Canon Mode Dial



Exposure Triangle





Exposure Triangle

Aperture + Shutter Speed + ISO = Exposure

Hello my name is Geo. I imagine your first thought is who am I in the world of photography. Well, I am nobody famous, just an average guy whose passion is photography. With my passion for photography I would like to embark on a journey of exploring the secrets of fantabulous photography with you, the reader.

Over on the right I have a few illustrations. The illustration on the top is a Canon mode dial. To have full control over aperture, shutter speed and ISO you wil need to shoot in manual mode.

In my tutorial section I have in briefly explained aperture, shutter speed and ISO. Just for a quick overview on these three please check out the second illustration on the right.

Let's talk about triangles or a moment. The third illustration down on the right has a square with seven different triangles. When we think of triangles we think that there are countless possible ways that a triangle could be drawn or created. The one thing that all of these triangles has in common is that the degrees of each of the three corners always adds up to 180. I guess that is what makes up a triangle, sounds simple enough. 90-45-45... 90-30-60... 60-60-60... each of these three degrees adds up to 180 which makes a triangle.

Hey I did not make up the name exposure triangle. Since someone did I thought using triangles would help explain proper exposure to you all. Basically to have proper exposure each of our three things: aperture, shutter speed and ISO need to add up to 180. In photography there are no degrees to use as a guide. Although with digital cameras, which I assume you are all using, there is a really nice feature that looks like the illustration on the bottom over on the right. It is kind of a metering looking thing. There is a 0 or a thick dark line with a pointer on it which is located directly in the middle. When looking through your view finder while taking a photo you will see this metering looking thing just below your photo. It has tons of information here. For this short article we will concentrate on this metering looking thing. Below this metering looking thing there will be line that moves back and forth to let you know what your exposure is. When your exposure is correct the line should be directly in the middle. If the line is on the right, your photo is over exposed. On the left, your photo is underexposed.

For every scene and or lighting condition you may come upon that you desire to shoot you will have different settings. I learned how to use these settings the old school way, trial and error. Just getting out there and experimenting with all of these settings is the best way. I do not think there is a right or wrong way. One hint I would give you is no matter what your aperture or ISO setting is while taking a photo hand holding your camera to get a photo that is not blurry I would suggest not going below 1/50 a second on your shutter speed. Should you encounter a situation that requires a much slower shutter speed a tripod would be the way to go.

In one of my articles I mentioned a photographer's perspective. Shooting in manual mode and having full control over the camera gives the photographer an umlimited number of options to be creative and not to just a take a snap shot. We all view life differently and see our surroundings differently so I encourage you to be creative and shoot in manual mode when you get a chance. Not every situation calls for manual mode.

I am not a professional photographer and my tutorials are not professional. I am doing my best to give you the reader a simple to understand way to get started using your awesome digital camera. Happy Shooting...

Thank you for listening, Geo Beck.