Give me 40min & You'll be a PRO at Photography

Aperture, shutter speed, and ISO or ISO. What are the rules to these camera settings and when can you break them? Let's open up with Aperture. So most beginners are often led to believe that fast wide open apertures like f1.8, f1.4, f1.2 is the only way to get super blurry backgrounds. But what if I told you that we can still get super blurry backgrounds even at f3.5? Let me show you. You see, once you understand the basics of photography, the world is for your taking. We'll be right back. So here's how this mega video is going to look. Good luck. That's me. Truth is, this episode is the best bits of advice that I've had locked up in my bong head for over the last 10 years. Shutter speed comes up later, and we have a low light section that you really don't want to miss. But first, how distance affects blur. Let's take a look at these two shots right here, both shot at 18mm f3.5 with an APS-C crop sensor camera. The second image on the right here has way more blur, despite the fact that it was shot at the same focal length and at the same aperture value. The only difference is I got physically closer. Distance can have an impact on the amount of blur that you can get in a photo. And in combination with a depthy background, we're getting that nice blur, that bokeh that anyone with a camera yearns for. Now the reason why we're demonstrating 18 millimeter f3.5 is because that's the widest that most people would have when they own the starter kit lens. Now fair warning, you don't want to do this with a human subject, at least not with a wide angle lens. Getting too up close and personal is going to make their face look distorted, which in turn your subject will make your face distorted with their fist. The blur, the bokeh, the distance. Oh Ah, okay, so let's back up a bit and show you another example. So I'm going to take a full body shot at 18mm f3.5, and now I'm going to zoom into 50, but I still want to get a full body shot, so I'll step back a little bit. And mostly with kit lenses, your aperture will likely change to f5.6, so let me just demo that for you. Now the first image here is taken at 18mm f3.5, and the second image here is taken at 50mm f5.6. Despite f5.6 being a much narrower aperture, because we zoomed in to 50mm, we're still getting a decent amount of blur. It's the same idea as earlier where we got physically closer, but now we got closer by zooming in. This is why you'll often see with longer telephoto lenses, such as the 400-800mm lens, have aperture values of f6.3 to f8, but still giving off those creamy blurry backgrounds, despite not being f1.8. Now hot tip for you, be mindful of your background. Shooting against a flat background will likely give you unappealing results, regardless if you're shooting at f1.8 or f5.6. Having some depth, aka a ton of space behind your subject, can make a dramatic difference to your photos. Can you guys take a few steps back for me? Now speaking of subject and background separation, I want to show you something real quick. Follow me. All right, so really loving the fox statue with the torii gates and the orange inari as a backdrop. We're gonna do a portrait right here. Okay, so I know I said I wouldn't do anything you can't do with your lens, but I just want to show you what happens when you upgrade your lens in the future. So let me just frame this fox statue up at 50 millimeters and I'm going to take this at f5.6 and now I'm going to take it at f2.8. At 50 millimeter we are compressing the background bringing it closer to our foxy subject. At f5.6 we're still getting a decent amount of blur. But, oh man, I love it. Sorry, I just have to get this shot at f2.8. It just looks so sick. Okay, back to f5.6 now. F2.8 blurs the background even more, giving more of that blurry background look that everyone loves. We call this bokeh. So if you're currently using the kit lens that came with your camera, I highly do recommend upgrading to an f1.8 prime lens or at the very least an f2.8 zoom. It really does make a huge difference in our photography, and I'll link some of my favorites in the description box below. Lens quality. But okay Michael, I get it. Fast aperture lenses like f1.8, f1.4, f1.2 are sexy. Who's Michael? But has this ever happened to you? Where shooting at the widest open aperture can give you unsharp results. Let's explore why that is. One, it's the quality of your lens. Or two, you may not be using the most optimal setting on your camera. We'll start with one. So most modern high-quality lenses won't have this issue too much, but budget prime lenses or older lenses, especially the vintage ones, might be soft at their widest aperture. That's why you see lens reviewers testing sharpness so extensively, analyzing the center of the frame and around the four corners of the image. Now, center usually fares the best, but anything even remotely outside of it can be a blur. Stopping down gradually at each stop, usually between f2.8 to f4, will clear up any softness, but every lens will be different, so definitely experiment with yours. The confusion of depth of field. Reason number two, if you have a modern lens and you're still getting unsharp results, then likely it's a setting and a control issue. When shooting wide open, for example at f1.8, means you're dealing with a shallow depth of field. You only have a very razor-thin line of plane to get your subject in focus. Okay, let's back this up because it gets very confusing and it took me years to understand this. But for you, it'll click in seconds. You see, it's hard to visualize depth because we're only looking through our camera in one dimension. But when we imagine our shoot from a Top down bird's eye point of view, that's when it's gonna make more sense. Come on, let me show you. So we got these lovely character models here, Sanji, Zoro, and Luffy. And this thin red line right here represents f1.8, which is fitting because it has a very thin, shallow depth of field. So when we're taking photos, it's important that we stay as steady as possible. Because if we're rocking back and forth, even just slightly, there's a strong chance we would still miss focus, Despite the camera telling us otherwise. Now, compare this to this thick red line right here, which represents f8. We now have a much deeper depth of field. So even if we're accidentally swaying back and forth, there's a strong chance that we will still get our subject Zoro right here in focus. So whenever we're shooting wide open, my advice is to use a faster shutter speed, at least 1 over 125 to start with, put the camera into continuous burst mode, stay as steady as you can, and fire off a few shots. Now you should have at least one or two shots that are tack sharp at f1.8. Don't be afraid to stop down. Now, despite me being on YouTube for a decade now, especially in the photography space, there's still a strange belief that we should always use our lenses at the widest open aperture, no matter the occasion. Using anything beyond the widest open aperture is an absolute waste of money. God forbid we turn it up one notch and now we're shooting at f2 instead of f1.8. Oh, my precious bokeh! Jason, calm down. But just because we can shoot at f1.8 for everything, Doesn't mean we always should be shooting at f1.8. There is a time and place for it, and here are my three examples. Example 1 Now we often say on this channel blurring out the background too much can make our photos lose context, the overall story. For example, we have Vivian here standing in front of a mysterious cityscape. Shooting an 85mm f1.8 while we're focusing on her, we can't really make out where she's at. It just feels too studio, if you know what I mean. But by stopping down to f5.6 and even f8, we get a clearer picture of where she's at. No pun intended. New York City, the Big Apple. Moving on, say we want to capture the beautiful cityscape instead during the daytime where our buildings are way off in the distance. Now we could shoot at f1.8 because we're focusing on something that's way out in the distance. We still get a lot of the surrounding areas in focus. Granted we're using a moderately modern lens here. However, even the most modern of lenses can still suffer from vignetting at wide open apertures. That's just the nature of these fast prime lenses. Again, stopping down at f2.8 or even f4 will eliminate any vignetting issues, and even in the case of modern high-quality lenses, we get sharper results from the center and all the way into the corners. So don't be afraid to stop down when photographing land or cityscapes to get the best image quality possible. Then, in post, you can add the vignetting back in, because at least then, you are in control of your own image. Let me give you another example, because good things come in threes. Example 3. So when I'm photographing something unpredictable, where a subject can appear into my frame any second now, I would usually stop down on my aperture to ensure that I have a higher chance of getting a sharp image. For example, here at this rainy cherry blossom shoot, I want to capture a train going by these pink flowers surrounding it as my foreground. And the lens that I'm using here is a full-frame 24-70mm f2.8. I think it's coming. Now, if I set my focus at the center before the train appears, the camera would focus on the building in the back. But because the train is unpredictable, I can't trust my camera to grab focus of the train when it comes in. So what I'm going to do here is to stop down at f4, winding up my depth of field, and set the focus on the train tracks because that's the closest thing to the train. Now, all that's left to do is to wait for the subject to make a grand entrance. Straight out of camera, looking good. And later in the video, Jace is going to show you guys how he edits some of his photos using DxO PhotoLab 10. But first, diffraction. Now you might be asking, why not just run the dial and max out our aperture to ensure everything is in focus? Using the smallest possible aperture, Mr. Blazinoff. While logically that does make sense, using the maximum narrowest aperture of our lenses, like f16 or f22, depending on your lens, could actually lead to loss of overall sharpness. Bro, Vov, what the f- how can that be? Shouldn't everything be in focus and tack sharp? Make it make sense. I feel sorry for Vivian. While it does sound ridiculous, at this high of an f-stop, you'll get what's known as diffraction, where the hole is so tight and so small, the light has trouble entering it because then it causes the spread and bend through and interfering with itself, resulting in the loss of sharpness in the final image. Okay, that's a little hard to imagine, right? So imagine this instead. Trying to catch water with a cup. Versus a small tube. With a small tube, the flow of the water becomes more chaotic and it spreads out. Light does something very similar at very small apertures. Did someone leave the faucet on? So it's best to avoid using the maximum narrowest f-stop, unless you really have to. That, and keep your sensor and lens clean to avoid seeing dust and dirt in your photos. Yuck. F8 in low light? Now often you will hear that it is highly recommended to get a fast aperture lens like f1.8 for low light especially when shooting handheld. And I 100% agree with this advice because I freaking hate bringing a tripod around. What's wrong with you bro? But as much as I dislike bringing a tripod with me, there are rare moments especially at night where I would go through the trouble of bringing one and I have never regretted the shots that I've gotten with it. I often stop down at F8 just to utilize a slower shutter speed so the camera can gather in more light into the sensor, thus giving me cool effects like light trails from these cars. But more importantly, at F8 we get these nice starburst twinkle effects from the light sources. Magical. So remember, don't be afraid to stop down. You can't go wrong with Jason Vong. This next setting on your camera might simply be holding you back from getting your images tack sharp. And that setting is shutter speed, a topic that is heavily neglected in a lot of photo tutorials because most beginners only chase for that blurry background with wide apertures. And as I hope you realize by now, I, Jason Vong, love that juicy, creamy, melty background. Vocalicious. But shutter speed is the setting that maybe, just maybe, gives us the most creative control. And I truly believe that it's a setting that produces the most interesting results. Not only is it a vital setting to get sharp photos, but we can also use it to achieve powerful effects like smoothening out waterfalls, getting light trails and cityscapes, and conveying the sense of motion from moving objects. So in this section of this mega video, we're gonna break down everything you need to know about shutter speed. Some rules on how to actually get sharp photos through recommended settings. And then we are going to break those rules to achieve some super creative photos that you can start getting right away. But first, what the hell is shutter speed? Fundamentals. So here's the textbook definition. Shutter speed, the duration of time that the camera shutter is open to allow light to hit the camera sensor. That's a bit hard to understand, so here's an incredibly dumbed down version. Dumbed down? Shutter speed determines how fast the camera captures the photo. It is measured by one second, so this number here is a fraction of that one second. 1/8000 is considered super fast, 1/800 is considered fast, 1/80th is considered normal, 1/8 is considered slow, and 8 seconds is considered super slow because then it's literally 8 seconds for your camera to spit you back out an image. So accidentally using a slower shutter speed is the root cause of why our photos end up being blurry. Here's a great demonstration that you may have seen from my other videos, but it clearly demonstrates how fast and slow shutter speed can affect the outcome of your photo. Watch as we're dialing the shutter speed to the left here. As you can see, there's a lot more blur happening as we go down in number to the point where I'm becoming a blurry ghost. Taking a photo here will result in a blurry photo. Now the reason why the image gets brighter as we slow the shutter speed down is because there is more time for the light to enter the sensor. More light, more bright. Vice versa as we dial it to the right, not only does it get darker, but there's also less and less blur to the point where you can pause the frame at any second and see that I'm frozen in action. And that's the thing that you need to keep in mind when you want sharp photos. Photographing static subjects. Photographing static subjects like landscapes, cityscapes, products, or still portraitures is relatively easy. Just follow this general rule of thumb for handheld photography. If you're using a camera and a lens without any built-in image stabilization, for full-frame users, shoot at your focal length. If you're using a 50mm lens, then your shutter speed should be at least 1 over 50. APS-C users, double your focal length. If you're using a 50mm, then your shutter speed should be at least 1 over 100. Now, if you're using a zoom lens, set your shutter speed to match or double your maximum focal length, so you don't have to constantly keep changing it every time you zoom in and out. But keep in mind, this is just a baseline recommendation, and we're going to be building on top of this as we move forward. However, if you have image stabilization on either the body or the lens, then you can go under this recommendation here, and I'll show you examples on why this would be beneficial in a bit. Photographing moving subjects. Now pet and kids photography are probably some of the more challenging photographic genres, in my honest opinion. Can't go wrong with Jason Vong. And like raising pets and kids, it takes quite a bit of trial and error. For our demo here, we have our lovely cat model, Milton. Everybody say hi to Milton. Hi Milton. And a setup that I'll be using is a full frame camera with a 50 millimeter lens. Here's an example of me using a slow shutter speed. Not so good as little Milton here is walking quite briskly. And here's an example of me using the recommended shutter speed that we talked about earlier. And yeah, we got a few good ones, but the few that are in between are quite blurry. And finally, here's me pushing past the recommended shutter speed by a bit, and I'm finally getting crystal clear results consistently. Going a little above the recommended shutter speed for moving subjects puts us at a peace of mind that we're getting sharp photos. It's what event and wedding photographers would do on a fast-paced day without having to think about settings too much. Now the following is not a strict rule, but a good enough general baseline if you're new to photography. Try 1 over 125 for still subjects like portraits, 1 over 250 for moving portraits, 1 over 500 for animals or kids sports, and 1 over 1000 or more for pro sports or wildlife. But what if you want to edit your photos, kind of lift them up to the next level? Well, take a look at this Kingfisher photo that I took here. In order to get the mother bird mid-flight, I need to use a fast shutter speed. What a beautiful shot. She's going hunting to feed her little baby bird over here. But because the lighting in the area is a bit dark and a higher shutter speed is needed to freeze the action, the result coming out is going to be pretty noisy and grainy. And this is a very common problem in wildlife photography. But, check this out, with DxO PhotoLab 10, I am able to severely lessen the noise to not only get more details back, but with better color accuracy. Damn, that looks pretty good! And I've heard of DxO's amazing DeNoise feature for years now, so I'm very excited that they reached out to let me try it, and they're also sponsoring to let you guys know about their other cool and powerful features that are now available in their most recent software release. First is depth masking, and watch how I'm controlling it based on the distance in my New York City photo here. Now, this would be normally hard to do with the standard brush and gradient mask, but with DxO PhotoLab 10, it makes it easy by creating a much smoother, more natural transition between all these buildings here. And I'm going to apply Clear View Plus here, which is similar to de-hazing, and we're bringing in the colors and contrast to all these buildings here, including the World Trade Center in the back. Look at that, no wonky harsh transition here. Many photo editing apps have a color grading wheel, but I like how hyper control it is here in DxO. So I'm gonna choose one of their presets and golden hour seems too warm for me as I've shot this during sunrise. I like the cinematic cool for that cold morning atmosphere, but I want the sunlight in a distance to be a bit more warm. So watch as I select the highlight. Bump that saturation up a bit. Rotate the wheel here. You see how it's only affecting the brightest part of the image? But I kind of want my mid-tones here to look a bit warmer too. In the past, I find color wheels like this in other softwares tend to mess with the other parts of the image that I don't want touched, and it ruins the color of the overall photo. But DxO keeps the adjustment changes exactly where it needs to be. And finally, AI Mask is even smarter now by quickly recognizing the different subjects in our grouped photos, and also allowing us to group only a few select individuals, and apply our edits to only those who need it. DxO PhotoLab 10 is a standalone software, but it also works with Lightroom as a plugin, so you don't have to give up your catalogs, but it brings these and many more advanced features to help you elevate your photos that Lightroom wouldn't be able to do on its own. Try it out free for 30 days, and if you find it helpful, you can use my code Jason Wong to save 15% off PhotoLab 10 and any DxO software. No monthly subscriptions. Once you buy, it is yours forever. Thank you so much for listening. Now, back to Vivian. Is there such a thing as too high of a shutter speed? If we're speaking strictly for static to slow moving subjects, as long as you're not drastically sacrificing image quality, then you don't need to worry. But what do I mean by that? Sacrificing image quality? How is that even possible? Going back to our textbook definition, this is where the light gathering into the sensor comes into play. Don't tell the other photography YouTube channels this, but let me illustrate this to you with a faucet and a cup. Turn on the water faucet. The water here from the faucet represents light, and the cup here represents the sensor of the camera. A fast shutter speed is us quickly turning on and off the faucet, and because of that, only a little bit of the water is stored in the cup. Versus a slow shutter speed, it's kinda like letting the faucet run. The longer it runs, the more water is captured. So as you can imagine, the faster the shutter, the less light is gathered. That's why you'll notice as we run our shutter to the right, the image gets darker. Shutter speed is one of the three settings on our camera that controls the overall exposure, and we would compensate the change in brightness with either the aperture or the ISO, and it's usually going to be the ISO that we would use to get our image back to correct exposure. But if we increase our ISO too much, then we would get a noisy grainy photo, and that sometimes is undesirable. Vice versa, when we run our shutter to the left, we're giving more time for the light to enter the sensor. And when we have more light coming in, there's no need to run our ISO too high. So to answer the question, is there such a thing as too high of a shutter speed? If your shot of a static building was 1 over 8000 and your ISO is just 100, your photo doesn't have any visible noise and it's conveying what you need it to convey, then you're fine. However, if your shot of the same static building was 1 over 8000 and your ISO is at 409,600, then yeah. You can come down on your shutter. Now, obviously, these are just very exaggerated examples, but I bring this up because I've seen photographers who share their settings for some of their photos on social media and other photographers harshly judge them for not using the ideal settings. Use a polarized filter or change up the ISO. But at the end of the day, your friends, your family, and most importantly, your paying clients won't care what settings you use as long as you get them amazing results. Photographing fast action. So now let's actually talk about using fast shutter speed. And this will be for high action scenarios like sports and wildlife. So if things are moving fairly quickly and you can keep up with it, you can try 1 over 250 or 1 over 500. But if things are racing past you and they have the potential of leaving your frame really quickly, then you can try 1 over 1000, 1 over 2000, or even 1 over 4000. Again, same advice, get a few clicks in, review the photos, and make adjustments if necessary. However, if it's unpredictable, start as high as you can so long as you have your aperture and ISO settings in check. In fact, I would use auto ISO and keep my max ISO around 6400 for unpredictable lighting situations, especially for concerts. Each time I go shoot a band, I always use auto ISO. It just means I could be in the musical moment while guaranteeing that I get super sharp shots. But, don't be afraid to push into higher ISO territories, like 12,800 or even 25,600. For some scenarios such as sports or even wedding photography, if the lighting cannot be controlled and you're forced into an unideal lighting situation, then it's always best to get the clearest shot that you can. At the end of the day, getting the critical moment sharp and in focus is far more important than seeing noise. Slow shutter speed. And now, let's break the rules and talk about when we should use slow shutter speed. Using a slow shutter speed is actually very beneficial in low light situations. Remember, the slower the shutter speed, the longer it takes for the camera to gather in more light to take the photo. And we can use this trick to keep our ISO setting low, thus minimizing the noise in our photos. Take a look at these two photos here, one shot at ISO 100 and the other at ISO 640. While the ISO 640 isn't considered a high ISO and the shot doesn't look too bad, the noise is a lot more apparent when you compare it to the ISO 100 shot. Now let's go ahead and take a look at the shutter speed for these two shots. I was at 1 over 40 for the photo on the right. In most cases, 1 over 40 isn't that fast of a shutter speed. However, because my camera has in-body image stabilization built in, I was able to go down to 1 6th of a second, opening up more time for the light to enter the sensor. And that is why I was able to take this photo on the left at ISO 100. Now you may ask, can we shoot even slower handheld? Oh boy, we are entering some risky territory right here. Again, it would depend if your camera or lens have image stabilization built in. That feature will allow for more flexibility. But if we shoot too slow of a shutter speed handheld, we will inevitably get motion blur in our photos because as humans, we cannot stay completely still. And that is where a tripod comes into play. This will allow us to further open up our shutter to either 30 seconds or indefinitely with bulb mode. Because the camera is locked off on a stable tripod, we never have to worry about the micro jitters from our hands. One tip that I would recommend is to make sure that we enable a 2 second timer on our camera, or use a remote trigger to ensure the camera stays absolutely still the whole time. With a tripod, if we're taking a cityscape shot, we can add some cool light trail effects from passing cars. And if you want an empty shot of a location, this long exposure trick with a tripod is a great way to remove a few stragglers from the shot without having to use generative fill AI in Photoshop, thus keeping your photo as authentic as possible. Wow, as long as the stragglers aren't staying completely still while you're taking the photo of the scene, of course. Happened to me a few times, you know? I'm out at this epic location getting this great shot, but there's this one guy, bro, get out of the way. I'm trying to get a photo here, dude! Artistic shutter speed. But I have to admit, sometimes it's not that bad to have a moving crowd in your shot. Use that to your advantage. An artistic way to go about it, or what some people say a more positive mindset, is that it helps make your cityscape photos feel more alive. Usually 1 over 25 or 1 over 10 is good enough to get a good amount of motion blur from a moving crowd. And this is the same technique that waterfall photographers use to smooth out the water to emphasize the gushing motion. Now depending on how bright the scene is, like if you're photographing during daytime, you may need to compensate by closing down on your aperture using the larger number or using a neutral density filter to help cut down on some of that light. On the flip side, we can use slow shutter speed to emphasize motion from a specific object like cars, and we call this the panning technique in which we pan the camera to follow the moving object. Now we have a sharp and clear shot of the moving subject, but the background looks like it's moving. Now, I will say the panning technique, especially in low light situations, is going to be incredibly difficult to execute. But, it feels freakin' amazing when you nail it. And if you want a bit more of that buzzy feeling, I have a ton of easy-to-watch tutorials, especially on Sony cameras. So check out my YouTube channel, or if you're about to buy a new camera, scan this QR code here on the screen to go straight to my buying camera gear playlist. My channel is better than this vlog slop. Now, many new photographers struggle to get super sharp photos in low light conditions. Most often, they will end up with results that are incredibly mushy and grainy and it's just appalling to look at. Get that out of my face. In fact, this is perhaps the most difficult part of photography because it requires a lot of balancing of different settings on our cameras. But don't worry, soon you'll be a king or queen of low light photography, both handheld or with an inexpensive tripod. And you too will be able to get captures like these or even better ones. Tag me on Instagram if you do. So let's use what we just learned about aperture and shutter speed and throw it all together and talk. ISO. ISO explains. So here I made a little setup that might feel similar to what you have going on in your own home, especially the minimal lighting. Nothing fancy. That way you can easily apply the practice right now so you'll be a master of low light when you're out and about in the world. And I've set my camera to manual mode. Got my One Piece Luffy action figure on top of a lens and a nice cozy background that I pulled up from YouTube. Now, the biggest culprit to noisy photos is utilizing a high ISO. If you turn on your camera right now and scroll through your ISO setting, you'll find that you can shoot as high as 102,400. Now even though that's an option, we should never be shooting at the max. Ugh, look at all that noise. You've caught me at the wrong time. In case you don't know or need a quick refresher, ISO is generally used to compensate for the lack of light to achieve proper exposure in our shot. Moving to the left to a lower number darkens our image, whereas moving it to the right brightens it. If we're shooting in some type of auto mode, chances are our camera will prioritize giving us the proper exposure, and usually it will jack up our ISO to oblivion, and that's why we would end up with results like this. So, instead, if you're using a full frame camera, you generally don't want to go past ISO 6400, and if you're using an APS-C camera, you don't want to go past 3200. Of course, newer cameras can push past these limits and still get decent results, but these recommended max ISO settings are a good starting point for beginners to keep in mind. Now the camera that I'm using right here is the Sony a6700, an APS-C sensor camera. And look at the difference between ISO 3200 and ISO 102,400. While there are still grain and noise present in the ISO 3200 shot, we now at least have a much better looking image that we can try to save in editing. So now that we have an ISO ceiling, let's work on our other settings. Because remember, low light photography is all about balancing all of our settings to achieve the best results. Letting in more light. So the way for us to shoot at a lower ISO is by introducing more light. And we can do that in three different ways. One, using the widest open aperture available to our lenses. Two, utilizing a slower shutter speed time. Or three, physically adding in more light. We'll talk about using the widest open aperture first because this is typically the first setting I would change when shooting handheld in low light situations. Now, for the sake of the demo, I'll just leave it on the tripod for now, but we'll take it off the tripod later just to show you how I do it handheld. That didn't intend to be dirty. When it comes to aperture and low light, Like, especially shooting handheld, Choose the smallest number possible on your lens. If you're using a starter kit lens that came bundled with your camera, likely the widest you can shoot at is at f3.5. I don't have a kit lens on me, so I'll just set my aperture to 3.5 on the lens that I do have, and just look at how much brighter our image is becoming. Now we can lower our ISO even more from 3200 to 800. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Now, it is recommended to upgrade to a prime lens like an f1.8 as that will significantly help you shoot at the lowest ISO possible. Now watch as I'm opening my aperture from f3.5 to f1.8. Look at how much more I can drop my ISO, all the way down to ISO 320, significantly reducing You've just seen the noise straight out of camera. Now the extra benefit of having an f1.8 prime lens is that we get that sweet sweet background blur. Bokeh-licious. And you can see how the aperture blades in your lens are opening up to a wider circle. That's how the lens is letting in more light into your sensor, thus reducing the need to raise your ISO to compensate for the lack of light. Setting the shutter speed. Next up, shutter speed. And this would be the second setting I would change when doing low-light photography handheld. So let's go ahead and take it off the tripod now. When shooting handheld in low light situations, you want your shutter speed to at least match the focal length you're shooting with if you're using a full frame sensor camera. Or double the focal length if you're using an APS-C camera. Now just so I don't neglect my kit lens users, I'm going to set my aperture back to f3.5 just so you can see what your setup is capable of. Remember, we always set our aperture first when it comes to doing low light photography handheld. Then, because I'm using a 24mm lens on an APS-C camera, I'm going to double it and set our shutter speed to 1 over 50. And finally, ISO. We're going to raise it until we have proper exposure, and hopefully not go past our recommended max ISO suggestion. Now, just stay calm, stay steady, and take our shot. Zooming in and okay, we're a little off and that's okay. Low light photography is tricky and it requires a few trial and error. That's just how it is. Remember, stay calm, stay steady, and let's take our shot again. Keep your hands steady. All right, let me just get up for this so I have a better position. And three, two, one. Bam, look at that. Tack sharp and very minimal noise. So comparing this with our high ISO shot that our camera determined for us in auto mode, same lighting conditions, but yet we have a much better looking image, all because we follow three simple rules for handheld photography in low light. One, set our aperture to the widest value. Two, set our shutter speed to match or double the focal length we're shooting in. And three, set our ISO until we achieve proper exposure. Now, if you're starting to go past the recommended max ISO suggestion, we can just set our ISO at the suggested max already and try to use a slower shutter speed just a little bit more and hope for the best. And some cameras with in-body image stabilization will allow you to shoot at the slower shutter speed, handheld, while still giving you sharp results. Otherwise, we'll have to tread into tripod territory. They make low light photography infinitely easier. So let's go outside, shall we? Using a tripod. So here's the classic cityscape of Shinjuku in Tokyo, Japan. The hustle and bustle vibe from the commuters and the tourists and neon lights and ads from the buildings. And I got the Sony RS100 Mark VII here on a tripod and we're going to capture this iconic shot. Now, if we let our camera shoot in auto, we'll likely will end up with a grainy and noisy shot like this. But by going manual and using a tripod, we no longer have to raise our ISO. In fact, shutter speed would be the only setting we'll need to worry about. So the order of sequence here is going to be different when we're using a tripod in low light. First, we'll set our ISO to the lowest possible, and that's going to be 100. Next we'll set our aperture to the lowest value, and again for my kit lens viewers at home, I'll shoot f3.5 for you guys so you can see what's possible with your setup. Then we will adjust our shutter speed from fraction numbers to whole numbers until we get a decent exposure. And lastly we're going to enable our two second timer on our camera and take our shot. BOOM! You can't go wrong with Jason Wong. What a difference, right? Just look at how clean our black sky is. And the lighting from the signage is absolutely beautiful. And with a little editing, look at how much enhancing we can do to our low light images. In fact, our aperture value here can be as high as f9, which would give us these nice star twinkles from these light sources. We would simply need to compensate a bit more with our shutter speed by slowing down the shutter even more. And this is gonna be the key saying to use when you're photographing especially very dark environments. So the next time you head out to a dark and spooky forest or trying to capture some astro stars, remember to bring your tripod and let shutter speed do all the work. Now you might have noticed, where are the people? Where are the cars? So what we just did is called a long exposure. That means anything that was in motion, i.e. people and cars, as long as they exit out of frame before the shutter releases, they will disappear. They might leave trails behind, but anything that's stationary will remain in the photo without a single noise or speck on them. But that's also the drawback to long exposure. It works best with low-light cityscape and landscapes, but not moving subjects. So if moving subjects are your main subject of interest in your photograph in low light, i.e. portraitures, stick to the handheld rule that we talked about earlier. With that said, I do have a couple more helpful tips before you go. So the harsh truth is, anytime we do raise our ISO past 800, we will inevitably still get those grain and noise. There's just no helping it. But if you follow the instructions in this video, there shouldn't be too much of it. On the other hand, if you feel you want to do something about it in post, then that's another great thing about DxO PhotoLab 10. And it's even more flexible than using denoise in Adobe Lightroom. Guys, thank you so much for watching, and we will see you guys in the next video. Peace. You can't go wrong with Jason Vaughn.