New Photographer Question

[Erith]

Not sure if I should even call myself a photographer yet...but I got my first DSLR camera (Canon T3i) and have stumbled upon this site in my eagerness to learn how to use it properly. I've been reading a few tutorials, and now have a basic understanding of ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed.

When messing around with the settings however, I've come up with my first (of I'm sure to be many) question that I cannot seem to figure out.

I wanted to experiment with different shutter speeds to try to learn how they affect the outcome of the picture. When I change my shutter speed to the fastest possible (1/4000), the picture always comes out black. I thought I could fix this by increasing the aperture (I had it as high as 3.5-which is as much as the camera will go, it seems), but it didn't make a bit of difference.Maxing out the ISO (3200) helps a little, but that will then make the picture very grainy, so I want to avoid that if at all possible. It isn't until I decrease the shutter speed down to around 1/200 that the picture can be seen again. What am I doing wrong? Is it just the lens? Do I need to buy a better lens than the one that came with the camera? Or maybe I'm forgetting a setting? It doesn't seem like they would give you the option to have a shutter speed up to 1/4000 only to really have it be useless in the end. Help please!

[OsmosisStudios]

1/4000 is VERY fast. Ive only ever used it for a handful of photos, and those were A) outdoors in bright sunlight and B) at f/2 (or 2 stops brighter than your lens.

You'll almost never use that fast of a shutterspeed, so I wouldnt worry about it too much.

The reason you cant seem to get a faster aperture than f/3.5 (smaller number, larger opening) is because of your lens: you likely got an 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 IS. What's important here is that you have two ranges 18-55 and f/3.5-5.6. What it means is that at 18mm (the wider end), the maximum aperture you can use is f/3.5 (but you can use any LARGER NUMBER or SMALLER APERTURE). At 55mm that decreases to f/5.6 as a maximum.

You can get lenses to give you a similar range with, for instance, an f/2.8 max aperture for the whole range (like Canon's 17-55 f/2.8 and 24-70 f/2.8) but you're looking at just over $1k and $2k respectively.

[Erith]

thank you very much! How fast of a shutter speed do people generally use for fast moving things then?

examples: a flash of lightning, rain falling, a flying bird, or those fancy water-drop pictures?

[inkista]

It depends on what you want to achieve and how you're going to achieve it.

Lightning shots are generally done with super-SLOW shutter speeds, so that there's increased chance of catching the lightning burst when it happens. Rain falling, it depends on how you want the rain to look: sharp or blurred. Birds, depends on how fast the bird is flying. And, of course, all of these also depend on how much light you've got to shoot by and what your other two settings are at.

What you need to know is that your three settings can be equated to each other by stops. A stop is a halving/doubling of the light.

With iso, it's also halving/doubling.
With shutter speed, it's doubling/halving.
And with aperture, it's by full stops on the f-number scale.

So. Going from 1/4000s -> 1/200s is

1/4000 -> 1/2000 -> 1/1000 -> 1/500s -> 1/250s about four stops' (or 4EV) worth of light.

This is the same as going from iso 200 -> iso 400 -> iso 800 -> iso 1600 -> iso 3200.

Or from f/5.6 -> f/4 -> f/2.8 -> f/2 -> f/1.4

That's how much light you were reducing the shot when you used 1/4000s as your shutter speed. The settings interact. They balance. You have to do it like an equation. If you want four stops for faster shutter speed you have to dig them out of the aperture and/or the iso.

[Michael_2010]

I got this water drop out of the kitchen faucet with a shutter speed of 1/200, aperture f/5.6, ISO 100 and fired the in-camera flash.



All the variables are constantly working together to control the amount of light coming into your camera. That is why it is hard to give one answer for any given situation.