Thursday, August 28, 2014

HOW TO TALK BACK TO YOUR CAMERA


Here is the scenario. You are inside a dimly lit church. You want to get a photo of a side alter. You have your camera set at ISO 100. You've set an f/stop which you need--you won't settle for any other f/stop. Problem: Your camera is talking back to you. It's saying it's just way too dark in that corner of the church and doesn't know what shutter speed to give you for a good photo. It just can't do it. You don't want to use a higher ISO because you don't want to take the chance of getting discernible "noise." What to do?

You have two options:
1) Increase your ISO, get the shot, but risk the chance of unwanted noise.
2) Don't change your ISO, and go home without a photo of the alter.

Or, take this third option so you can have your cake and eat it to.

Here's a real scenario of how I talked back to my camera. I wasn't getting a "reading," so here's what I did. I increased my ISO from 100 to 200. My camera told me I needed a shutter speed of 30 seconds, at ISO 200. Here's the simple math: 200 is twice as much as 100. If I multiply 30 seconds by 2, I get 60 seconds. 60 is twice as much as 30. That is how much time I need to get this shot at ISO 100--60 seconds!!!! Easy huh? Just set your camera to BULB and go for it!

And here is the photo my camera didn't think it could take. I had to talk back to it.


I had a similar situation a few years ago, but the church was much darker. I was shooting at ISO 100. I kept increasing my ISO. My camera didn't give me a reading until I had reached ISO 800!! It gave me a reading of 20 seconds. I did the math: 800 is 8 times greater than 100. 20 seconds x 8= 160 seconds, or almost three minutes. I rounded it off and took the photo at three minutes--it worked! I got a great shot at ISO 100.

Try it. You will be amazed at what a simple solution this is!!!