Really Basic Question

[insoin]

OK I have always been a point and shoot kind of camera guy. Well I have a Kodak EasyShare Z712 IS digital camera. It is not fancy by any means, but it will do more than I never need it to do. I have some basic questions about some settings.

What does ISO mean, and what is the difference in the numbers?

What does the shutter speed do/mean? Is higher less time to take the picture?

What about Aperture? I dont even know what this is, let alone what it would be for on a camera.

Well I am really a newbie when it comes to camera stuff. Can anyone help me with this stuff, or show me a good website for picture terms/taking for dummies?

Two things I really would like to know is what is the best way to take fireworks, and night time pictures. I know get a small tripod, which I have, but what about the other stuff. What should the ISO settings be, etc.

Thanks!

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

OK I have always been a point and shoot kind of camera guy. Well I have a Kodak EasyShare Z712 IS digital camera. It is not fancy by any means, but it will do more than I never need it to do. I have some basic questions about some settings.

What does ISO mean, and what is the difference in the numbers?

What does the shutter speed do/mean? Is higher less time to take the picture?

What about Aperture? I dont even know what this is, let alone what it would be for on a camera.

Well I am really a newbie when it comes to camera stuff. Can anyone help me with this stuff, or show me a good website for picture terms/taking for dummies?

Two things I really would like to know is what is the best way to take fireworks, and night time pictures. I know get a small tripod, which I have, but what about the other stuff. What should the ISO settings be, etc.

Thanks!

See these links for answers to your questions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_speed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1474329

ETA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutter_speed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_balance

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Together, they make up, what in photography terms, is called Exposure.

You should be able to pick up just about any book on digital photography and get a basic explanation of what each means and how they affect your photos. Once you understand them, you can apply the knowledge to your camera and hopefully improve your pictures.

Many here like a book called Understanding Exposure. If you don't want to get into it that deeply, there are lots of other, more general books. Kodak has a very nice book that I saw in Barnes and Noble recently, but I don't see anywher it to give you a link (I believe it's a brand new version of their 2006 edition of The Most Basic Book of Digital Photography, which I have, but this is different and even better).

Good luck.

 

[jann1033]

OK I have always been a point and shoot kind of camera guy. Well I have a Kodak EasyShare Z712 IS digital camera. It is not fancy by any means, but it will do more than I never need it to do. I have some basic questions about some settings.

What does ISO mean, and what is the difference in the numbers? it's like the old speed of film, 100 for bright light( like outside ) to 1600 or whatever your camera has for dimmer light
What does the shutter speed do/mean? Is higher less time to take the picture? basicaly how long the shutter is open for . the bigger the number the faster is opens and closes.( that is a fraction so 500 is really 1/500, when you get to really slow speeds it's in seconds so those are whole numbers)..that would be because of higher iso, brighter light etc.
What about Aperture? I dont even know what this is, let alone what it would be for on a camera. ...the bigger the "hole" in the iris of the lens,the smaller the number ...ie f4 is a bigger opening than f22..it is similar to your eye, it opens bigger to let more light in the f is really a fraction so that is why it seems nutty
Well I am really a newbie when it comes to camera stuff. Can anyone help me with this stuff, or show me a good website for picture terms/taking for dummies?

Two things I really would like to know is what is the best way to take fireworks, and night time pictures. I know get a small tripod, which I have, but what about the other stuff. What should the ISO settings be, etc.

Thanks!

hope that helps and everyone learns it at sometime or other. you might have a night setting or fireworks on your camera. use that if in doubt the tripod or something to hold it steady is a must, if you have a timer use that( or a remote switch) for night shots...set the aperture for as large as you can ie f2.8 end, but you might need to mess around and see what exact settings you want...start around 1 second or the slowest your shutter will go and then see what you like. if you use your night setting it probably will give you the abiltiy to take a shot with the foreground and background exposed...( it probably says in your manual) i'm not sure how much leeway you have with your camera so sometimes it might be good to go with the auto and then see if it's ok or not...yu basically need to let more light in for night and need a combo of a slow shutter, big aperture and higher iso to do that.

 

[insoin]

Thanks for all the help. I knew it would be simple to find out how to work the camera. I will go look for a very basic beginners book.

 

[LPZ_Stitch!]

Two things I really would like to know is what is the best way to take fireworks, and night time pictures. I know get a small tripod, which I have, but what about the other stuff. What should the ISO settings be, etc.

A good site that helped me learn a lot about the relationship between aperture, shutter speed and ISO is www.goingmanual.com. They explain the terms and how to use the settings to achieve whatever effects you might be trying to get. They've got free PDFs of their site, too!

There are two major issues in taking night photos; stationary subjects and moving subjects.

A stationary subject (like Cindy's Castle) can be taken with a tripod, low ISO, large-to-mid aperture and slow shutter speed (> 1sec.).

Moving subjects (like Spectromagic) require higher shutter speeds (basically as fast as you can possible get them), so you need to get more light into the camera; the largest aperture you can get and the highest ISO you can stand. On a P&S camera, the noise (graininess) goes up quite rapidly as the ISO increases. However, most of it can be removed with Noise Reduction software (like Noiseware) and it rarely looks as bad in a 4x6 print as it does on the computer screen.

Fireworks is kind of in the middle. The *best* results come from using a tripod, low ISO, fairly large aperture and shutter times of about 2 sec. This gives you full "bursts" instead of bright lights at the end of a trail of smoke. DSLRs usually have a mode called 'bulb' which allows you to leave the shutter open as long as you like; but those of us with P&S cameras (even ones with full manual controls) usually don't have this feature and need to use pre-set long shutter speeds.

Another setting that can help in low-light situations (especially for Spectro or stage shows where there's some bright lighting surrounded by a lot of darkness) is to switch your camera's metering to Spot (if you have the option). Spot metering only takes into account the area that's right in the very center of the frame and ignores all of the surrounding darkness while figuring out what settings to use. It can give you nicely exposed subjects on very dark backgrounds....

Hope this helps....

 

[seashoreCM]

Night mode is meant for nighttime shots that you want to come out looking natural, namely like nighttime.

Believe it or not, if you do not do anything special, an automatic camera will actually try to make a night scene come out looking like day. The camera will usually run up against its limits, boosting the ISO and increasing graininess, and slowing down the shutter making moving subjects come out quite blurry.

Night mode is nothing more than a deliberate amount of underexposure on an automatic camera. Another feature, exposure compensation, allows you to fine tune the exposure (plus for over or minus for under) either in normal mode or in night mode.

Night mode gives better nighttime pictures for most folks because the camera doesn't have to slow down its shutter as much and/or does not have to boost its ISO as much.

Night mode may or may not give better fireworks pictures compared with normal mode, given the much brighter fireworks on an overall dark background. It depends on how the final camera settings matched the optimum exposure for the fireworks themselves. Exposure of fireworks depends on ISO and aperture only. Shutter speed for fireworks determines only the length of the firework trails (versus smoke trails) you get.

If you can and when you do manually select all three of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, night mode no longer applies since it is then overridden by your selections. If you select just one or two of those parameters, night mode can still try to take effect by governing the other parameter(s).

Night mode is not a cure all. Many cameras still cannot take night scenes well without a tripod.

Digital camera hints: http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/digicam.htm

 

[elizke]

I have a Kodak DX7590, and have used the fireworks setting quite successfully. The two keys are steady shooting, as you know, and pressing the shutter just before it explodes in air.

Examples for the 7590, elbows propped on lawnchair arms (I call it my elbowpod), fireworks setting, shutter pressed as described...