I meant to post this up on Friday however Friday was CRAZY. Meeting with a gorgeous bride, another following with a photographer and then rushing to pack and get out of town on a mini-vacay for a friends bday. So here we are!

Alright I left you last week with some homework. Missed it? Check out Step 1. Did you take your photo and learn the buttons on your camera? You did! YES! Now we’re going to talk about the Exposure triangle and the different modes your camera has.

The exposure triangle is made up of shutter speed, aperture, and iso. All of these relate to light, how it enters the camera, and then how it interacts with the camera.

Shutter Speed – is the amount of time that the shutter is open to allow light into the camera sensor.

Aperture – the size of the opening in your lens allowing light in. Also determines depth of field in an image.

ISO – your cameras level of sensitivity to light.

Now we’re going to go over each one of these more in depth in the coming days to give you a better understanding of each. In order to go through the different modes on your camera you needed some definitions.

There are a few different modes you can use your camera on. Each doing something different. So, you may or may not, end up using them at different times 🙂

A – is for automatic. If you’re just starting off you’ve more than likely always had our camera in this mode.  It takes care of all of the pieces for you, automatically. In this mode your camera determines the exposure of an image.

P – is for program.  In this setting your camera sets the aperture and shutter speed, but allows you to change the iso.

Tv – is for shutter priority.  This mode allows you to set the shutter speed and iso and the camera will set the aperture needed for a proper exposure automatically.  To give an example of when you might use this mode: Your at your sons soccer game and you want to take a photo of him in action but want it sharp and not blurry. You could set a fast shutter speed and allow your camera to do the rest.

Av – is for aperture priority. This mode allows you to set the aperture and iso and the camera will set the shutter speed automatically.  This would be used when aperture is the most important aspect for you. I won’t go too far into this one as we’ll talk more about aperture specifically in another post. Aperture determines the depth of field in an image. If your priority was to take some images with a very shallow depth of field you could switch to this mode, adjust your aperture appropriately and your camera would do the rest.

M – is for manual. This mode allows you set aperture, iso, and shutter speed, giving you full control of your camera. I switched to manual when I first started learning my camera and have never gone back.  Because I use manual from here out each new post in the Learning Photography series will be using your camera in full manual mode. YAY!

Now if you skimmed through homework last time and aren’t totally familiar with your camera now is the time to learn how to change your camera mode and where and how you change shutter speed, aperture and iso.  Next up we’re going to dive more into shutter speed, aperture and iso each individually. After that we’re going to bring the triangle all together!

Lost? Check out the previous steps.

Step 1 – Getting to know your camera.

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