The purpose of this lesson is to help you better understand how the various settings on your camera can work together.
Part 1 - Finding the Right Exposure
Our teddy bears will be lit by two Compact Flourescent Lights. (CFLs) These lights produce an odd color of light and not much of it. Your goal will be to meter the subject and make adjustments to your camera so that you can take a well exposed photograph. Don't worry about color at this time.
Step 1. Take a photo in the full idiot mode. Some of your cameras will pop-up the flash on their own. If you can, turn it off, if not go to program mode.
Step 2.
Recommendations:
Switch your Digital Camera to a Manual or Program mode. This will allow you to adjust the ISO.
Try setting your camera ISO to 400.
If you switched your camera to a manual mode you will want to set the shutter speed to 60. (See Shutter Speed for more info.)
Look at your camera and look at the meter. Does it show that your exposure is on the money or too low or high. My expectation is too low. If that is correct, raise the ISO and lower the shutter speed to as lower setting or maybe go to a lower f-stop. Always keep in mind that a lower f-stop number means more light through the lens and less area in focus.
Work with these settings until you have a well exposed image.
My expectation is that color will be poor. Unless you buy daylight balanced CFLs you will see a lot of yellow. My experience with the cheaper ones is that they don’t have enough color spectrum to be balanced.
White Balance
Last session we touched on white balance. Use the target to perform a custom white balance and compare the last two photos.
