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  • 1 year ago
Have you ever looked at your camera and wondered what all of those buttons actually do? For manual photography, the aperture, shutter speed and ISO sensitivity can all be manipulated to get just the right amount of light. Carolina Molinari suggests the best exposure for an action photo, a stunning portrait or a nighttime landscape.

Lesson by Carolina Molinari, animation by TED-Ed.

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Learning
Transcript
00:00That's not what we want, is it?
00:11Today's digital cameras do a lot for us, but there's no replacement for the human eye.
00:16It's important to learn how cameras work with light to create an image.
00:20That way we'll know what's going on when it's time to capture a moment.
00:24There are three variables that determine if you're getting the right amount of light for the correct exposure.
00:29With a manual camera, we're able to change any of the variables ourselves.
00:33Different settings can result in really different pictures.
00:36Let's look at the process together.
00:39First, see this here? This is the aperture. It's the hole that light passes through.
00:45If we make the aperture big, we'll have more light, true,
00:48but the sharpness of your photo will decrease very quickly from your focus point, backward and forward.
00:53This is what we call shallow depth of field.
00:56If we have a very small aperture, we'll have less light, but a deeper depth of field.
01:01For portraits, it can be nice to have a sharp figure separate from a somewhat blurry background,
01:06so I would suggest a large aperture.
01:08Aperture is measured in f-stops.
01:11This can get a little confusing because lower numbers mean bigger apertures,
01:15and higher numbers mean smaller apertures.
01:18Next, there's shutter speed to think about.
01:20The shutter acts like a curtain that covers the sensor,
01:23and it only opens when you release the shutter button.
01:26If we want less light, we open the shutter for a shorter time.
01:29If we want more light, we open it for a longer time,
01:32but we run the risk of getting a motion blurred picture.
01:35The speed is measured in seconds and fractions of seconds.
01:39For shooting sports or anything with a lot of movement, we'll need faster speeds.
01:45For taking awesome night landscapes, longer exposures will be better,
01:48but we'll need a tripod to steady the shot and prevent motion blur.
01:52Another cool thing we can do with light exposures is light painting,
01:56drawing in the dark with a torch or the light of a cell phone.
01:59Lastly, ISO sensitivity controls how sensitive the sensor is to light.
02:05If we use low sensitivity, we'll need more light to register a photo.
02:09With a higher sensitivity, we'll be able to get a picture with less available light.
02:13100 ISO is a low sensitivity, while 6400 ISO is a high one.
02:19If we increase sensitivity, we'll be able to use faster speeds and smaller apertures,
02:24but we'll get noisier images.
02:26Good thing we have something to tell us if we're getting the correct amount of light
02:30to get a good exposure, the light meter.
02:32Sound good to you?
02:34Now it's time to get out there and practice taking pictures under different conditions,
02:38so you know what to do anytime you want to take the best picture.
02:56Hello?
03:12How can you do beğen-meeseed by playing on your other side?
03:16All right.
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