Camera Basics & Exposure Triangle

There's more to photography than simply clicking a button, but most people are unaware of the relationship between light when it comes to taking photographs. There are 3 settings in your camera that need to be considered to understand the camera basics. Consider this your introduction to the Exposure Triangle.

The first is the aperture that is used. A small number such as f1.2 allows for the most amount of light into the camera. but the catch is that only a small amount of the image will be in focus. That means that the background will have quite a bit of blur or bokeh. Bokeh is very desirable in photography because it draws the focus to the subject and not in the distracting background.

When shooting a large group of people, you likely cannot be shooting at f1.2. In order to successfully shoot at that wide of an aperture, you'd need every person's face to be even. That's really hard to do with more than two subjects. A useful tip that I learned when starting my photography journey is to take the number of people that you're photographing (say a family of 6) and add one number--so f7. Photographing a couple? f3.2 may be the sweet spot for you! That will allow for everyone to be in focus. Speaking of focus, where should you set your focal point? I almost always set the focus to the eye that is closest to the camera. Focus falls backwards. Meaning if you are shooting at f5 and aim at my eye, my face and 4 feet behind me will also be in focus. If you aimed at a leaf 2 feet in front of me, the leaf and me would both be in focus.

Second is the shutter speed. The shutter speed controls the movement. A slow shutter speed would have a blurred image but a fast shutter speed will freeze moment and pause it. If using a very slow shutter speed, like I did for the spring tornado photos, I had to use a tripod and remote shutter, since handholding the camera would create a shake upon me pushing the shutter button down. The slowest I can comfortably handhold a camera is around 1/125, but prefer 1/300 for sessions with children. The slower the shutter speed, the more light, whereas the faster the shutter speed, the less light.

The last setting to consider is ISO. ISO is the sensitivity to light. This is typically the last setting I adjust. In general, photographers want to shoot at the lowest possible native ISO (For most cameras that is ISO 100 But my Sony mirrorless has ISO 50). By increasing your ISO, you allow for more light into the image. If you increase your ISO too high, you can bring in grain.

All of this changes with the introduction to off camera flash or speedlights, but that's a very quick overview of the Exposure Triangle. Photographers have to understand that balancing act and constantly adjust their camera settings for each new location, pose, and cloud movement. Learning studio lighting is an entirely different beast, but at least the lighting conditions are a bit more consistent than being a natural light photographer.

We haven't even tapped into white balance yet. White balance is the color temperature and tint of your image. Ideally, you want your whites to be white and not blue or yellow. Each photographer has their own unique edit and style, but they also need to know how to configure their white balance in camera (either shooting Kelvin and dialing in their number temperature themselves, taking a custom white balance reading, using a preset in camera based on the conditions, or by using Auto White Balance). No matter what white balance setting in camera is used, the photographer needs to learn how to adjust it in post. White balance changes frequently in outdoor photography based on the clouds and setting sun.