Building on the basics of Shutter, Aperture and ISO to control Exposure.
Hi <<First Name>>,
Hope you had a chance to view your perspective on photography last month.
This time I’m going to show you a technique that is useful in separating your subject from the background. This is sometimes referred to as ‘crushing the background’. This technique is valuable if you find that the background is cluttered, unattractive, or just don't want the distraction in your shot.
For most of these shots I am using a Canon T1i.
I will show you how to do this in three different ways so that if you find yourself without a DSLR, you can still pull it off. First, we will do this with the camera mode dial in ‘M’ manual mode. Then, we will do this using exposure compensation and lastly we will use Picture Style.
This shot was taken in my basement without a background. The only thing in the background is a raw cement foundation wall.
This shot was taken, again, without a backdrop, in a normally cluttered part of the house.
Start in 'P' mode and get your readings for Tv and Av. Also set your ISO to 200.
‘M’ Manual mode.
This first shot is a normal exposure. The settings are 1/60, f/5.6, ISO 200. As you can see, you can pretty much tell what is the background and the subject, the cardinal wind-chime, is just part of the overall scene. The aperture and ISO remain constant throughout the rest of the shots.
The next shot is darkening the background by one stop by increasing our shutter speed x2 to 1/125 (yes, I know that 60 x2 = 120, but the camera does not have that shutter setting).
Then, once again make it one stop darker by setting the shutter to 1/250. As you can see the whole exposure is now pretty dark, even the subject.
Now, we are going to leave the exposure dark and we are going to add flash. In this case, I used the little pop-up flash on the camera so I had to be pretty close to the subject. Now the background is dark and the subject is correctly exposed.
What if you don’t want to use ‘M’ mode or your camera does not have the capability?
Exposure Compensation.
Most cameras, even point-and-shoot models, have exposure compensation settings.
As you can see on the left, these settings can be adjusted using the Menu button, but a quick way is to press and hold the exposure compensation button on the back of the camera and move the slider by moving the selector wheel on top.
Here we will use the same scenario. Start with the first shot in the normal, middle position of the scale, take a shot, move the scale to one stop darker, take the shot, move the slider one more stop darker, take the shot then add the flash.
Lastly, using Picture Style.
Picture Style is accessed by selecting the Creative mode [CA] on your mode dial. Here we will repeat the process of moving the Picture Style from the lightest to the darkest setting and at the end use flash.
Try these out and see which one you like best or are most comfortable using.
BTW, you can also do this with an iPhone camera, but the flash is not that powerful and you have to be close to your subject.
Happy Father’s day month.
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