Quote:
Originally Posted by txpaulranger
To be honest, I have totally lost last 1/4 of your suggestions.
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This is what I expected, however it's not critical to understand, it's only necessary to plug my suggested settings in as a baseline for configuring your camera. Obviously, it's better if you do understand why certain settings work, and others don't, but you can learn this over time, if you have the desire to do so.
Let me illustrate with some examples. I will be breaking this into multiple posts, since I can't seem to make this forum software flow descriptions around images.
Lets get started with the very first candid shot I ever took on a SLR. Notice I say SLR, not DSLR. This was back in 1995 on a Canon film SLR. Basically, I'd been loaned a basic Canon EOS with a couple lenses, one of which was the 75-300mm Image Stabilized... yep, they really did make that exact same lens for over 10 years (it was replaced by the 70-300mm IS in 2005)!!!
At the time, I'd never used any type of camera at all. Since the camera had a full automatic mode, I just put it in that mode, thinking it would be "good enough"... well, as it turns out, it's wasn't anywhere near good enough. Fortunately for me, in those days there was only ONE auto-focus point in the dead center, so at least I didn't have the camera making bad decisions about that too.
This image you see below is blurry. This particular type of blur is what is known as "motion blur". Motion blur occurs when either the subject or the camera (or both) moves during the time that the shutter is open. The solution to undesired motion blur (some photographers use it for artistic effect) is to raise the shutter speed. I will note that this is a tremendously common type of blur, probably 40% or more of all smartphone camera shots suffer from this kind of blur, but for now lets stay "focused" on (D)SLRs.
The question then becomes, how much do we need to raise the shutter speed to avoid motion blur. The old school textbook rule of thumb is 1/<focal length>. So for example, if you were using a 200mm lens, then 1/200 shutter speed would be required. I have a different opinion on this, especially in relation to candid photography. You are going to be moving quickly, and you are going to be under stress, so the shutter speed needs to be higher than this old school rule of thumb. Hence the values I suggested in a previous post.
My final point regarding this image is this... if someone had said to me, "Andy, if you want to get a sharp, clear photo with a telephoto lens like that one you've got on your camera, you are going to want to set the camera to Tv mode, and set the shutter speed to at least 1/320, preferably more if lighting conditions allow", well how cool would that have been?? My photo would have come out better, and that one tip would have cut months off my learning curve. But back in those days, the internet was just getting started, and there were no forums discussing photography, I didn't know anyone in the real world who was knowledgeable in photography. So I struggled.