plam_1980 wrote in post #12225418
How to expose for subject in manual... I am really new to DSLR
A few things.
1.) You have a light meter, it's built into your camera. You don't need an external one if you don't have a flash.
2.) There are three things you can buy to help you out tremendously.
-2a.) The book "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson. It gets recommended a lot here, and will help you learn what your camera settings do.
-2b.) A Canon 50mm f/1.8 mkII camera lens. It's referred to as the "nifty fifty" quite often on this forum. It's built like junk and has terrible autofocus, but the optical quality is great. If you have the money I would spring for the Canon 50mm f/1.4 (at ~$500 including hood since the prices have increased), but to be honest it's not much better. This will probably run you a little over $100.
-2c.) A Canon 430EXII flash. You can use this to create your own light. Just using it on your camera and bouncing it off of walls will get you started. This will probably run you about $250.
3.) For the settings with your current camera - I would use a minimum shutter of 1/80th at f/5.6 with the ISO set at whatever it needs to be to get a correct exposure. If the ISO is as high as it will go you will need to lengthen the shutter speed, but that may induce ill effects. A lens with a faster aperture (2b) or a flash (2c) would greatly help the situation, but understanding what you're doing (2a) is the most important.
If you have any more questions, just ask.
