Minolta Af 50mm

I realize shutter speed is largely dictated by whether it's a moving subject. I'm talking about a situation where you have a more or less stationary subject. Is this decision at all influenced by focal length, time of day, cloudy vs sunny, contrast between subject and background, or anything else?

As a side question, I have a Sony A200. I've noticed that I have to be very careful when using my Minolta AF 50mm 1.7 lens. I have had many shots - especially in Aperture Priority - that have been almost completely white. Is this normal?
I would very much like to take a photography class. Unfortunately, my work schedule plus the small community is making it difficult to find one. In fact, I don't even find a photography class in the catalog of the local community college.

Please forgive my if some of my questions seem tiresome. I am honestly trying to learn both my camera and photography concepts.

Here's a link to some of the better pictures I've taken so far.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/19128519@N0 3/

If you're taking pictures of stationary subjects, like landscape photos, then your main concern is depth of field. The depth of field means the distance in front and behind the subject that will be in focus. With a long depth of field, the background will be sharp and in focus. With a shallow depth of field, the subject in the foreground will be in focus, but beyond a certain distance from the camera, the background will be blurry. The depth of field is determined by the aperture setting that you use (the F-stop). A small aperture will give you a long depth of field, and a wide aperture will have a shallow depth of field. Usually, with landscape photos, you want a long depth of field to keep your background sharp, so you would use a small aperture setting...like f/11 or f/16.

The aperture setting determines how much light comes into the camera, AND it also determines the depth of field.

It sounds like what you're looking for is the "Sunny 16 Rule." It's a guideline for how to take pictures outside with manual exposure. It applies to both digital and film cameras. The Sunny 16 Rule basically says that on a clear, sunny day, you will set your shutter speed to the same as your ISO rating, and then adjust the aperture for the lighting conditions. Normally, you want to use a low ISO rating to have sharp pictures with less noise or grain. So let's say you use 100 ISO. Then in bright sun, you would set your shutter speed to 1/100, and set the aperture to f/16. If it's hazy or partly cloudy, you might open the aperture to f/11. In the shade, you would open the aperture to f/8. In the late evening, near sunset, you might open the aperture to f/5.6. And so on.

But you can also leave the aperture on the same setting and adjust the shutter speed instead. If you want to keep a long depth of field and use a small aperture, then in some cases you might need to use a slower shutter speed. If you're taking pictures of stationary subjects, then a slow shutter speed isn't a problem. You'll just have to mount your camera on a tripod.

So look up the Sunny 16 Rule. Like I said, it applies to both film and digital cameras. That will help you figure out how to set your shutter speed and aperture, based on what ISO rating you're using. Of course, with a digital camera you can also change the ISO setting of the sensor. But you should always try to use a low ISO setting, for the best quality pictures.

Here's a Wikipedia article on the Sunny 16 Rule:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_16

About your other question...it sounds like you were probably using an ISO setting that was way too high and your pictures are being overexposed. If you have the camera on "Aperture Priority" mode, then you select the aperture and the camera will automatically adjust the shutter speed to get the right exposure. However, if you are shooting in very bright sunlight and you set the ISO too high, then it's possible that the required shutter speed is faster than what the camera can even go up to (remember the "Sunny 16 Rule."). So your pictures will end up being completely overexposed.

It's better to use manual mode, so you can adjust the aperture and shutter speed yourself.

2009-03-30 03:35:42 by Justin H