42
votes
Is it true that the best images from all digital cameras can be obtained at ISO 200?
There is an ISO which is not necessarily 200 that is the native sensitivity of the silicon from which the sensor is made. That sensitivity depends on the sensor itself, so will vary between cameras, ...
- 103k
34
votes
Why are my sky photographs coming out dark?
This is usually caused by the camera taking the scene as a whole and treating it as 18% gray. This is the way light meters (and camera meters) are calibrated to see the world. Scene mostly snow? 18% ...
- 6,819
33
votes
Accepted
Why doesn't the picture become darker the more you zoom in?
The answer to this question revolves around explaining how zoom lenses function because you are correct in your observation: As you zoom to higher and higher magnifications the image dims unless ...
- 39.7k
33
votes
Accepted
Why are War Photographers able to take pictures that seemingly violate the exposure rule?
First about depth-of-field: The two examples you posted, and many war pictures, are of objects at or near infinity (Latin: as far as the eye can see). The light waves from objects at infinity arrive ...
- 39.7k
32
votes
Why would using higher ISO and faster shutter speed yield more noise than using lower ISO and slower shutter speed?
So I first shoot with ISO 1600 and shutter speed set to 1/125 second and then I shoot with ISO 3200 and shutter speed set to 1/250 second. The amount of light should be identical and indeed both shots ...
- 176k
32
votes
Why are War Photographers able to take pictures that seemingly violate the exposure rule?
For the first photo:
You just happened to pick a staged photo...
This is the image with text, note the artificial bright lighting coming from high above, near the cameras position?:
This is the ...
- 799
31
votes
Does using long exposure together with ND filter make the scene look more evenly lit?
No, changing the exposure or using an ND filter will not help you with this, since both will only brighten or darken everything by a certain factor.
Your problem is the large relative difference ...
- 4,644
30
votes
Lighting up a subject during sunset without a flash?
That's a nice silhouette!
You're running into the same problem that anyone runs into when photographing a very backlit subject: a lot of light is coming from the background and creating a drastic ...
- 20.5k
29
votes
Accepted
How did this note "19/65 21/90 22/130" help previous owner of this old Zenit 12XP film camera?
Those look like DIN speeds that match values on the GOST meter dial.
GOST was the Soviet film speed standard; it was on the same scale as ASA speed, but 90% the value (so GOST 360 was equivalent to ...
- 7,229
26
votes
How to capture rays of light in a photograph using a DSLR camera
The first step is to find a situation where the atmosphere is right for such effects to appear to the naked eye - whether it's steam or fog or dust or whatever else in the air that is reflecting the ...
- 5,158
26
votes
Accepted
Is the white balance wrong in these field poppy pictures?
What is going on?
I compared both pictures of the field (left out the one with the tractor, as it suffers from the same problem as the other over-exposed picture, IMHO) in After effects. The image ...
- 6,478
25
votes
Accepted
Do f-stop and exposure time perfectly cancel?
This is normal behavior, caused by:
Imperfections of aperture. Usually there are variations from
technology process which cause not to have exact size of the hole.
On 50mm lens f4 you should have 12....
- 12.5k
25
votes
Accepted
Why are my film photos coming out so dark, even in bright sunlight?
The "Sunny 16" rule says that on a sunny day at f/16 you should be at approximately 1/(ISO) seconds for a good exposure - i.e. 1/200s in your case. You're two and a bit stops shorter than ...
- 22.2k
24
votes
Accepted
Is it true that the best images from all digital cameras can be obtained at ISO 200?
The information your friend gave you was essentially correct for most digital cameras, particularly compact digital cameras with very small sensors, made about 15-20 years ago. Digital imaging sensors ...
- 176k
23
votes
Why do my photographs taken with a film camera look so saturated?
I'd guess you're under-exposing a long way & the lab is having to work them really hard* to get anything like an image out of them; hence the amount of noise in them & no real blacks anywhere -...
- 23.4k
22
votes
Accepted
Why does the distance from light to subject affect exposure (inverse square law) while from subject to lens does not?
My simple diagrams to the rescue, this time stealing yours.
I segmented some zones of the apple into little squares. Each square reflects some amount of light. When the distance is one unit (whatever ...
- 25.4k
21
votes
Why are flash pulses so short?
That is a true statement, but it misses the big point. (As the shutter would see it), it would simply become continuous light, like any incandescent light bulb (always On for the full shutter ...
- 12.9k
21
votes
Accepted
Why are flash pulses so short?
Why?
Fundamentally, it's because of the way flashes work. Flashtubes generate light by discharging a capacitor through a xenon-filled tube. The resulting electric arc produces bright white light. But ...
- 31.7k
21
votes
Accepted
What are physical causes of clipping?
What exactly limits modern digital camera sensors in capturing light intensity beyond certain point?
In terms of the physical properties of the sensor itself:
The number of photon strikes and the ...
- 176k
20
votes
Accepted
Photo of sprites in a clear dark sky, is this possible?
Shots I've done of the Magellanic Clouds required an 8 second shutter speed at f/3.5, ISO 3200. It is conceivable that he could have captured these events since he was trying to photograph Lyrid ...
- 3,114
19
votes
Either background is overexposed or the foreground is underexposed. Are there possible solutions/approaches?
Definitely you shall use frontal lighting. Mostly so called fill-in flash.
The second option: HDR with at least 3 shots to get high, mid and low tones.
19
votes
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Canon 70D often overexposing or underexposing shots
All of these scenes have something in common: they’re high contrast with many, many stops between the shadows and the highlights.
If you were to meter for the shadows, then you’d blow the highlights ...
- 20.5k
19
votes
Why are my sky photographs coming out dark?
Your camera's light meter measures brightness, but it can't tell if the brightness level it is measuring is a black cat in a coal mine or a white cat in a snowstorm.¹ It assumes everything you point ...
- 176k
18
votes
Accepted
Since the speed of light is so high, why does shutter speed even matter?
why does shutter speed modify picture sharpness/detail? Why do pictures get darker with faster shutter speeds, and brighter with slower shutter speeds?
These things happen because the light sensor in ...
- 31.7k
18
votes
Accepted
Sunny day in the shade - how to deal with white balance and exposure settings?
This is the situation when you use fill-flash.
Contrary to common belief, flash is NOT to be used in darkness. In darkness flash lights up the foreground and leaves background pitch black. Flash is ...
- 2,090
18
votes
Accepted
Hardware / post for crisp sunrise
[SAFETY WARNING: You should never image the sun with anything approaching a telephoto lens when it is more than about 10° above the horizon without a solar filter that not only protects against ...
- 176k
17
votes
Accepted
Cutting film in half - what does it do?
He is using ISO 320 film and exposing it as if it were ISO 160. This is over-exposing the film by 1 stop. He's then under-developing the film by 20% off the normal development times recommended for ...
- 20.5k
17
votes
Accepted
Does a lens with a bigger max. aperture focus faster than a lens with a smaller max. aperture?
During focussing, the lens is left at full aperture. It's only when you take the picture that it closes down to the appropriate f-stop. That's so you can see what's going on and so that the camera has ...
- 668
17
votes
Accepted
Why are my dSLR-shot landscapes consistently overexposed vs. the same shots on my smartphone?
I think what you're really seeing is the difference between 'photography' and 'computational photography'.
Nothing I can see in the first photo hits 0,0,0 or 255,255,255, it all fits quite neatly ...
- 23.4k
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