The Legendary Three Elements of Exposure

The Legendary Three Elements of Exposure

Legend has it that the first camera was forged in the ancient volcanic caves of mount Fuji . The three tribes Iso, shutti and iris were living in peace and joined forces to control over exposure and maximized dynamic range. But the volcano gods felt this was too great a power for only a few elite photographer tribes and Mount fuji erupted and consumer cameras flooded the market lowering the premium rates and putting cameras in the hands of Uncle's and nephews accross the world.

Now we study these elements to due away with automatic exposure and better the quality of our work

Jokes aside.

The Three elements of exposure or “The Exposure Triangle” consists of Shutter speed , Aperture and ISO.

Shutter speed

There is a mechanical shutter in most cameras that opens and closes to alow light to a hit the sensor for dialed in amount of time. It opens up allowing light and then closes stopping the light. This can determine the amount of motion blur in an image. Before you go jacking up your shutter speed to 1/8000 I want to remind you that you wont always need a fast shutter and sometimes a slow shutter can be used to tell your story creativly or create really cool effects like Shutter Drag. You can also use a slow shutter to capture motion in a single image called a long exposure. you can also create an illusion of frozen time.

Photographer: Danny Graham

Aperture

Apeture which we cover here. Is the size opening of the mechanical blades within a lens that allow how much light passes through it. This is partly responsible for your depth of field.

Photographer: Danny Graham

ISO

Iso (International Standards Organization) or what used to be ASA (American Standards Association) is a tricky one. Its the sensitivity of your film or sensor. I reccomend you learn the limitations of your cameras ISO becauase this can greatly increase the amount of digital noise on your camera and using film you’ll produce a much grainier image.

conclusion

While these are not as mythical and mysterious as you may have first thought they take time to master and learning them will greatly improve the quality of your work

Man discovers manual exposure

…and we’ve all been shooting on Auto this whole time.

Man can change his pupil size on command, once thought an impossible feat

By Yasemin Saplakoglu

Man can change his pupil size on command, once thought an impossible feat By Yasemin Saplakoglu

For those who maybe don’t totally get this joke, a cameras aperture and the human iris work in a very similar manor. The larger the aperture opening, the more light is allowed to expose the film or sensor and the shallower the depth of field.

In a bright area, stare at your hand about 1 foot away from your face. Lock your eyes on your hand and observe how blurry your peripheral vision is. Next, try to dim the lights and stare at your hand. Again, 1 foot away, you should notice that it is much blurrier then before. It has to do with how your eye adjusts to allow light, by opening the iris. For more on how aperture works, check out (This Post).