Ideally, you already have a DSLR camera, but a compact or even a phone camera will also work. Once you learn how to set your camera to control your photos background blur, you will have to experiment and see what you like and what you don’t like.

Let’s get started!

What is a BOKEH in photography?

If you are into photography, for sure you’ve heard the term bokeh (with slight variances pronounced boh-kay).

But, what is bokeh?

In short, bokeh refers to how out of focus points of lights are rendered in a photo. So, you might say that the blurred background of a photo is the photo’s bokeh. Keep this in mind, as this is important: blur means out of focus.

If you want to read more about this, there’s an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to bokeh.

The bokeh effect is very widely used for it’s aesthetic value, especially for portraits. The trick there is to get your subject in focus and the background out of focus, therefore creating a nice separation and drawing attention to your subject.

But more on this below.

Simple bokeh camera settings

If you’ve looked at our bokeh textures examples and other like the great collection of free bokeh lights textures from PSDDude, you are probably wondering:

How can I make my own photo bokeh textures? It’s quite simple, follow these steps:

1. Find a subject with lights. Street lights will work or even better a Christmas led light rope. The more sources of light in your frame, the more interesting your bokeh texture will be.
2. Set your camera on manual focus and set the focus either to the minimum, or to the maximum.
3. Set your aperture to the maximum (lowest f-number) that your lens will allow
4. Adjust your shutter speed for a correct exposure
5. Shoot!

This will work each and every time. Please note that different lenses will render different bokeh effects.

You can even do this with phone. Most phones today will allow you to go into manual focus mode. If you can do that then it’s just a matter of finding the right subject.

How to set your camera for background bokeh?

When you take a photo, you usually decide on a point of focus. The point of focus will be the point in your photo with the maximum amount of sharpness.

Here’s what you have to know,

There is a distance range from your focus point that will appear in focus, while everything outside of this range will appear out of focus, or blurred. The range that appears in focus is called the depth of field.

It’s easy to control the depth of field, simply by adjusting the f-number (aperture). A lower f-number (wider aperture) will render a narrower depth of field – so more blur in the background of the photo.

A higher f-number (small aperture) will render a less blurry photo background.

Let’s see an example:

For this test I’ve used the following camera, lens and settings:

• Nikon D750 camera
• Fixed focal length 35mm f1.8 lens
• ISO 100
• f/1.8 aperture
• 1/8 sec shutter speed
• no flash
• tripod
• focus set on the nose of the penguin Christmas decoration
• distance from camera to subject: 30cm

Ok, so I got my blurred photo background. But how do we explain it technically?

I set my camera’s f-number to the lowest value this lens has f/1.8. This will give me the narrowest depth of field. There are complex formulas to calculate the exact size of the depth of field that take into account the focal length, distance to subject and aperture, but that’s outside of the scope of this post.

Just to give you an idea, for these settings the depth of field is approximately 7mm. You can see that because the nose of the penguin is in focus, but the tip of the hat is starting to become blurry.

Because I set f/1.8 as aperture, I was able to set a relatively fast shutter speed of 1/8 sec.

Now, to give you an idea on how to control the amount of photo background blur, I will only change the aperture. Making the f-number higher (smaller aperture) means that the sensor of the camera will receive less light, so I will have to compensate to get a good exposure, so I will have to increase the shutter speed.

Let’s see what we get:

Here are the new settings:

• ISO 100
• f/4 aperture
• 5/8 sec shutter speed
• no flash
• tripod
• focus set on the nose of the penguin Christmas decoration
• distance from camera to subject: 30cm

In this case we get a less blurry photo background. The difference is subtle, but it is there. Because we modified the aperture, the depth of field also changed to about 1.5 cm. If you look at the tip of the penguin’s hat you can see that it’s much sharper than before.

Can we take this further?

Sure. Let’s see what happens if we increase the f-number some more:

Here are the new settings:

• ISO 100
• f/16 aperture
• 8 sec shutter speed
• no flash
• tripod
• focus set on the nose of the penguin Christmas decoration
• distance from camera to subject: 30cm

By increasing the f-number to f/16 we have almost no blur in the background. The new depth of field is almost 60cm which is enough to include the snowman in the background of the photo.

Other techniques for getting blurred background photos

So far, we’ve seen how to play with the focus and the aperture to get a blurred background photo.

But there’s more.

Make blurred background photos with motion blur

Did you notice that if you move the camera while taking a shot the image will be blurry? That is called motion blur. You can use motion blur to make create a blurred photo background.

Motion blur – moving subject static background:

1. Your subject has to be moving
2. Set your shutter speed pretty slow. This depends on many factors (speed of your subject, lens focal length, lighting conditions). I would go with at least 0.5 sec or even 1 sec
3. Set your aperture to a low f-number
4. Set your ISO setting such that you get a good exposure.
5. Set your focus on auto-focus continuous mode
6. Take the shot pointing the camera at the subject and following through with the subject’s movement

This is a great technique, not only to get a beautiful blurred background, but also send the viewer the feeling of motion.

You can also achieve a similar blurry background effect if you shoot a still subject with a background that is moving (ex. a person in a metro station while the metro is moving behind; a person on the sidewalk with cars moving behind).

Make blurred photos using zoom blur

This technique will require you use a telephoto lens. Telephoto lenses have adjustable focal lengths which basically means that you can zoom in and zoom out. You can create the so called zoom blur if you zoom in (or out) while taking the shot.

Here’s how to create in-camera zoom blur:

1. Position your subject or point of interest right in the center of the frame. Most of the shot will become blurry, so only the center will remain sort of sharp
2. Set your shutter speed pretty slow. This depends on many factors (speed of your subject, lens focal length, lighting conditions). I would go with at least 0.5 sec or even 1 sec
3. Set your aperture to a low f-number
4. Set your ISO setting such that you get a good exposure.
5. Set your focus on auto focus single mode. Then focus on the center of the frame.
6. Use the zoom controls to go to one end of the zoom range
7. While taking the shot use the zoom controls to go to the opposite end of the zoom range.

Depending on the telephoto lens you have the effect will be more or less pronounced. Experiment with this and see what you like best.

Make blurred photos using radial blur

This technique can be made with any camera. Basically you need to rotate the camera while taking the shot. You will have to be careful to point the camera to the center of rotation and not deviate while rotating.

Here’s how to make in-camera radial blur effect:

1. Choose a center for your frame and point the camera towards it
2. Set your shutter speed pretty slow. This depends on many factors (speed of your subject, lens focal length, lighting conditions). I would go with at least 0.5 sec or even 1 sec
3. Set your aperture to a low f-number
4. Set your ISO setting such that you get a good exposure.
5. Set your focus on auto focus single mode. Then focus on the center of the frame.
6. While taking the shot spin the camera around trying to keep the center point in the center of the frame

Radial blur is also known as spin blur.

How to blur the background of a photo that I already made?

Blurring the background in photos that you already took can only be done by post-processing the photo.

You can use Lightroom or Photoshop, and the steps are pretty much the same:

1. Create a mask for your subject.
2. Invert the mask. This will allow you to work only on the background of the photo
3. Blur the photo background using any of the blur filters (Gaussian blur is probably the most used blur filter)

If you don’t have too much experience working with Photoshop, I recommend reading this article about how to blur background with Photoshop from PhotoshopSupply. The article also includes a Photoshop action will make the whole process of blurring a photo background much easier.

If you don’t know Photoshop or want to know a easier way to blur a photo background, you can always turn to MockoFun. MockoFun is a free online photo editor and it’s very easy to blur a photo background. Here’s a very detailed article about how to blur photo online with MockoFun.

In Conclusion

There are many ways to create and use blurred background photos. In this post I tried to cover everything you need to know about setting your camera to create the perfect blurred photo background.

If I missed anything, don’t hesitate to drop me a comment below and I will try to respond.

The post How to Get The Perfect Blurred Photo Background appeared first on Textures4Photoshop Blog.

I asked a group of photographers this:

What is the one thing you learned that made you realize you are no longer a beginner photographer?

And the answers came. If you want to find out about photographers journey from beginner to pro read on.

This question really stirred up debates. Each journey is different. There is no one single way to become a PRO photographer.

I got this graph from one of the photographers I talked to. I’d love to give credit to its author, but I don’t know who that is.

Though this graph might make you laugh at first it does contain a deep truth.

A photographer’s journey is about three things:

• Knowledge – what you know about taking photos
• Quality of photos – are your photos any good
• How good you think you are – your self confidence as a photographer

Let’s see what pro photographers wanted to share about their journey turning from beginner to intermediate and pro.

UPDATE Aug, 2018: I’ve accidentally found out that the chart above is a variation on the Dunning-Kruger effect.

What Is The Dunning Kruger Effect?

The Dunning Kruger effect refers to a psychological bias we all have that makes us over estimate our abilities. Also, the more you know about a subject, the more accurate your self evaluation will be.

The Dunning Kruger effect chart shows:

1. “Peak of Mt. Stupid” – when experience is virtually non existent there is a tendency to exaggerate the level of the abilities
2. “Valley of dispair” – while more and more things are learned, you realize that there are a lot of things yet to learn
3. “Slope of enlightenment” – with more and more experience and things learned you slowly advance
4. I know what I don’t know – it’s what an expert means in the end: one that recognizes their own limitations.

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In this article:

• A Photographer’s Journey Is Never Over
• Knowing the Rules and When to Break Them
  • In Sports Photography Shoot at 1/500th sec or Faster
  • The Inverse Focal Length Rule
  • Sunny f/16 Rule
  • Rule of Thirds
  • Astrophotography Rule of 500
  • Expose to the Right (ETTR)
• Technically Correct Is Not Necessarily Beautiful
• The Infamous Aperture/Shutter Speed/ISO Triangle
• ISO Invariance – Increasing the ISO Does NOT Increase the Noise
  • Shot noise
  • Electronic Noise
  • Where does ISO come in?
• Focus Stacking
• Photo Selection and Post Processing
• Shoot RAW If You Can
  • Advantages of shooting RAW
  • Disadvantages of shooting RAW
• Conclusion

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A Photographer’s Journey Is Never Over

The truth is:

There will always be one type of photography in which you will be a beginner.

Photography is a vast domain. There’s portrait photography, product photography, macro photography, astrophotography, black and white, sports photography, etc.

Let’s face it:

Knowing them all will take time. That’s why a photographer’s journey is never over.

But that’s what makes photography exciting.

Knowing the Rules and When to Break Them

I’ve read a lot of books sharing photography rules, and rules can be good and bad.

Here’s why:

Photography rules are good if you use them as a starting point. A rule should never be used blindly and at the expense of the creative part.

Know the rules, know when to apply them, but also experiment with breaking them. This will give you some amazing photos sometimes.

Here are just a few rules that photographers wanted to share. Learning these rules made them feel that they were no longer a beginner.

In Sports Photography Shoot at 1/500th sec or Faster

Set your camera in Shutter Priority mode and set the shutter speed to 1/500th sec for moving subjects. For action shots you should go for 1/1000th.

This will allow you to freeze the subject and avoid a blurry shot. However, on rare occasions you might want to get a blurry shot just to convey the movement and the effort of the scene. In one of my other articles you can read all about how to get a perfect blurred photo background.

The Inverse Focal Length Rule

You probably noticed this:

When shooting with a tele lens (zoom lens) the camera shake is more of a problem. It’s hard to hold a camera totally still with your hands. The bigger the zoom, the bigger the shake.

Try this:

Adjust your shutter speed according to the inverse of the focal length. If you are shooting at 200mm try a shutter speed of 1/200th of a sec. At 300mm, try 1/300th. You will get a sharp image.

Sunny f/16 Rule

This one is simple:

If you are taking photos in bright sun set your aperture to f/16. Set your camera in full Manual Mode and get the right exposure by setting the shutter speed to 1/x seconds where x is the ISO number.

For example, at ISO 100 use 1/100th sec. For ISO 200, use 1/200th sec, and so on.

Rule of Thirds

Imagine this:

Divide the frame into 3 equal parts horizontally using imaginary lines. Then do the same vertically.

If you compose your shot placing your subject in one of the lines’ intersection points you will get a very pleasing composition.

This is called the rule of thirds. And it’s a technique many photographers use as a guide line when composing their shots.

Why does the rule of thirds work?

It has to do with proportions and how the eye perceives images. Anyway I won’t go into details.

Just remember:

Placing your subject smack in the middle can create a very boring photo.

This also happens if you shoot a landscape and place the horizon line right through the middle of the screen.

Use the rule of thirds and make your shot flow on the division lines. The eyes of the viewer will be drawn towards the intersection points.

It’s not only about placing the subject in one of the intersection points. It’s also about dividing the frame into areas of interest.

For example:

Take a landscape shot. Align the bottom grid line with the horizon. The texture and color of the ground will take one third of the frame and the sky will take the upper two thirds.

The composition will be more interesting than taking a half-half shot.

Again, remember, rules are meant to be broken.

Astrophotography Rule of 500

How do they take those Milky Way shots?

If you are like me you probably asked yourself that question. Because the night sky is so dark, you need to take very long exposures.

But, did you know?

Because the Earth rotates around its axis, the night sky appears to rotate. This means that a long exposure even on a tripod, will get your trails of stars.

So, what shutter speed is fast enough?

The rule of 500 gives a quick approximation of the shutter speed fast enough to avoid getting trail or blurry stars.

Simply divide 500 by the focal length of your lens and get the shutter speed.

Example:

If you shoot using a 24mm lens, then 500 / 24 = 20.8 sec. So a shutter speed of around 20 seconds will get you a sharp starry sky.

There are some that say it should be rule of 400, or rule of 600.

Bottom line is:

Experiment and see what works for you. Combining photograph and some Photoshop techniques I’ve created several space images and textures that you should check out.

Expose to the Right (ETTR)

The histogram

It’s that graph that shows how exposure is distributed between shadows, mid-tones and highlights.

If it’s crammed to the left it means that there are a lot of dark tones in the shot. If it’s crammed to the right, then there are a lot of highlights.

Expose to the right (ETTR) is the technique of getting your shots with a histogram crammed to the right. Take multiple shots with brighter and brighter exposures.

But be careful and don’t overdo it, or you’ll get an overexposed shot.

What’s the idea?

Camera sensors are better at capturing highlights than shadows. It’s better to take a brighter exposure as it will contain more information than a darker one. The more information you get towards the highlights (right of the histogram) the better.

But, won’t my shot be too bright?

Well, yes. But you can lower the brightness in post-processing. The overall contrast and the details in the shadows will be much better than if you exposed to the center or to the left.

Very useful:

Most cameras have a blinker display mode. This shows the overexposed areas in a shot. Those areas will not have recoverable info in them. Try to avoid those situations.

For applying ETTR efficiently you should shoot RAW.

Oh, and one more thing:

Please be aware that even on high-end cameras the histogram is based on the JPG version of the shot. Even when shooting RAW.

What that means is that the histogram displayed by the camera is not 100% correct. It might show overexposure (data climbing up the right side of the graph) when in fact there is no overexposure.

Technically Correct Is Not Necessarily Beautiful

“To photograph: it is to put on the same line of sight the head, the eye and the heart.” ― Henri Cartier-Bresson

A good photo has to transmit an emotion to the viewer. Photography is an art, it’s not simply a copy of reality.

Look at these photos:

They are by far not technically correct. But their artistic value is undeniable.

So remember:

Photography is an art, a craft and a science.  Use your mind, your heart and your soul to take a great photograph.

On this site you will find quite a few examples of beautiful black and white textures that you can download for free.

As a photographer I find it very convenient to transform some of my photos using these free black and white Photoshop actions

The Infamous Aperture/Shutter Speed/ISO Triangle

Most will say:

Find the right balance between aperture, shutter speed and the ISO and you will get the right exposure.

This is called “Aperture/Shutter Speed/ISO Triangle”. This technique can be very useful because it’s easy to understand.

I covered the details about this technique in the previous post 3 Powerful Photography Secrets For Mastering DSLR Manual Mode.

A word of caution:

The triangle is a comfortable tool, but it’s not entirely accurate. This is one of the point that really stirred up the debate with the more advanced photographers. One of them even called the triangle BS.

So, why is that?

Because the triangle does not take into account exposure. And when I say exposure, I mean the quantity of light that the sensor receives.

When learning about the triangle one might get absorbed with getting the 3 values aligned, forgetting about the actual light in the scene you are shooting.

Remember, you are shooting the light that bounces off your subject.

When using the triangle, the convention is that a higher ISO will result in a photo with more noise.

But that’s not entirely accurate.

This may go against everything you’ve heard so far. The shutter speed and aperture settings might impact noise more than the ISO setting.

If you want to know how and why, read the next section about ISO invariance.

ISO Invariance – Increasing the ISO Does NOT Increase the Noise

I hear this all the time

If you increase the ISO you will get a noisy picture.

That will lead to the conclusion that ISO is the only factor influencing noise in your photos.

That is simply not true.

Let’s first see what causes noise.

Basically, there are two sources for noise: shot noise and electronic noise.

Shot noise

In nature light is not uniform. It’s composed of small particles called photons. These photons hit the sensor and that’s how the image is composed.

Because these photons hit the sensor at random intervals the information captured is not uniform. That’s how you get noise.

It’s all about statistics. The more data you collect, the more accurate the results. Inherently, areas receiving less light will bounce less photons, areas well light will bounce more photons.

That is why darker areas will produce more noise in the picture. So you need to collect more photons from those areas. To do that you need to increase the exposure – or the amount of light that the sensor takes into account.

The ratio between the quantity of light information collected and the noise is called signal-to-noise ratio.

To get smooth photos you need to maximize this signal-to-noise ratio.

Electronic Noise

Beside shot noise, there is also electronic noise. That is random noise generated by the imperfections of the electronic components or various outside interference.

What does that all mean then?

It means that the noise in your picture is not determined by the ISO setting. It’s determined by the lack of exposure.

Also, you have to realize that all photos will have shot noise in them. You can’t avoid that. You can only minimize it.

Where does ISO come in?

ISO is the sensor sensitivity. The higher the ISO setting the less light you need to get your shot.

But, as we’ve seen before, collecting less light can decreases the signal-to-noise ratio. And that results in a noisy picture. It all depends on the amount of light available.

This may come as a shock:

Sometimes a higher ISO setting will help getting less noise in your shot. Let’s see an example:

The image on the left is taken at ISO 6400. The one on the right is taken at ISO 100 and then brought 6 stops up. As you can see, for Canon 5D Mark III, there is a clear difference in noise.

Increasing the ISO in this case produces a much clearer picture. In this case increasing the ISO resulted in a much better signal-to-noise ratio.

Not all cameras are created equal.

Some camera sensors are so well built that there is barely any difference in noise even at a difference of 6 stops. One such example is the sensor on the Nikon D750.

There is barely any difference between ISO 6400 and ISO 100 raised by 6 stops. This low variance is called ISO invariance.

There are two great articles that I recommend talking about the source of noise:

• What’s that noise? Part one: Shedding some light on the sources of noise
• Sources of noise part two: Electronic Noise

Did you know you can fake electronic noise in Photoshop using noise and glitch textures that you can download for free from Textures4Photoshop?

Focus Stacking

Another useful trick used by beginner and pro photographers alike is focus stacking.

Focus stacking is the technique of taking multiple shots of the same subject with the focus point in different areas. The resulting shots are then combined in one single image which looks like the entire subject is in focus.

I’ve known about this technique for years. But I only recently experimented with it.

I took multiple shots of an old pocket watch. I wanted to use my macro lens adapter to get very fine details.

Using the macro lens had the disadvantage that the focus distance was very small and it was impossible to get the whole watch in frame.

To solve this I took multiple shots of various parts of the watch with different focus points.

I then used focus stacking in Photoshop to create the parts of the watch in full focus.

Also using Photoshop I combined the parts of the watch using the Auto Blend option.

The results were quite impressive.

I got a 16 Megapixel image, much higher than the 12 Megapixels my Nikon D80 has. Also the subject is filling the frame and you can see all the details. You can download for free the full resolution old pocket watch PNG file.

Photo Selection and Post Processing

In the old days, photography was made using film. You loaded up your camera with a film roll which could only take 36 exposures.

That meant you needed to be very selective with what and how you shot.

In the digital era you can get hundreds of shots before filling up your memory card. This makes many photographers a bit “careless” how many shots they take.

Here’s what experienced photographers have shared with me:

It’s very important to know which shots to take and which shots not to take.

This sounds funny, but with this in mind you will give more thought and attention to each shot you take.

At the end of a long day of shooting you will thank yourself if you don’t have to browse through thousands of photos.

Most of the shots you will have to throw out. The photos you choose will reflect how good a photographer you are. So, the less photo you throw out, the better photographer you have become.

Post processing is another important aspect of pro photographers life.

My advice:

Take a look at Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and learn at least the basics of post processing if you are serious about becoming a pro photographer.

Shoot RAW If You Can

All DSLRs have the option to shoot either JPEG or RAW.

As a pro photographer you should know the difference between the two. Then you can make your informed choice.

Here’s the thing

Over the years I went back and forth between shooting only JPEG and shooting only RAW.

There is no right or wrong, but shooting RAW sure has it’s advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of shooting RAW

1. Forget about white balance. When shooting RAW white balance is not a variable. You can change it in post production without any quality loss.
2. More image information. RAW files contain all the information that the sensor receives. Also most cameras process a 12 bit or 14 bit color depth model. That means that the RAW file will store up to 4.3 trillion different color compared to the 16.8 million colors supported by a 8 bit JPEG. Also this helps to eliminate banding (that ugly gradient stripes which will ruin prints).
3. It’s what professionals use. If you deliver your photos to clients that plan to use it in prints for example, you should provide them with the RAW files.

There are also some disadvantages that you should be aware of.

Disadvantages of shooting RAW

1. RAW files are big. That means that your memory card will fill up faster. Transfer will take more time.
2. RAW files require processing. You will have to take each RAW file and post-process it. You need special software for this.

So now you know.

There are advantages and disadvantages to shooting RAW.

If your top priority is the quality of your photos then my advice is to shoot RAW.

Conclusion

Becoming a pro photographer will take years of learning and practicing.

Each photographer journey will be different and the journey will never be over. There will always be new things that one can learn.

In the end

Photography is an art. It requires you to use your eyes, your heart and your soul.

Art is subjective. There is no perfect photo. You will always be able to improve yourself and become a better photographer.

I hope you enjoyed this article.

What did it mean for you becoming a photographer? Share this in a comment below.

For me, my photographer journey lead me to the creation of this website to share stock images and textures for free.

The post Photographer Journey From Beginner to Pro appeared first on Textures4Photoshop Blog.

In this post I will tell you how to use your DSLR camera manual mode to get correct exposures. I will share 3 photography secrets that pro photographers already know. Understanding the settings of your DSLR camera will give you control over how the photos come out and will ultimately help you take better photos.

Download the PDF version

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A good photographer has to understand how the camera works. DSLR cameras offer a multitude of settings that can be intimidating if you are a beginner photographer.

I hear this a lot:

Professional photographers always shoot in full manual mode. Trust me: that is simply not true…

…but pro photographers can shoot in full manual mode because they understand how all the settings of the camera influence the resulting photo.

You know this already:

Photography is all about light. Capture the right amount of light and your exposures will be correct.

But lighting conditions are not always ideal. That is why you have to learn how to set your DSLR camera to compensate for the lack or excess of light.

Capture too much light and your photo will be overexposed. Too little light and you get an underexposed image.

Know this:

A technically correct photo is not automatically a beautiful photo. But, it’s almost always a requirement for any good photo.

This post is strictly about the technical side of taking pictures using a DSLR. So, if you are ready for the 3 secrets that will improve the quality of the pictures you take…

…let’s begin!

1. ISO Explained

The simple explanation:

The ISO setting determines the sensitivity to light of your camera’s sensor. With numbers ranging from 100 up, a higher ISO setting means the sensor is more sensitive to light.

What does that mean?

It means that a higher ISO setting will allow taking pictures in lower lighting conditions. Higher ISO will brighten the image.

But, there’s a trade off:

Because the camera will be more sensitive, higher ISO settings will also increase the granular noise in the picture.

Practical ISO Examples

Let’s see some examples of photos taken with different ISO settings.

I took two pictures in full manual mode. First one is at ISO 100. As you can see the exposure is incorrect and I got an underexposed shot (the image is too dark).

By increasing the ISO setting to 800, leaving the other settings the same and keeping the same lighting conditions, I was able to get the correct exposure on the right.

That looks better!

So, by setting a higher ISO I managed to get the correct exposure. If you look at the detail on the bottom, there is some noticeable noise. However, sometimes you have to make a compromise and accept at least some noise in the picture if that allows you to get the right exposure.

Let’s now see what happens if you abuse the ISO setting and you set it too high. For this I setup another example.

I shot two other photos. One at ISO 100 and one at ISO 1600.

This time I set the camera on a semi-automatic mode called P (Program Mode).

In this mode the DSLR camera will try to calculate the right exposure. I only changed the ISO and let the camera decide on the other settings. At ISO 1600 we are starting to see a lot of noise.

The ISO setting is probably the easiest setting on your DSLR camera to understand.

Keep this in mind:

In practice you will probably want to start by setting ISO 100 regardless of the camera mode settings. This will give you minimal noise.

If the photo is underexposed or blurry, then keep all the other settings the same, increase the ISO and take another shot. Do this again until you get the right exposure.

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SECRET #1

How to Remove ISO Noise Using Photoshop

For removing ISO noise you will need to take several shots of the subject.

Then open these shots in Photoshop using File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack… checking the Create Smart Object after Loading Layers checkbox

This will create a smart object with the shots stacked inside it. With this smart object selected go to Layer > Smart Objects > Stack Mode > Mean.

Using this technique you will highly reduce or even remove most of the ISO noise grain.

The more shots of the subject you stack, the better the result.

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When the noise is still too obvious then you’ll probably need to use one of the other photography secrets in this post.

Let’s see what’s next.

2. Shutter Speed Explained

To take a picture, DSLR cameras quickly open and close a “small door” to let light reach the sensor. The “small door” is called shutter.

Shutter speed determines how fast the shutter is opened and closed.

More specifically:

The shutter speed measures the amount of time that the camera sensor is exposed to light for taking a picture. The longer the time, the more light gets to the sensor and the image will be brighter.

Also important:

If your subject is moving you might get a blurry picture. Setting a faster shutter speed will allow you to get a sharper photo.

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SECRET #2

Avoid Camera Shake Using A Simple Rule

If you are not using a tripod you have to hold the camera very still when taking a shot. But even then, if the shutter speed is not fast enough you might get a blurry picture.

How fast is fast enough for the shutter speed?

I always use this rule: set the shutter speed to approximately 1/x sec where x is equal to the focal length.

For example: if I’m shooting at 50mm, a 1/50 sec or faster will be enough for avoiding the camera shake. At 300mm you need to go even faster at 1/300mm and so on.

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Let’s see a few examples of using the shutter speed

I took two photos of a spinning coin:

One with 1/5 seconds shutter speed and one with 1/100 seconds. Here’s the difference.

It’s all about the balance

You have to set a shutter speed fast enough to avoid blurry photos, but slow enough to get enough light to the sensor.

Remember Secret #1 – ISO

The DSLR camera settings are meant to be used together.

What if the shutter speed that gives you a good exposure is not fast enough to freeze the subject and it still looks blurry?

The solution is:

Increase the ISO. This will allow you to set faster shutter speeds and getting the same exposure levels. That is what I did in the example above to get the same level of exposure.

To sum up:

You can brighten an exposure using a slower shutter speed. And you can darken an exposure by setting a faster shutter speed. Also, you can eliminate blurry moving subjects with faster shutter speeds and increase the ISO to keep the correct exposure.

All DSLR camera have a setting mode which allow you to set the shutter speed directly. For some cameras it’s marked as S (Shutter Priority) and on other cameras it’s marked as Tv (Time Value).

Now that we understand two key concepts of photography, we are moving from full auto to semi-automatic mode.

Just one more step to mastering full manual mode.

3. Aperture Explained

Aperture measures how wide the lens is opening when the shutter is opened. A wider opening lets more light in.

Quick remark:

The aperture setting is given as a so called “f-number”. Not to be confused with the “f-word”

All you need to know is:

The value of the aperture is an inversely proportional number to the area of the lens opening. For example, an F/2 setting means an opening larger than an F/4.

Confused? Don’t be!

The math and optics formulas behind this is not important. What is important is to understand how the aperture setting influences your photos.

Here’s the deal:

A higher F-number (narrow aperture) means that the camera sensor receives less light. A lower F-number (wide aperture) lets more light reach the sensor.

So, if your photo is underexposed, you can set a lower F-number to get more light in.

But how low can the F-number be?

That depends on the lens you use. The lowest F-number available for a lens is part of the name of the lens.

For example: the AF-S Nikkor 35mm 1.8 lens I’ve used for the photos in this post has a minimum F-number equal to F/1.8.

So, setting the aperture to F/1.8 will give me the maximum opening of this lens and therefore the maximum amount of light this lens can let into the camera.

Again, there’s a catch:

Using wider aperture there is a trade off that you must be aware of. The wider the aperture, the narrower the depth of field.

Wait a moment, depth of what?

The depth of field or DOF is the effective focus range, or the area that will be in focus. When you take a photo and focus on a subject, imagine two planes parallel to the sensor: one in front and one behind the subject in focus. That is the depth of field.

The two planes can be closer or further from each other meaning a narrower or wider depth of field.

The best way to explain aperture and DOF is through an example.

I took these three photos with three different aperture settings:

As you can see, the DOF is wider and wider as the F-number is higher. That is: more of the subject is in focus. Also, as the F-number goes up (the aperture is smaller), I need more light to compensate for the less light going to the sensor.

To do this I had to use a slower shutter speed going from 1/10 second to 1 and then 3 seconds.

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SECRET #3

Aperture and Bokeh Go Together

Foreground and background are both important.

Combine a sharp subject in the foreground with a soft background and you get a beautiful photo.

The soft background is often called bokeh. Higher F-numbers will give you less of the bokeh effect.

Also, different lenses give different looking bokeh effects. The main factor in this is the number of blades that the lens has. You can check for this in your lens’ specifications.

The more blades the aperture has the rounder the highlights in the bokeh. The less blades, the highlights will tend to be more square shaped.

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Congratulations

You can now switch your DSLR camera to full manual mode. You now understand how to joggle the three powerful settings of your camera to get the correct exposure.

Mastering the manual mode allows you to control the exposure, but my advice is to only use full manual mode if all other semi-automatic modes fail to give you the result you want.

I’ll let you in on a secret:

For most of the images I shot for our free texture directory in textures4photoshop.com I used the semi-automatic P (Program Mode) and A (Aperture Priority Mode).

Why?

Because DSLR cameras today are very good in calculating the required settings for a correct exposure. I used the Aperture Priority mode for a lot of photos as I wanted to set the aperture at F/3.5, which gives me the sharpest results for my lens according to the specs.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Feel free to drop me a comment if you have any questions about photography.

The post 3 Powerful Photography Secrets For Mastering DSLR Manual Mode appeared first on Textures4Photoshop Blog.