UNDERSTANDING EXPOSURE TRIANGLE

UNDERSTANDING EXPOSURE TRIANGLE

   00:32       Unknown

---

What is Exposure Triangle ? Is it related to Bermuda Triangle and Golden Triangle ?

Well, of course not :D. For those of you who are into photography must have heard the term Exposure Triangle very often. It is quite understandable though because Exposure Triangle is actually the very foundation in photography. Therefore, basically it’s the very first thing you’ll have to understand before anything else. I hope my explanation below will give you an understanding about the term.

So, what the heck is Exposure Triangle ? The term Exposure itself actually refers to the composition of an image. As we know it, an image is created because the light is collected by the lens, translated by the sensor, and then saved as a photo. This Light-collecting process is what becomes the value of an exposure. If there is less light collected by the camera, the image created will be dark (under-exposure), and if there is more light collected by camera, then image will appear brighter (over-exposure). Look at the samplebelow :

To create a value of an exposure, there are three elements needed; Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO. Why those three elements ? Right, I’m going to explain them one by one.

·         Aperture                 :   It is how big your lens open. It it symbolize by an f (f 2.8, f.11, etc). The smaller the aperture number, the larger the lens wil open. For example, f 2.8 will let your lens to open wider compared to f 7.0, thus allowing more lights to enter.

·         Shutter Speed     :   It is how long your camera sensor collects light. As discussed above, a camera works by collecting lights which done by the sensor. When we press the shutter button, the sensor will start to open and collects lights. The time it takes for sensor to collect light depends on the shutter speed we control. The longer the shutter speed, the more the sensor will gather the light.

·         ISO                           :   It is the sensor’s sensitivity towards the light. Thehigher the ISO, the higher its sensitivity towards the light, which will then produce brighter image.

Although the three are different in their own concept, all of them works together and affects each other. This Exposure Triangle is often compared to tap water. If we want to fill a bucket with a certain amount of water, we have to control how big we will open the faucet (Aperture), how long we will lopen the faucet (Shutter Speed), and how many faucet we are going to use (ISO). That’s it, if we want to get a certain exposure, then we have to control these elements in appropriate value.

If that’s the case, can we just try to control one element only and ignore the others ? Well… that can be done, in fact our camera has priority mode (aperture priority & shutter priority), which let us to fully control one element and let the camera control the others. But remember, there are certain situation where you can only use manual mode, and when you are using manual mode, keeping these three elements in balance is crucial. It should be noted that each of these elements have positive and negative impacts when set in appropriate value. Below I summarize the effects of these elements, that way, we can maximize the way to keep them in balance.

Aperture	The larger the aperture, the more the light enters the camera’s sensor, producing brighter image. However, the larger the aperture, the swallow Depth of Field will be, the focus of the image will not spread evenly, as it only focus in one area only (It is highly not recommended to use larger aperture for landscape photography)
	The smaller the aperture, the darker the image will be due to less light entering the camera’s sensor (it can be compensated by using longer shutter speed). The positive side is that the image will have wider focus area.
Shutter Speed	The longer the shutter speed, the brighter the image will be (this method usually used to get long exposure effect), however, this will result in higher risk of blurry image due to the camera’s shake (unless you are using a steady tripod).
	The faster the shutter speed, the darker the image will be, However it is very effective to reduce blurry image. Also using fast shutter speed allows us to capture fast moving objects such as Racing cars, flying birds, or sport photography.
ISO	The Higher the ISO, the brighter the image will be. By using high ISO, we will have enough room to set down the aperture and shutter speed. However, the higher the ISO, the more the noise will appear in the image (which is definitely not good for prints).
	The smaller the ISO, the darker the image produced. To compensated this, we need to set aperture or shutter speed in a high value. The positive side is that, the smaller the ISO, the less the noise will appear in the image.

Well, that’s it, a very brief explanation about Exposure Triangle.I’m pretty sure that most of you still does not have a thorough understanding about it. But worry not, because the best way of learning is by doing it. Everything that we’ve learnt means nothing if we do not practice it, right ? So, get out and get something to shoot ! That’s the best way to learn J.