Please give feedback on Photoshop editing...

Ok guys, I'm missing something...I read this article and I think it messed me up ....I'm going to copy/paste the excerpt from it and see if I can put into words what I'm confused about.

https://www.apogeephot​o.com …city-rule-in-photography/

"You are outdoors in bright light and the camera’s exposure meter (or light meter) indicates an exposure of f/16@1/125 at ISO 100. You actually have many other choices for taking that picture. All of them will allow the same amount of light to reach the sensor and expose the image properly.

If your lens’ smallest aperture is f/16, you will only have one direction you can go. You can let in one more stop of light by choosing f/11 on the lens and cut out a stop of light by using a 1/250 shutter speed.
You now have an exposure with the exact same “Exposure Value” as the previous one, only your exposure settings have changed.

So, you may be asking yourself, why would I choose f/11@1/250 over f/16@1/125? Well, the f/stop controls something called Depth of Field, or how deep the focus is in the field of vision, and the shutter speed controls motion.

Using an f/stop one stop away may not change the look of the final image that much, but what if we use our knowledge of reciprocity again and again?

We can open the lens another stop to f/8 and change the shutter speed to f/500 and again to f/5.6 and the shutter at 1/1000 and, if your camera has the 1/2000 shutter speed, we can use f/4@1/2000 and get exactly the same exposure value that we had from the original f/16@1/125 setting.

Now the look of the finished image is greatly changed because f/4 has very little depth of field compared to f/16. The background of the picture taken at f/4@1/2000 will be soft, and the subject will be sharp and clear (if focused correctly).

You have isolated your subject from the background – a very popular trick used in portrait and floral photography. No longer is the background competing with the subject. You have successfully used the rule of reciprocity to change the look of your final image."

I understand how they're altering the aperture and shutter speed in this example, however, what I'm missing is, if you're in the field and you don't want to use the exposure/light meter, how do you know what the "base" setting should be? (Base setting in the example above was f/16@1/125 at ISO 100). And what if you wanted your ISO to be set at 3.5 from the get go, with an 85mm lens?

There's a piece of information I'm missing or overlooking here and it's driving me insane.

jhaywald wrote in post #18606847
Ok guys, I'm missing something...I read this article and I think it messed me up ....I'm going to copy/paste the excerpt from it and see if I can put into words what I'm confused about.

https://www.apogeephot​o.com …city-rule-in-photography/

"You are outdoors in bright light and the camera’s exposure meter (or light meter) indicates an exposure of f/16@1/125 at ISO 100. You actually have many other choices for taking that picture. All of them will allow the same amount of light to reach the sensor and expose the image properly.

If your lens’ smallest aperture is f/16, you will only have one direction you can go. You can let in one more stop of light by choosing f/11 on the lens and cut out a stop of light by using a 1/250 shutter speed.
You now have an exposure with the exact same “Exposure Value” as the previous one, only your exposure settings have changed.

So, you may be asking yourself, why would I choose f/11@1/250 over f/16@1/125? Well, the f/stop controls something called Depth of Field, or how deep the focus is in the field of vision, and the shutter speed controls motion.

Using an f/stop one stop away may not change the look of the final image that much, but what if we use our knowledge of reciprocity again and again?

We can open the lens another stop to f/8 and change the shutter speed to f/500 and again to f/5.6 and the shutter at 1/1000 and, if your camera has the 1/2000 shutter speed, we can use f/4@1/2000 and get exactly the same exposure value that we had from the original f/16@1/125 setting.

Now the look of the finished image is greatly changed because f/4 has very little depth of field compared to f/16. The background of the picture taken at f/4@1/2000 will be soft, and the subject will be sharp and clear (if focused correctly).

You have isolated your subject from the background – a very popular trick used in portrait and floral photography. No longer is the background competing with the subject. You have successfully used the rule of reciprocity to change the look of your final image."

All that is correct and you understand it well.

You have an exposure level indicator in your camera, in viewfinder. Use that. Pick any exposure (like ISO 400 1/400 f 5.6) that gets you to middle of meter (a starting point) and the just roll it as said above: aperture up a click + shutter down a click, or shutter down a click + aperture up a click. You end up with the same exposure. It's all very visual and intuitive. Think it more like picking an art brush rather and calculating tables of numbers. Relax and have fun

One point: metering has several modes. Learn how they work and why. It is worth it. Else you might "read" the meter wrong.

I suppose you meant aperture, not ISO there.

If you want to use aperture 3.5, then just do it. Then you decide a shutter speed for the situation and then use lowest ISO that can do a proper exposure. Or use a bit higher ISO to get higher shutter speed. Whatever is good. If you shoot people 1/2000 is just fine. There is no rule that you are not allowed to use any settings you like. As long as the end result is how YOU like it, just go for it. The joy with digital cameras is that you can experiment as much as you like, the joy or RAW is that you can adjust anything a LOT.

When I wanted to get better, I practiced a lot. I practiced fast exposure changes on movies while watching TV, I shot anything I can see to test it out, I drove a car and I thought of framing and what settings should I use for this and that (without a camera of course). It's like any other skill, you need to practice, and you do not need to do it with people and "real" shoots.

And then practice some more. Testing and pondering camera settings all the time is a sure way to kill the mood when shooting people. Main focus should be in getting them relaxed and forget the camera. You should not be the main attraction on a photoshoot

I know I may be in minority, but I do all intuition first. I practice, then I see what works in different situations and it gets stored to by mind for good. Forget the numbers, and be free.

If shooting feels like this, something is wrong:

Pekka gives great advice.

Practice and more so...experiment. Understand how to evaluate your own results.
And if you are happy with the result....that’s what matters (unless it’s a paying customer and then....)

jhaywald wrote in post #18606847
Ok guys, I'm missing something...I read this article and I think it messed me up ....I'm going to copy/paste the excerpt from it and see if I can put into words what I'm confused about.

I understand how they're altering the aperture and shutter speed in this example, however, what I'm missing is, if you're in the field and you don't want to use the exposure/light meter, how do you know what the "base" setting should be? (Base setting in the example above was f/16@1/125 at ISO 100). And what if you wanted your ISO to be set at 3.5 from the get go, with an 85mm lens?

There's a piece of information I'm missing or overlooking here and it's driving me insane.

Since you didn't really get an answer to your question yet, I'll try to answer it. A 3.5 aperture setting is 1/3 stop less than f/4. F/16 - F11 - F8 - f/5.6 - f/4 = 4 stops + 1/3 more light is what you gained.
To reduce the light 4 1/3 stops, you can increase your shutter speed 4 1/3 stops since reducing your ISO 4 1/3 stops is not an option.
1/125 - 1/250 - 1/500 - 1/1000 (4 stops) - 1/1250 (1/3 additional stop). This shutter speed setting reduces the light 4 1/3 stops.
So you can use either f/16@1/125s at ISO100 or f/3.5 at 1/1250s at ISO100 interchangeably. The light hitting the sensor will be the same.
BTW, one stop of light increase means that double the light is hitting your sensor. Conversely, when you reduce your settings by 1 stop, you've cut the light in half.

Pekka suggested that you forget messing with the figures and just concentrate on your subjects, but personally, I find that once I set my camera up for the conditions, I can forget it and give my full attention to my subjects. Unless the light changes or I move my subjects to a location with different lighting, I don't have to mess with the settings again. Of course, I'm old school and learned all the numbers because it was required before cameras became so sophisticated. I still think it's a good idea for beginners to learn the basics of exposure and the exposure triangle. Different strokes, I guess.

So bob, is your suggestion to take the first photo in automatic them make your adjustments from there?

El Conquistador Moderator, your suggestion is starting to seem like the best route.

I learned by using automatic mode and then tried to replicate the results in manual, and adjusted settings to see what results I ended up with. After a while, you just end up figuring it out without worrying about 'rules'.

Teamspeed, thank you. I think I'm going to just start taking photos of everything. I appreciate the help guys. I know it's probably really irritating edge-u-ma-kating me on this.

jhaywald wrote in post #18606973
So bob, is your suggestion to take the first photo in automatic them make your adjustments from there?

If you want to skip learning the numbers, my advise would be to set your camera to aperture priority (unless shooting sports or some other fast subject).
Set your aperture to get the depth of field that you want and set your ISO to 100 (I think some Nikon models have a base ISO of 200 so start there).
Adjust your ISO until you get a shutter speed that's at least the reciprocal of the focal length of your lens (unless your lens or camera has IS/VR and then you can allow for the difference if you want. Older IS lenses usually make at least a 2 stop difference (1/4 your focal length - so with a 100mm lens, you could shoot at 1/25s) and the newer lenses may make up to a 4 stop difference. You may want to give yourself a little extra shutter speed when allowing for IS, since many of the manufacturers are known to inflate their numbers). You also want to keep in mind that IS only helps reduce your movement and not your subjects. If you're shooting people, you'll usually want a shutter speed upwards of 1/60s when shooting adults and at least 1/125s when shooting children.
Also, before shooting, check to make sure your white balance is set correctly for your environment.
Take a test shot, then check your histogram to see if any adjustments are needed. If exposure adjustments are needed, you can adjust your ISO or use your exposure compensation to correct.
When everything looks good, shoot away.

Hope this helps and I hope you enjoy your journey into photography.

I am helping both my sister and our babysitter to understand equal exposure value with varying settings. I am trying to get them to understand all the below is equal in light gathering but have changes in Depth of field, Motion Blur, and Noise.

1/1000 + f/2.8 + ISO 100 = medium/fast action stopping with shallow depth of field and least noise of these examples

1/250 + f/11 + ISO 400 = slow action or still subject with large depth of field and with noise in between these 3 examples

1/3200 + f/5.6 + IS0 1250 = stoping humming bird wigs fast with depth of field in between above examples with the most noise between these 3 examples.


Hopefully that is helpful.

One other thing that others have mentioned and that is finding the system that works for you. IE in the below thread, it was assumed I was shooting in some form of auto mode as my ISO was higher than it needed to be (400 in the first and 320 in the second) and I didn't need to shoot at such a fast shutter speed (1/2000 in the first and 1/1000 in the second), both at f3.2.

While a agree, I was keeping ISO higher as I was following my girls who were in the sun and seconds later in the shade. I kept ISO in the 320-400 range the whole day as I knew sensor noise on the 5d3 isn't bad at all at ISO 400 and that allowed me to quickly adjust shutter speed only between sun/shade shots. BTW #2 is now a 20x30 print on my wall.

https://photography-on-the.net …09&mg=415164&i=​i106593091

All of these settings work hand in hand. Once you understand how they work and what is best for your specific needs at that time, you will be able to make single adjustments to one of the 3 for small changes or quickly adjust 2-3 to keep lighting the same but change the image dramatically

Biggest thing for me recently is learning how much DOF changes when adjusted by 1 stop coupled with focal length and subject distance. The online calculators are very helpful with this, but I want to know it so I don't have to spend time looking it up. I find I can often shoot a bit too thin resulting in my subject being mostly in focus front to back (first one in that thread)

Actually, I have written a book called "Exposure Triangle, How You Go Out, Use All Manual Settings And Understand Things. Like, Literally". It's pretty long, about half of A4, but the main idea is to just go out and shoot in manual mode. Sooner or later it will become second nature. A good excersise is to shoot street.

jhaywald wrote in post #18606973
So bob, is your suggestion to take the first photo in automatic them make your adjustments from there?

El Conquistador Moderator, your suggestion is starting to seem like the best route.

I guess you just got into digital DSLR, and started with a pro level camera. It's tricky, imo. I mean that pro camera overpowers you, but you don't realize it yet. I don't believe in common statement that it's better to start with entry level DSLR however. You start with what you personally fell in love with. But later you will get it - how your gear at the moment is too advanced for you. But later.

I suggest you... read the manual ))). Practice by the manual. Sunny rule is not that critical with advanced cameras as it was for the film cameras, in my opinion. I assume you can focus on the triangle control aperture-iso-speed. Understand in camera metering when to use it. White balance, how to manage that. Don't try to shot manual right away, there are many conditions when it's not the best mode. Understand the modes. Understand the light. It's good that you can assist the pro, you can learn a lot, especially posing and how to deal with the clients.

The most important is your own drive to learn. Photography is amazing, endless way to learn, to try something different, to find your favorite field, develop your vision and style. And you already have very good gear for it.
Editing is another pain to learn, but it seems it's not the issue for the nerd, lucky you )))

So just giving a quick update....

I went just randomly shooting with a bench and doll in my backyard they other day, here is how I believe my mind works best with the camera....

Manual mode
Adjust ISO to 100
Set Aperture to desired depth of field
Set shutter speed to around what the reciprocity rule states...check image.

Adjust shutter speed for less /more light...if needing more light than what is provided by 1/400 adjust ISO.

Suggestions?

jhaywald wrote in post #18608137
So just giving a quick update....

I went just randomly shooting with a bench and doll in my backyard they other day, here is how I believe my mind works best with the camera....

Manual mode
Adjust ISO to 100
Set Aperture to desired depth of field
Say shutter speed to around Wray the reciprocity rule states...check image.

Adjust shutter speed for less /more light...if needing more light than what is provided by 1/4000 adjust ISO.

Suggestions?

You may adjust shutter speed for exposure, however you need to make sure your shutter speeds are appropriate for your focal length and the movement of both you and your subject. If your shutter speed drops too far (for example, slower than 1/125th) then you adjust ISO up. Not sure what you are doing with the 1/4000, I think you went the wrong way. If you are at ISO 100 and you can get shutter speeds faster than 1/4000, then you adjust your aperture to be smaller to expose less. Some cameras have ISO 50 so you can try to lower that, but Canon doesn't have a native ISO 50, it is a pulled down exposed ISO 100.

I'm sorry, that post was full of typos...it added an extra 0. 1/400