Newbie to DSLR

[cjbros73]

I am so so so confused it is not funny, I am new to DSLR, I have an olympus E-450, I understand my camera, and have read the manual, I have read and re-read about aperture, shutter speed and ISO, I have practise on all the different settings, but I still cannot get a good shot, I have researched this afternoon on the internet, reading lots of bits and pieces, and am just so confused, can anyone help

Cheers
Christina

[RLucas]

Hey Christina! Welcome to DPS! Why not post an example with EXIF? No one will be able to help you without something to look at.

[cjbros73]

am not sure how to load the image on here, this is one I took today, sunny normal day, side of the house, where the hydrangea plant is, partly shaded.

P8010231.jpg

I try different apertures and shutter speeds, but could not get a bright image.

thanks guys
Cheers
Christina

[jojonac]

cj

Unfortunately when I uploaded your image I could not see any metadata with it, so I don't know what your camera settings were when you took the image.

metadata is imbedded code that comes with images with data like shutter speed, fstop, ISO, and other things.

Here is one of the ways I learned the exposure triangle.

Think of the sensor on your camera as a sponge. You can put water on a sponge and if its to much water it will overflow, and if its to little the sponge will stay dry, but there is a point where the sponge will soak up enough water to be wet, but not overflowing. So if your sensor on the camera equals a sponge, then water equals light. Stay with me...all this water/light is coming from a garden hose, the longer you turn the garden hose on the more water you will get. So you can think of the time the hose is on, as shutter speed. The longer the shutter speed the more light. Now the bigger around the hose the more water you will get. So you can think of the diameter of the hose as aperture/fstop. The larger the aperture/smaller the fstop the more light. Dont ask me why they decided to make small fstop numbers equal large aperture diameter. Last we have ISO. I think of ISO as the ability for the sponge to soak up water. The lower the ISO the more water it will take to make the sponge full.

I dont know if that helped or confused you. So the bottom line is this, there are multiple combinations of shutterspeed/fstop/ISO that will fill up the sponge. If your pictures are always turning out to dark either adjust the shutterspeed so it is longer, the fstop so it is a smaller number, or the ISO to a larger number. Try only changing one at a time and see what happens. The nice thing about digital photography is you can take as many pictures as you like to get it right.

Another thing you can check is the histogram on your camera. If there is a large peak to the left and nothing on the right, chances are your underexposed.

Switching to Manual on your camera can be frustrating at first but once you get the hang of the basic exposure triangle and figure out how to use shutter speed, fstop, and ISO you can really start having some fun. Because by changing one of those three things you will always increase or decrease the amount of light, but you will also change things like motion blur, depth of field, or image noise. Thats another post and another discussion.

There is a ton of great info on this website, and if you do some digging you will find what you are looking for.

Good Luck

jojo

[RLucas]

Dont ask me why they decided to make small fstop numbers equal large aperture diameter.

"They" didn't decide. It's math. It is the ratio of the aperture to the focal length.

Example. 50mm lens with a 10mm aperture.

Aperture would be 1, and the focal length would be 5 the ratio is 1:5, which would be written as f5.

Take the same 50mm lens and increase the diameter of the aperture to 25mm (more light).
The aperture would be 1, and the focal length would be 2. For a ratio of 1:2. This would be written as f2.

I hope this helps to explain the seemingly backward numbers.

[jojonac]

Thanks...I probably read that somewhere, but decided to just go with

big number = small hole.
small number = big hole.

[RLucas]

Originally Posted by jojonac

Thanks...I probably read that somewhere, but decided to just go with

big number = small hole.
small number = big hole.

That works too! lol!

To the OP. Please see if you can post some EXIF.

[sk66]

Try this for learning the exposure triangle

[cjbros73]

G'day, thanks guys,

Rlucas - don't know what EXIF, so cannot work this one out, I know it is the data from the photo but how to get it, haven't got a clue.

JoJo - I understand aperture and ISO, still a little confused about shutter, attended my third weekly class on tuesday and have a better understanding of these. What I found most useful was the histogram, or the 'picket fence' as our teacher calls it.

Thanks guys, I have an assignment of taking three photos using the elements of composition, so will let you know.

Cheers and thanks
Christina

[DannyF1966]

I just had a quick look at the manual for your camera (downloaded it from the olympus website), and if you view the picture on the camera and press the "info" button three times it'll show you the exif data on the right hand side of the screen.

Try shooting some pictures in "auto" setting and see what the camera chooses for shutter, aperture and ISO. Then you can see if you can take the same photo on manual settings, and compare the differences. Try changing just the shutter speed, or just the aperture setting, and see how it affects the picture.

It's also just occurred to me that if you've been playing around with all the settings on the camera and you're shooting in manual mode, maybe you've got the "exposure compensation" setting turned down all the way? That might explain why the picture is coming out too dark if all the other settings say it should be brighter.