Help with shutter speed, f/stop, ISO

EllenC

I went to a local flower garden today. It was cloudy, but decent sunlight. I had my camera (Canon 60D) set at 200 ISO, F/11 and 1/320. I took pictures of flowers and ducklings/goslings in the ponds.

Many of my pictures came out dark, much darker than I thought they would (I had the camera on M) I could lighten the pictures with Photoshop, but things ended up contrasty and somewhat grainier than I'd like. What am I spacing about?

I used to know a lot more about photography when it was just film cameras. Now I am having to relearn everything all over again and there seems to be so much more with all the bells and whistles I have on my new camera. I know a higher ISO will make things contrastier (sp), but also make it easier to take pictures in lower light.

Did my shutter speed screw me up? I am disappointed in myself that I should know better.

Moose

Howdy @EllenC - The three amigos (shutter speed, aperture and ISO) are a bit tough to figure out in the beginning. Easiest way to think about it is like this...

Shutter speed controls movement, like freezing fast moving action or capturing water movement.

Aperture controls the depth of field, lower f-numbers isolate subjects and higher f-numbers put more of the scene into focus.

ISO is the digital equivalent to film. Higher ISO's make your image sensor more sensitive to light. This effectively increases the shutter speed. In low light situations where you need to "freeze" subject movement or reduce the effects of camera shake, a higher ISO is needed to obtain a fast enough shutter speed to capture a sharp shot.

In your particular case, I would have enabled Aperture priority (Av on the mode dial) and selected the lowest available aperture. This would help isolate flowers, bugs, etc...against a smoother background.

In Aperture priority, the 60D will select the appropriate shutter speed to obtain an accurate exposure depending on the ISO you currently have set.

I highly recommend leaving the ISO set to Auto. The 60D will naturally try to use the lowest available ISO whenever there's enough light.

In the beginning, I recommend staying away from Manual mode and manually setting your ISO. Stick with Aperture priority or Shutter priority, depending on the effect you're going after and let your 60D determine the ISO.

Happy shooting! :)

EllenC

Thank you so much @Moose!

maiMelissa

Moose your response has helped me too, thanks. Although as a newbie to DSLR I have decided to started with the P mode and learn from there. I will be going skiing very soon and was wondering if the P mode would be suitable for that kind of environment?