Camera Lighting Equipment

When taking photos with an 45 mm camera.. how do you ajust the lighting?

I know you have to fix the apature but I just don't know in what terms to do it on? I mean 35 mm sorry haha

Public Comments

1. take the black plastic bags and duct tape off of the blacked out windows.
2. There are three variables: Aperture, Shutter speed and film speed. Film speed is measured in ASA (200 and 400 are common numbers and 400 is twice as fast as 200, which means it needs half the amount of light to expose correctly under the same conditions). The shutter speed is measured in fractions of a second. 1/100th of a second lets in twice as much light as 1/200th. The aperture is the diameter of the hole which allows light through the lens. It's usually a little variable sized metal disk behind the front glass of the lens and works just like the pupil of your eye - in bright light it needs to be small and in dim light it needs to be larger to let in more light. The units it uses seem not to relate to anything ... f/16 is a small hole and f/3.5 is large. (They are actually related to the focal length of the lens so that the same numbers mean the same amount of light whatever the lens.) Each step ... for example, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22, f/32 represents a hole that lets in half as much light as the one before (remember, low numbers are for low light - high numbers are for high/bright light). A good rule of thumb is: in bright sunshine with an average scene (not snow or sand) and 200ASA film, 1/100th sec at f/16. If it's cloudy, open up one stop to f/11, if it's sand or snow (brighter), then halve the shutter speed ... 1/200th sec at f/16. The aperture and shutter speed work in tandem, so all of these give the same exposure: 1/100 @ f/16 1/200 @ f/11 1/500 @ f/8 1/1000 @ f/5.6 I hope that makes it a little clearer! (Yes, the slower speeds should be 1/250 and 1/125 and older cameras used to have those but there is so little difference that if you just remember that each click doubles or halves the exposure, you will be OK.) For colour film it is really best to use a light meter (if the camera hasn't got one that does it automatically) which will tell you what is exactly the right exposure.
3. If you have a manual for your camera check it to see if it gives you some help. If you don't have one you might be able to find one online. Still no luck try the Rule of 16's (AKA Sunny 16 Rule), there is a brief discussion in Wikipedia and the link below is a more complete explanation of the whole exposure issue. Good luck!
4. I think you received some good advice. If you are using your camera in any of the automatic type modes - where either the camera picks the exposure, or you pick one aspect - like shutter speed, and the camera picks the aperture - you are going to get the exposure the camera thinks you need. If you want to vary from what the camera thinks, you need to go into manual mode. There you set both the shutter and aperture. Many cameras let you know if you are over exposing or under exposing in manual mode. If you want more light than the camera is giving you, you need to over expose.