[Reefland]

Ok,

Here is the best picture I have taken with our new camera:


This was taken with Auto Focus, well everything was in Auto.

I have a huge book with our new camera but I have no idea what any of it means. Maybe someone can help me out here. I am interested in just a general desciption of what each of these control:

Aperture
Shutter Speed
ISO
White Balance
Not even sure what the P stands for but it's on my camera

I am sure that with some of these settings changed I could have made the above picture even better.

[Poseidon]

Basic guide:

A= Apeture, this is the SIZE of the hole light enters your camera through. A SMALLER number = larger hole. Larger hole= less depth of field! Meaning more area around your focus point will be OUT of focus. A larger number= smaller hole. Smaller hole = MORE depth of field, meaning more area around your focus point will be IN focus! A smaller apeture value also gets you a faster shutter speed, a larger apeture value gets you a LONGER shutter speed!

Shutter Speed= The amount of TIME the shutter is open. MOST people can not hand hold a camera and get in focus pictures using anything longer then 1/60th of a second. If your subject is moving then you may need this to be a larger number, meaning LESS time. Example, 1/250th 1/500th etc. The way to accomplish this is with faster "film speeds" or ISO

ISO= The relative sensetivity to light that your camera has. Example a 100 ISO has LESS sensetivity then 800, so it takes MORE light to get the picture. BUT you get better results, less noise more color. At higher ISO's you need less light, but you get more noise. (Most point and shoot digitals go from 100-800 ISO.)

White Balance: This is a simple reference point your camera uses to set the white point of your pictures. Most cameras due a pretty good job on "auto" here. You can experiment with this one, since we all have different lights, ballasts, and cameras there is no one setting that will work well for everyone.

P= Program Mode, here the camera makes all the decisions for you, based on what IT wants. The camera will set itself to give a "proper" exposure, but this may not be what you want, maybe a SMALLER value apeture would give better results for moving fish, or a LARGER apeture value would give better results for a non-moving coral.

Scott, I think your new camera did pretty darn good! Now remember to keep the "sensor plane" parallel to the glass, and you will be fine!!!

[tatuvaaj]

The aperture might be easier to understand if you think it as 1/aperture number.

So aperture 2 is 1/2 of completely open aperture, 4 is 1/4 and so on. That's why bigger number means smaller aperture.

[Poseidon]

Uh well... Ya I guess that works, except f2 is usually as far open as a lens can get. Some may have 1.8 or even 1.0, but those lenses are pretty darn expensive.

Easy stuff really small # = small focus area, large # = larger focus area. When you are talking about apeture anyway.

[Reefland]

Ok, so none of that helps me at all. I guess a better question would be:
What are the best settings when shooting macro's? Or what are your favorite settings?

[Poseidon]

My favorites are TRIPOD, TRIPOD, TRIPOD, and f16, ISO 100, and then the shutter speed to match, depending on your lights. This one was a 6 SECOND exposure...



Make sure you have the pumps off too!