Question

13 years 5 months ago #6071 by ruthandboaz
I bought a Nikon D80 to help take pictures of my pottery to help my business website grow and had a few questions about it. I've read several books but still need a little help. How am I supposed to know what setting to use on the camera to achieve different looks? Am I supposed to adjust the aperture and shutter speed or just one or the other, etc.


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13 years 5 months ago #6080 by Screamin Scott
That depends on what mode you are shooting in, what lens you are shooting with & at what distance from your subject. You need to be a little more specific...Is there a certain "look" you are after?...

Scott Ditzel Photography

www.flickr.com/photos/screaminscott/

Photo Comments
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13 years 5 months ago #6084 by Solstar
As my economics professor would have said: it depends. It depends what look you are trying to get and often one adjustment depends on the other.
If you are shooting in manual mode then you will need to adjust both shutter and aperture to get the exposure right.
If you are in shutter priority then the camera will adjust the aperture based on your desired speed. This is often used when you are dealing with motion--either trying to make something blurry due to movement or make sure it isn't.
If you are in aperture priority then the camera will set the proper speed to match your aperture selection. This is often used to control the depth of field (how much of the image is in focus). You can use this to select what aspect of an image to draw attention to or to make sure everything is clearly visible. Depth of field is affected a lot by your f stop, focal length and distance to your subject see www.dofmaster.com for a great calculator on this.
The best way to learn may be to take a sequence of the same photo changing just one variable so you can see what that variable does to your photos.
I'm sure the rest of the forum can give you some more help especially if you let us know what kind of image you want to get and what kind of equipment you are using.


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