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My Sony Alpha 200 digital camera takes lovely pictures, but as I am a beginner and don't really know much about apertures and shutter speeds and how complex they are, I'm having great difficulty in getting it to focus properly in the manual setting. All other settings are fine, but the image in my viewfinder is very blurry when I look through before taking the shot. I have altered the diopter for my eyes as I wear glasses, so that isn't the problem. Is there something I'm either doing wrong, or not doing properly, or not turning something on/off as the case may be? N.B: I am taking a class at the moment, but I'm afraid to ask the tutor in case he thinks I'm thick, lol! Many thanks in advance. Gail.
If autofocus is turned off, trying turning the focus ring on the lens. What happens then?
Go ahead and ask the tutor. Not only can he tell you where the focus ring is, but how do you expect to learn anything if you don't ask? There's enough to learn about photography without willfully cutting off any sources of information.If autofocus is turned off, trying turning the focus ring on the lens. What happens then?
Go ahead and ask the tutor. Not only can he tell you where the focus ring is, but how do you expect to learn anything if you don't ask? There's enough to learn about photography without willfully cutting off any sources of information.
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It's not the aperture, it's the shutter speed. It's also not the mirror, but the shutter. The camera's fastest shutter sync speed is 1/200. You must use a shutter speed no faster than that. Due to the construction of the shutter, the frame is not fully exposed simultaneously at faster speeds and thus part of the image is blacked out.
Using a flash, the amount of light is controlled almost exclusively by the flash; the exposure is controlled by the aperture and the shutter speed is all but irrelevant.
The first number is the shutter speed and the second is the aperture. The two factors control the exposure.
The shutter speed (in this case 1.3 seconds) is how long the shutter is open to allow light to pass through the lens and strike the image sensor. The longer it's open the more light passes through. If there's not much light, like indoors or at night, the shutter needs to be open longer. A fast shutter speed can "freeze" motion, useful for things like sports. A slow shutter speed allows the subject to blur, useful for things like running water.
The aperture (in this case f/4.5) is a measure of how wide the lens opening is. The wider the opening the more light comes through. A smaller opening produces more depth of field.
The two work in tandem to achieve proper exposure. An oft-seen analogy is filling a bucket with water. You can turn the tap on all the way and fill it quickly, or just crack it open and let it take a long time filling drop by drop. Either way the bucket eventually fills up, but the two pictures may look very different.
I suggest you visit your local library and take a look at some introductory photography books. They will discuss the impact of shutter speed and aperture in much more detail than I can give here.
You need to understand the relationship and teractivity of aperture, shutter speed and iso. In Av mod, you choose the aperture and the camera makes thw shutter speed agjustment, In Tv mode, you set the shutter speed and the camera makes the aperture adjustment, In manual, you have to set both shutter speed and aperture manually. If the ISO mode is set to AUTO, the camera chooses the sensors sensitivity to light automatically. Change to specific ISO (200-400 for daylight and 799-1600 for night). Take a picture in AV mode and note what shutter speed the camera chose. Then switch to TC mode choose the same shutter speed and see if camera chose the same aperture(f-stop) you chose in first shot. Change to Manual and choose same f-stop and shutter speed the camera chose for you in the other modes. Compare all three photos. They should be almost if not exactly the same exposure wise. In Tv mode choose a dlowers shutter speed, In Manual choose a combo of slower shuuter and wider f-stop(smaller number). Read your manual.
It's merely informing you of the current exposure settings. The sensor's sensitivity is at ISO 200 equivalent, the aperture is f/3.1, and the shutter speed is 1/60 seconds.
There is no good solution for this. There's only a limited amount of light indoors.
First, you need the widest aperture you can get on your lens. You can get this by going to the Aperture-priority (A) mode.
Even so, you're shutter speed will most likely be too slow to freeze the action. You can combat this somewhat by raising the ISO. This will increase the noise, but I'd prefer a noisy picture to a blurry picture.
That still probably won't get you great pictures. Since you probably can't rig more floodlights in the gym, you'll be limited to using your flash if the action is taking place close enough to you (and if flash is permitted).
You can gain an additional stop or two with faster lenses, but such lenses can cost more than $2000. Unless _Sports Illustrated_ is paying for your pictures, that's probably not an option at this time.
I realize this doesn't really solve your problem. Unfortunately, as I stated up front, there is no good solution.
If you're shooting in the full Auto mode, you are not taking advantage of the capabilities of your digital SLR. Your pictures are blurry because the shutter has to stay open long enough to properly expose the picture, but the people are moving while the shutter is open. You need to increase your shutter speed or increase your ISO, which means you have to select another mode on your camera. You could invest in a "faster" lens, which means that it can allow more light into your camera, but is also more expensive. Try this excellent tutorial on using a digital SLR, then try it out with your camera (use your camera manual to find the correct mode selections, etc.)
exposure compensation can be dialed through the '+' and '-' keys in the upper right hand side of the camera body. The shutter speed should alone take care of the exposure meter if the aperture is more or less good...
ps: sometimes when we increase the shutter speed to 1/2000 th of a sec..it takes a while to reach the zero mark in the exposure bar since you need to dial more to reach an acceptable shutter speed like say 1/10th ...or 1"...
from the manual:
Using Shutter-Priority Mode 1.
Set the mode dial to S (shutter-priority) and a yellow arrowhead on the screen points to the current shutter speed. Press the jog dial and the current shutter speed turns yellow. 2. With the current shutter speed displayed in yellow, rotate the jog dial to select the speed you want to use. 3. Take the picture. If a workable aperture isn?t available for the shutter speed you?ve selected, the shutter speed indicator on the screen flashes when you press the shutter button halfway down. You can use the setting as is, or press the jog dial down to select the shutter speed again and rotate it to select a new shutter speed.
If autofocus is turned off, trying turning the focus ring on the lens. What happens then?
Go ahead and ask the tutor. Not only can he tell you where the focus ring is, but how do you expect to learn anything if you don't ask? There's enough to learn about photography without willfully cutting off any sources of information.
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