highlights over here. Let's jump to the highlights then. If you look over here behind the lady on the bench here, just watch that area there when I dropped the highlights and you'll see some information coming back. That looks a lot better, doesn't it? Let's do a before and after. That's the before, that's the after. Now, that is a basic correction, and that talk episode quick, wasn't it? It looks so much better. Now, I can do more on that shot. I'm going to carry on a little bit longer, but for now, if that is all you did on the shot, and that would be perfect, and it looks so much better, doesn't it? But I'm going to do a little bit more. Imagine if I want to do some local adjustments, so I don't want to do a global adjustments, I just want to do a local one. I can open up this Adjustment Brush and then decide what I want to do. But over here on these ferns and these Christmas style ferns here, I want to make them look a bit more colorful, a bit more green, so I'm going to take the sliders to yellow and green, so I'm going to add, and I'm going to boost the saturation as well. I'm going to press the letter O on the keyboard because that means you can see where I'm painting, so it's painting a red mask at the moment, and I'm just going to paint all around there, oops, I think I went into the lady's face. I can go to the erase part and just erase off her face because I didn't want that. Just erase off there, there you go, that'll do, and then paint back in just over there, that will do. Now, I'll our press the letter O, it will take the mask off, so that rad head will disappear, but it still active, and it's actually done exactly what I wanted, which is just to introduce. Now, I could put more in and that looks a bit silly, doesn't it? So just a little bit, and again, a before and after, and that looked great, doesn't it? The next thing to do would be this area over here would be nice if I could pour a bit color in there and a bit a texture as well. I'm going to create a new brush, reset it, and for this, I'm going to increase the texture, I'm going to increase the saturation, and I might take that up to, let's see what happens when I do that then, and I might not like the way I've taken if the color of taken it. Again, I guess I should a pressed O, so you can see what I'm doing. There you go, I'm just painting here, make my brush size smaller, and I can do that. Now, ideally I'd zoom in, but just for the purpose of this quick show and tell if you like, I'm just going to do that, and then press the letter O, and let's see if I drag it maybe towards the green, that's better, isn't it? Maybe a bit more yellow, that's too much. Then we saw, and let's just see what the Dehaze, is its slightly. There you go, that will do, and that looks fun, doesn't it? Again, a before and an after. One more thing to do in the shot, well, a couple of things. I'm going to make the lake a little bit bluer because it looks a bit dull, doesn't it? Again, New Brush, reset it, and drag the color towards blue, I want to add some saturation, and I'm going to drop some of the highlights. Rather than me switch on the mask so you can see it, I'll leave that off, so you can actually watch me paint the blue in. There you go, I'm painting blue into the lake, and that looks great, doesn't it? So you saw, like I say, but it does make a difference. When I'm done with that, I just click on the word Done, that is the local edit to Done now, and all I want to do now is add a post crop vignettes. To do that, I want to go to the Effects tab, and let me show you what a post crop vignette is. If I go really silly, and pull it right down, there you go, you can see. It puts a dark area around the outside of the photograph, so I don't want that much obviously, but something like that would be quite nice. Again, there's a lot more I can do with that in directing light towards the lady on the bench, now I'm not going to do that because it's beyond the scope of this photography course, but don't worry, because I'm producing a course on Adobe Lightroom and you're going to be able to watch that. But yeah, so let's just go full screen. Before we do though, let's do a before and after, so that's the before and it looks really flat, doesn't it? Quite dull, and that's the after. Now, any given point, I could go in, and for instance, I might want to lift the shadow is little bit more, and then maybe just a bit more touch more up to 60 yet, and that's fine. Let's go full screen then, and you can see how that turned out, and it's far, [inaudible]. The other thing as well, I know I said that was the last thing, but I just want to show you one more thing, I can now, that I have that photograph, If I just create a virtual copy of that, an Image, server creates a virtual copy, so I will keep the work I've just done and keep the image of the way it is, but now I've got another version of it. I could crop that now and maybe try something a bit different. Let's crop in, let's crop in a bit more, I don't think it needs this, but just to show you the things you can do. So the cropped it there and click on Done, I've now got another photograph of the lady on the park bench. Actually, now, looking at that, I actually think that's better than the one that wasn't cropped. Let me just come out of there, and if I go to here, this is the one that wasn't cropped, let me go full screen on that. It's great, but let's have a look at the cropped version. Yeah, I must admit, I prefer the cropped version, but as you can see the detail in the lady's face. But they're the options you've got, it's endless really. We finally come to the end of the course then, and I hope you've enjoyed it, and I hope you've taken a lot from it, and I wish you well on your photographic journey, and by all means, keep in touch and send me photographs, I'd love to hear from you and put some feedback if you've enjoyed the course as well. Most of all though, you take care of yourselves and I'll see you on the next course. Bye for now.