EXPOSURE

Exposure Settings:

Good or one can say appropriate photos can be taken only with proper camera settings for which good exposure(light) is must. In today's world most of us make the use of camera in our daily life. Its not necessary to have an SLR camera for good clicks, but one can make a picture look better even with digital cameras. One just need to know some settings in Manual (M) mode. Most of the beginners make mistake with exposure, in the beginning only idea about under exposed and over exposed image must be cleared. 

There are three main elements of exposure settings that are to be kept into consideration for better photography.

Those three elements are as follows:

1. Shutter Speed    2. Aperture    3. ISO settings





These three elements are  explained below with desired setting for practical cases: 

Shutter Speed: You can either freeze the action or create motion blur with varying shutter speed. In my terminology, I call shutter speed like 1/4000 sec to 1/500 sec as a fast shutter speed, 1/250 sec to 1/50 sec a medium shutter speed and 1/15 sec or slower a slow shutter speed. 

Fast shutter speed is used to freeze the action or moving subject. For eg: During rides or while capturing photos from a moving vehicle, use fast shutter speed to prevent shake.

Medium shutter speed is used to blur a running animal or child giving the impression of fast movement. 

And to blur a flowing river or water fountain use a slow shutter speed. Note: For slow shutter speed use tripod to avoid shake.

Aperture(f-number): To make everything near and far look sharp or to obtain a blurry background, change to aperture setting.
High aperture: f/32 To sharp both foreground and background.
Low aperture: f/5.6 Blurred background.

Tips: Use high aperture while clicking landscapes, mountains so that everything looks sharp and while clicking portraits or nearby objects use low aperture.

ISO setting: Set ISO (Image sensor's sensitivity to light) to suit ambient light level. Try using camera on low ISO, because if ISO is too high then grains appears in the image. Even in dark indoors use slow shutter speed instead of increasing ISO. At the same time slow shutter speed will require a tripod to avoid shake. Use the following table for reference:

ISO Speed	Shooting Situation
100-400	Sunny outdoors
400-1600	Overcast skies or evening time
1600-6400, H	Dark indoors or night