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**Tnwagn** · 06-08-2013, 02:41 AM

Three main things make up your exposure

1) Shutter Speed

Rule of thumb says you can hand-held shoot with a shutter speed equal to 1/X, where 'X' is the 35mm Equivalent Focal Length you are shooting at. For you, that might be kind of hard to figure out as your camera isn't going to tell you exactly what Focal Length you're shooting at unless you take a photo, review it, and look at the specifics. Even then, you have to adjust whatever focal length your camera reports because your camera uses a crop factor of 5.625x. Whatever focal length you are shooting at with the lens on your camera, Y, has a 35mm equivalent of 5.625*Y. That's what the little bit from your link that says 4-120mm (35mm equivalent 22.5-675mm) means. Shooting at a shutter speed that is slower (Fast = 1/500, Slow = 1/50, Slower = 1/5) gives brighter pictures but more blur.

Shooting 1/50 at 50mm is pretty standard fare for people with steady hands. That gives you the slowest shutter speed (brightest image) with the most acceptible amount of blur given shooting handheld. You can always increase the shutter speed a bit if things are still blurry, maybe 1/60 or so.

2) Aperture

Aperture refers to how much light the lens lets onto the sensor when taking the picture. The more light you let in, the brighter the picture. Low numbers for aperture mean more light, so it's like opposites. Also, low apertures also produce shallow depth of fields. That's what you see when the subject is in sharp focus but the background is completely blurred away. Conversely, a high aperture lets it less light but the entire scene can be in focus.

The aperture varies from f/3 - f/5.8 for your camera. Lower end lenses usually have variable apertures. This means that as you zoom in the maximum aperture your lens can shoot at will increase. So, while f/3 is the most wide open your lens can shoot while fully zoomed out, it can only open up to f/5.8 when fully zoomed in. It's somewhere in between when zooming between the minimum and maximum. All that said, for low light you should zoom out as much as possible and open your aperture up as much as possible (f/3).

3) ISO

ISO refers to the sensitivity of your recording media. When film ruled, you bought rolls of film with fixed ISO ratings depending on what you wanted to shoot. These days, camera sensors can change ISO every shot, which is incredibly flexible yet confuses many people. The high the ISO, the more sensitive the recording material is to light and, thus, the brighter the images it will produce compared to an image with all the same settings except a lower ISO value. So, if you set all your settings on manual and take one picture with ISO 100 and another with ISO 2000 the ISO 100 picture will be much darker than the ISO 2000 picture. However, as you pointed out, the downside is that the higher you bump up your ISO the more noise will be present in the final image. With digital cameras, there isn't a good go-to answer for what ISO would be appropriate for shooting in low light situations as each camera model act wildly differently. For example, take a look at the difference between the D4 and a Coolpix P100 at ISO3200 side by side. The D4 picture looks incredible compared to the P100 picture, even though all settings were the same (That what makes the $5,600 price difference). Try setting your ISO value high and then lowering it until the noise is acceptable for the scene you are shooting. A little bit of noise is OK, just don't let it ruin the image.

Lots to read, but those are the basics. Exposure Compensation is just post-processing that is taking place in-camera to try and brighten the image up. Most cameras do a shit job of this so I would avoid it at all costs. You will get much better results by simply shooting it correctly with the 3 above controls than by using the band-aid that is exposure compensation. The flash on your camera can be a good thing, but direct flash is often very "cheap" looking in final images. [URL=http://www.diyphotography.net/files/images/party_bouncer_setup.jpg]You can make a $0.02 bounce card with an index card and a bit of tape that will work wonders for your images. The idea behind this is the that the light from the flash hits the index card, bounces to the ceiling, then the ceiling casts soft light throughout the scene. This gives a much nicer look overall but may take some experiment to work well with the camera's settings. I recommend testing with this a bit before using it in a real shooting situation.

**ErMMaC** · 06-08-2013, 03:13 PM

I really appreciate the reply Tnwagn, i will try to do as you suggested and give back some results. Actually the camera shows the shutter speed and the focus range before I take the shot (when you click the shoot button slightly to focus it shows all the data iso, focal, shutter speed) I looked at the shutter speed but it does not let me manually select it :/ but when indoors the shutter speed will be 1/2 1/4 1/20, with no flash selected and just mild outside window lighting (its in a living room).

what variables you think would the camera take into consideration when selecting the shutter speed? because while indoors now I am playing with the camera and I cant get the shutter speed to increase past like 1/20 lol

Ill keep playing with it as I go along, I appreciate the help tho!

And to take photos at night than I should maybe try something like an f/3 aperture with a slightly higher ISO? in theory

**Tnwagn** · 06-08-2013, 10:07 PM

There might be a "Manual" setting on your camera that allows you to control all of the settings manually. Some point and shoot cameras lack this feature, however. Take a look through your manual or play through some of the menus in the camera and see if you can find that.

If you can't completely control all settings then you are probably only going to have control of ISO and what "Scene" mode you want. For indoor or night shots there will be a "Night" mode that you can use and you can set the ISO to a value that will give you a shutter speed that is appropriate for what you're shooting.

**ErMMaC** · 06-08-2013, 11:21 PM

Originally posted by Tnwagn View Post

There might be a "Manual" setting on your camera that allows you to control all of the settings manually. Some point and shoot cameras lack this feature, however. Take a look through your manual or play through some of the menus in the camera and see if you can find that.

If you can't completely control all settings then you are probably only going to have control of ISO and what "Scene" mode you want. For indoor or night shots there will be a "Night" mode that you can use and you can set the ISO to a value that will give you a shutter speed that is appropriate for what you're shooting.

Hmm ill take a look at the settings in more depth to see if I could find the manual mode but I dont think it has it :/ but you are completely correct a out the different scene modes, theres honestly like 20 different modes including a 3D mode lol which I find odd.

The "Night" scene is currently the one I am experimenting when shooting in the dark because sometimes I have the flash on and it wont shoot a flash even when its dark and the pics come out just fine, other times I shoot with the sam scene selected and it ask for a flash, so I think when in night mode the camera will just tend to shoot better if the flash is at least open even if it doesnt use it

I really appreciate the time you have taken to break down bits and pieces of the camera, really helps out a lot

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