DSLR Settings Recipe Cards

When taking portraits inside you need to consider the available light and set your ISO accordingly. In this image I was inside with two large windows so had lots of soft light to work with, so I set my ISO at 400.

I selected f/2.0 as the aperture to let in as much light as I could, and to use the lovely shallow depth of field to blur the background. My shutter speed was set at 1/320, as even though she’s not in action, when kids are stationery they still move their heads and hands quite a bit when sitting for a portrait (the younger they are the more they’ll move!). So I could probably have gotten away with around 1/160, but I had enough light so 1/320 let me balance out the exposure nicely.READ Tutorial: Finding Portrait Locations at Home (& all my settings)

Indoor Portrait

Soft Window Light

Lens: 50mm (f/1.2)

ISO: 400

Aperture: f/2.0Shutter Speed: 1/320

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Outside Portrait

Daytime Shade

Lens: 135mm (f/2)

ISO: 200

Aperture: f/5Shutter Speed: 1/400s

In the shade outside on a bright day, there is usually plenty of light, so an ISO of between 100-200 is often perfect.

The next consideration for group portraits is the aperture needed to ensure all faces are in sharp focus. Yet in this photo I still wanted to allow for the blurry background, so I settled on f/5. The subjects are quite far from the background so this helps ensure blur, as does my lens choice of 135mm which has lovely compression (adds to the blur) My shutter speed was then selected at 1/400s as this balanced out the exposure. READ TUTORIAL: How to Shoot Largs Groups & Get Everyone in Focus

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Wide angle lenses have a distortion effect which elongates the scene, and stretches out the sky and clouds for a lovely effect. Your kit lens at 18mm is perfect for landscape images. This photo was taken with a 10-22mm specific wide angle lens.

On a bright day outside I always set my ISO to 100-200 as there is plenty of light. For landscape images I choose an aperture between f/11 - f/20 and this case I chose f/16 as an in-between point. This meant most of the scene from front to back is in focus. Lastly, the slower your shutter speed when photographing water, the smoother your reflections will look, but I wasn’t using a tripod, so 1/80 was the slowest I was prepared to go before I would risk motion blur from camera shake. Plus at 1/80s the shutter speed balanced the exposure well.READ TUTORIAL: Which Lenses Are Best for Different Types of Photography

Bright Sunshine

Lens: 10-22mm

ISO: 100

Aperture: f/16Shutter Speed: 1/80

Landscape

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Silhouette

Sunset Glow

Lens: 24-70mm (f/2.8)

ISO: 1600

Aperture: f/3.2Shutter Speed: 1/400s

A silhouette photo keeps your subject in shadow whilst exposing for the colour and light in the background. A silhouette can be created anytime your light is behind the subject. A silhouette with the sun in the background will require a higher shutter speed and lower ISO than this shot which was taken after the sun had already set.

For this image I wanted to ensure the motion of swinging the kids high was captured sharply so I started with 1/400s. Then I chose an aperture of f/3.2 to ensure my subjects were in focus but with a background blur. f/3.2 works for this group photo because they are all standing in a line. There wasn’t a lot of light left in the sky and my shutter speed needed to remain high, so my ISO was set to 1600 to balance for the exposure that I wanted to capture. WATCH Tutorial: Silhouette Tutorial Video Here

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Fast Action

Daytime Shade

Lens: 50mm (f/1.8)

ISO: 2000

Aperture: f/2.8Shutter Speed: 1/1600s

The primary goal in this shot was the capture the fast action of the water splashing. This would also apply for any movement we want, such as people running or playing sports or moving vehicles. To achieve the motion capture we need to use a very high shutter speed over 1/1500s.

I set the aperture to f/2.8 so that the splash area was in focus from front to back, and so I could allow for a lot of light into the camera. I was outside in shade so there was a reasonable amount of light, but at my shutter speed of 1/1600s I needed to set the ISO up to 2000 to balance the exposure. READ TUTORIAL: How to Take Fast Action Photos of Your Kids

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