The Triangle by Thackman

[tweetmeme]Imagine you’ve just put a pie in the oven. Now, the back of the packet said it needed 20 minutes at 120 degrees, but you haven’t defrosted your pie yet and the guide on the pack is for a fully thawed out pie. How hot do you want it? How long should you leave it in for and at what temperature? Welcome everyone to the world of photography.

Confused? This is where The Exposure Triangle can help. Imagine that the time you leave your pie in the oven for is your cameras Shutter Speed, the temperature of the oven is the ISO, and the state of your pie (frozen or thawed) is your cameras aperture. These three aspects of photography help to make up what is called ‘The Exposure Triangle’. Each one is directly related to the other, and a change in one will require an adjustment in the other two to ensure a properly exposed photo.

This analogy may seem strange, but I find this is one of the clearest ways to understand the relationship between Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO. In order to understand the relationship though, you first need to know what each one is, and how it affects your photo.

Shutter Speed: The Shutter Speed is a fairly simple concept. It basically defines how long the shutter is open for. A longer shutter speed, such as two seconds (2″), means that your camera’s sensor (the CCD) is exposed to the light for longer, and this subsequently results in a brighter photo. Likewise, if you use a shorter shutter speed, such as one two hundredth of a second (1/200), then the camera’s sensor is exposed to the light for less time resulting in a darker photo. In the pie analogy, the shutter speed relates to the time your pie is in the oven. If you leave it in the oven for 30 minutes, it will be much hotter compared to leaving it in the oven for 10 minutes.

If you want to leave it in the oven for at least 30 minutes however, but don’t wish for it to get burnt, then the easiest way to avoid this is to turn down the temperature of the oven…

ISO: The ISO is the temperature in our pie analogy. ISO refers to your camera’s sensitivity to light and usually ranges from ISO 80 to ISO 1600. When light passes through the lens it is detected by the camera’s CCD (the camera’s sensor). If you have a higher ISO, such as ISO 800, then your photo will appear very bright. If however you choose a lower sensitivity such as ISO 100, then the image will appear darker. In photography it is best to leave the ISO at a lower level, around the 200 mark. Higher ISO’s will result in a noisier image, a bit like how having an oven at 400 degrees will burn the edges of your pie, even if you leave it in the oven for a very short time.

So you’ve got a low ISO, and you’re compensating for this low sensitivity with a slightly longer shutter speed. The additional light let in by exposing the sensor for longer should help you to properly expose your photo. But what about the frozen pie? After all, if the pie is frozen then you might need to leave it in the oven for longer, or perhaps turn the temperature up…

Aperture: The aperture refers to the size of the opening within your lens. Aperture is measured in F-Stops, where a smaller F stop such as F3.2 means a large opening, and a larger F-Stop such as F22 means a much smaller opening. If you increase the size of your aperture to around F3.2 then there is more space for light to enter, which subsequently causes your photo to be brighter. If however you choose a smaller aperture of F22, then there is very little room for light to enter, and less light enters resulting in a darker photo. In the pie analogy, a smaller aperture means a frozen pie, whereas a larger aperture means a well thawed pie. If your pie is frozen, you will need to leave it in the oven for longer or turn the temperature up. Thaw it out however, and it will be ready much faster.

A well exposed photo is a result of the correct shutter speed, the correct ISO and the correct Aperture. A nice warm pie is similarly the result of the correct time, the correct temperature, and a pie in the correct state.

The Exposure Triangle defines the relationship between all three of these photographic aspects. Hopefully this pie analogy will help to explain just how they all affect each other. There is no right or wrong setting for taking a photo. Sometimes you may want a longer shutter speed to capture the flow of a waterfall, in which case you will need a smaller aperture and a less sensitive ISO to compensate for this extra light. Sometimes you may be photographing at night in which case you’ll want to increase the sensitivity, increase the shutter speed and use a wide aperture to capture all the light you need.

The best way to fully understand The Exposure Triangle though is to get out there and take photos. Move the dial to M and shoot on full manual, and proceed to adjust each setting to see how they change your photo. Even the pro’s get it wrong the first time, but having the understanding of how they work together will allow you to end up with a nice tasty photo.

[tweetmeme]Bokeh is one of the most beautiful implementations of aperture and depth of field. By using a very wide aperture, photographers are apple to create an incredibly shallow depth of field causing lights and objects in the background to appear like a blurred floating orb.
Here I’ve compiled the best 24 Bokeh photographs on the internet to act as inspiration for your own bokeh photography.

Fallen Cup by Krawat93

Bokeh After Rain by AgniMax

Little Fireflies by prismes

Red One by ~ shannkat ~

Web Bokeh by Inertia09

Garden Fireworks by Mark-F

Bokeh Drop by *Corrie*

Liquid Gold by Sandy515

Let’s Watch Together by and[w]

Shallow Depth of Field by Casper in Lefkas

A Summer Dream? by honeycorn

Leaves Bokeh by all17

Velvet Bokeh by Savatey

LED Lights and Bokeh by rogvon

All Those Bokeh I by Savetey

.Luminous by fragilesimplicity

Blue Hour by Will Montague

Bokeh by 1maliniak1

Bubble Bokeh by purplerainstaken

Liquid Bokeh by simoendli

Blue Bokeh by Jenni77

Starry Night by impressionenmeer

Water Bokeh by RaisedOnViolence

Meeting by simoendli

Thanks to Jealousy Blue from Flickr for the amazing starburst photo.

Capture the sun in a photo and you’ll occasionally find it completely overpowers the image. Your exposure will be off balance and often the subject you’re trying to photograph will be either grayed out or too dark. Using the Starburst effect, you can now make the sun, and any other light source, a fantastic part of your image.

Observation is explanation enough. In the image above, you’ll see that the light from the sun is bursting out and explosively sending rays in all directions like a star. Creating this stunning effect is actually very simple, and all it involves is some basic knowledge of aperture.

I won’t elaborate on aperture here. If you’re not clear on that then you may like to brush over the aperture guide. Basically, to create the starburst effect, all you need to do is increase your aperture to the highest number, hence making the opening as small as possible (e.g. F-22).

That’s it. Just set your aperture to a high number and then street lights, the sun, and even sparkling light reflections off chrome or glass will seem to explode into a star.

Bunga Arm of Paynesville. Where the calm lake meets 90 miles of vigorous ocean.

Depth of field is one of the most effective characteristics of a photo. It’s an aspect which clearly separates even the top end point and shoot cameras from the simplest SLR’s. Better still, it’s a simple concept which is incredibly easy to manipulate and, if used correctly, can provide you with professional looking photos.

The Depth of Field (DOF) refers to the range of in-focus visibility of the shot, or, in other words, how far you can clearly see. If you’ve seen a photo where the subject is in focus and the background is blurred out then this effect is a result of Depth of Field. In this case we say the photograph has a shallow depth of field. Alternatively, if there is a photo where you can clearly see a significant distance, like above, we say it has a deep depth of field.

Manipulating the DOF is probably as straight forward as it gets, and this is because it’s directly related to your cameras aperture. Basically, a wider aperture will give you a shallower depth of field, and a smaller aperture will make the DOF deeper and give you a greater viewing distance. By zooming in on your subject you’ll find the DOF appears to be shallower, and, if you have a wide angle lens then you’ll find your depth of field to be deeper.

Probably the most commonly used situation for a shallow depth of field is when taking photos of people. You’ll find that the background blurs out and the person in focus is clearly seen and nicely framed, almost as though they are separated from the background. When you switch your camera to portrait mode, a wide aperture will always be chosen to create this effect. The best situation to use a deep depth of field is for landscape shots where you want to capture as far as the eye can see. By selecting a landscape mode, the camera will once again use aperture to create a deep DOF.

But how does depth of field work?

When we see light, we aren’t just seeing one beam, but rather a countless number. If you open the aperture to be wider, then these light rays can enter the camera with relative ease, which causes your subject to be in focus and the background and foreground to be softer and out of focus (a shallow Depth of field). By closing the aperture though, you’re cutting out a significant portion of entry space, meaning that these rays have to enter in a much finer state. This subsequently causes your photo to have a much deeper DOF, and the back and foreground are more in focus than before.

To most people though, none of this complicated explanation really matters. After all, its as easy as pushing a button to make it shallower or deeper. The best way to learn though is of course to experiment and play around for yourself.