Another Lens Question

maggie1969

Hi all. I noticed another thread from a newbie like myself with questions about lenses.

I was wondering how the aperture of the lens relates to the aperture you set in the camera? i.e if the lens is wide open, how should you set the aperture in the camera? Or if it's stopped down? Or any settings in between. A lot of my photos (especially outdoors) or coming out too dark and I really want to know what I'm doing wrong. I have ordered 'Understanding Exposure' so hopefully that will help me out. I am a new dslr owner, and have lots of questions I'm afraid! By the way I have the Canon 350d with the kit lens.

Fajitas!

The aperture you set on the camera is the aperture the lens sets - It's connected by those little nodes at the bottom of the lens/camera connection.

CONMIKE12

Hi Maggie.You couldn't have ordered a better book than understanding exposure.I found it fantastic when starting out and learning all the stuff i needed to know.It really gives very clear explanations of all the things that can baffle a photgrapher as they start out.Read it,and i garauntee everything will become a hell of a lot clearer. best of luck.

JMcL

The metering in the camera (the bit that figures out what the exposure should be) isn't foolproof. It tries to set an exposure based on an "average", which you'll see referred to as 18% grey (I haven't read "Understanding Exposure" but I believe it's a top book, as Conmike said, so it'll probably explain all about this).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, if you're photographing something very bright (snow is a classic example), the camera doesn't know that snow is supposed to be brilliant white, and will underexpose and render it as grey. Similarly, if a scene is very dark, the camera may overexpose it. If you try to shoot a piece of white card, then a piece of black card (filling the viewfinder with each - you'll have to turn off autofocus for this), they should both come out under/overexposed respectively.

You can set exposure compensation for these cases (for snow I'd set maybe +2 stops), and over time you should get a feel for what when you need it.

Oh, btw, don't go by the image on the LCD monitor, it always looks brighter than the actual image. A much better idea is to learn how to use the histogram, and turn on warnings for overexposure

Good luck!

Fionn

i'm still trying to figure it all out!!!

i get some of it............not all so.. persevear or whatever keep at it you'll get it honest

sometimes you think it's not gonna become apparent but you'll improve... and then you'll be getting great shots

maggie1969

Thanks again for the helpful replies!