Something Helpful


I realized that I had been writing this Photography-based BLOG, and I had not written anything about being a photographer, or sharing my knowledge and skill sets to those wanting to get into photography. I intend to correct that with posts now to inform, instruct and explain how to improve yourself as a photographer, whether its basic concepts, learning how to use your camera or helpful techniques when taking the shot.

The Exposure Triangle


The Exposure triangle is a way to understand how all cameras operate and how to set your camera to get a desired result. The three corners of the triangle cover 3 specific aspects of the camera: ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed. Let's go into more detail about the first aspect of the triangle: ISO.

ISO Setting


ISO is a funny thing, because ISO actually stands for International Standards Organization. Yup, that's what it means. But as a photographer, we understand it to mean Level of Light Exposure.

ISO originally goes back to film photography, and the film's sensitivity to light. You would adjust the ISO setting based on the type of film you had to get a correct exposure onto the film. With Digital Cameras, ISO 100 is the base sensitivity to light, and each number is an amplification of ISO 100, as far as 12,800 or more, depending on your camera model.

Noise/Grain


When choosing the ISO setting in your camera, you have an unexpected side effect in your photographs: noise grain. When I say grain, it requires a bit of an explanation. When you took a photo in film, and had them developed, the film had to go through chemical baths. One of those chemicals, silver halide, the photons that would pass through the solution would create a grainy texture onto the film, giving the photos that identifiable texture that film photography is known for.

In the digital realm, when you open the shutter to snap a picture, as light hits the sensor, it transcribes the image into pixels, and the more pixels your camera has, the more light and colors the image can store. As you increase the ISO on your camera, however, the variation of the pixels light and color becomes more and more visible in the photo, creating the same kind of noise grain effect as film.