camera settings: shutter speeds, apertures & ISO values
A presentation that I’ve given on several occasions, is called ‘Just Give Me The F-Stop‘. The presentation is based on the perception that many photographers, in trying to get to grips with flash photography, try to break it down into what they think are the understandable elements – the numerical values of the settings used. They want numbers, believing that in knowing a certain image was taken at 1/125th @ f4.5 @ 400 ISO, that they might get closer to understanding lighting. They want the f-stop.
However, the scenarios we encounter as photographers vary so much, that it becomes meaningless for anyone to “give you the f-stop”.
Far more important are the methods we use in on-location lighting, such as how to get to correct exposure, and how to get beautiful light, and how to enhance the existing light with controlled use of flash. It is in this intersection between available light and flash that we get great results in seamlessly blending flash with available light. Of course, this is also true for other additional light, such as video light, or even the use of reflectors.
Regular readers of the Tangents blog will be familiar with this topic, but I’d like to expand on this idea a little more …
