The Enchanting Exposure Triangle

Sep 17, 2015
2 min read

While the Exposure Triangle isn't necessarily enchanting in my book, here's what we talked about on Tuesday the 15th of September:

The exposure triangle is composed of 3 points: aperture, ISO, and shutter speed. All three relate to light and how it enters and interacts with the camera.

1) ISO- measure of a digital cmaera sensor's sensitivity to light. It is measured in high numbers (100-3200) depending on the camera. The higher the number, the darker the enviroment that you're taking a picture of should be. The lower the number, the lighter the enviroment. 100 is normally a good number to shoot with daily, especially if your in the hallways of PVA.

2) Aperture- size of the opening in the lens, so the larger the hole, the more light is let in. It's measured in f-stops, but, when you have a smaller number like f/1.4, the space is wider than the f/8, which gives you a small opening to work with.

This section of the triangle leads to depth of field. When you have a larger number of f-stops, like f/22, your going to capture the whole image, giving a large depth of field. Just the opposite will give you a small depth of field, meaning the camera produces a fuzziness in the background.

Not taken by me.

Increase depth of field (Left side)

Narrow your aperture (larger f-number)
Move farther from the subject
Shorten focal length

Decrease depth of field (Right side)

Widen your aperture (smaller f-number)
Move closer to the subject
Lengthen your focal length

3) Shutter Speed- amount of time shutter is open, measured in seconds. Shortening the time the shutter is open, about 1/1000 of a second to capture every little water droplet could be shown in this photo: