Shutter Speed and F-Stops: An Informative Post! | Omaha Photographer

I had some questions this week from Kati! She asked:

Hello there! I had a few questions for you!! I was wondering what type of camera you use? Do you shoot on auto or manual mode? When you do shoot do you adjust your shutter speed and f/stops or do you leave all that up to the camera and adjust your photos with photoshop/lightroom? I have a cannon digital camera and want to know if I really need to dive deep into the math of changing your f/stops etc. If you could help me out it would be GREATLY appreciated!!Thank you,
Kati 

Thanks for the post, Kati! I shoot with a Sony a99. It's Sony's most recently released full-frame DSLR.

I shoot in manual because it gives me greater control over the images I'm making. I adjust the settings as I go, determining the settings as I change scenarios. I adjust the f based on how far away from the subject I am, how much of the subject I want in focus, how bright/dim the lighting is. Adjusting the f changes the shutter speed, so I adjust that accordingly. Understanding how the f correlates to the composition, focus, and style of the image is really important. Let me show you a side by side example that I recently shot to help explain.

The photo on the left has a much shallower depth of field, which is due to the wider (lower number) f-stop. The one on the right has a smaller (higher number) f-stop which increased the area of focus. You can see how the change in f changed the shutter speed. There's no way I could have achieved these two results by shooting in auto. I would have pointed the camera at the branch and the camera would have just picked something that it calculated as being correct. By taking those decisions away from the camera, you're allowing yourself to compose the photo how you envision.

Try as I might, I don't nail the exposure in every photo. :) I get as much correct as I can in-camera and then make adjustments in Lightroom. The only time I ever use Photoshop is for portrait editing and some color toning on black and white images. Lightroom allows me to batch edit whole sessions so the process goes much faster.

Thanks for the questions! Keep 'em coming!