Week Two: Fstops, Shutter Speeds, Lenses

Following up from last week, we again looked at f-stops (or apertures), shutter speeds, and depth of field. In making an exposure or taking a photograph, the elements that come into play are the amount of light let in through the f-stop, which is the size of the opening in the lense, the shutter speed, which is the amount of time the shutter is open, and the speed of iso/asa chosen (for example 100, 200, 400, etc.). We looked at examples of overexposed and underexposed pictures, examples of motion blur– a very common mistake–and purposeful blur in pictures using techniques such as panning.

Another item mentioned was light meters. We looked at examples of light meters and talked about the light meters that are in most cameras. A light meter measures the amount of light in a scene and will let us know how to set our camera appropriately so we can get the proper exposure in our pictures.



Next, we discussed lenses including wide-angles (8 mm or fisheyes-28 mm)-to normal (35mm–50mm)-to telephotos and also macro and micro lenses. Also mentioned were zoom lenses, which is a number of lenses all in one where you can zoom from wide-angle to telephoto. The type of lens along with your f-stop affect your depth of field or amount in focus.



Photographers we looked at this week were Mary Ellen Mark, Eugene Smith, Dorthea Lange, Steve McCurry's Afghan Girl, and we looked at a number of photographs from Eugene Richards who uses wide angle lenses very effectively to get close to people.