From Camera to Paper: The Complete Photographic Process

The following steps will teach you which f-stop and which shutter speed to set your camera to when you take a picture.

  1. Look at the speed of your film. It should say 800, 400, 200, or 100. If the speed of your film is 400, set the ISO or ASA dial in your camera to 400. Then set your shutter speed to the nearest number under 400. It would be 1/250 of a second.
  2. Print out this table: Shutter Speeds and F-stops.
  3. This is where things become tricky. Take the chart that you just printed and fold it as shown. Now you can slide the shutter speeds to align with the f-stops. Here are a few exercises to help you learn how to align the shutter speeds with the f-stops correctly:
  4. Now that you understand how to align your f-stop and shutter speed correctly, you need to learn how to choose the correct lighting exposure. A perfect, bright sunny day would be f-16. This is important, never forget it! BDE, or Basic Daylight Exposure, will always be f-16. Since your shutter speed is already set to 1/250 because your film speed is 400, you can take a picture outside on a bright sunny day with your camera set at 1/250 @ f-16. Congratulations! You now know how to set your shutter speed and aperture for a perfect day.
Now that I know how to set the exposure for a bright sunny day, how do I set it for a cloudy day, an indoor shot, and a nighttime shot?

Simple! If it is cloudy outside, you need to open the aperture while keeping the same shutter speed, or you can keep the same f-stop while slowing the shutter. This allows more light onto the film to make up for the loss of sunlight from a BDE. A hazy day would be considered +1, meaning to open the aperture 1 stop. Using your table, move the f-stops down one row. The exposure would be 1/250 @ F-11. Instead of opening the aperture 1 stop, you could make the shutter 1/125 instead of 1/250. Whether you open the aperture or make the shutter speed slower, both allow the same amount of light onto the film. It depends how much motion you want captured or how you would like your depth of field to be displayed.

F-16 F-11 F-8
+0 +1 +2


More Light Exposures

I want to take a picture of a night shot that is +13, but I do not have enough shutter speeds or apertures to make this possible. What do I do?

When you need to let more light into the camera to make a correct exposure, you can open the aperture or delay the shutter speed. Instead of doing one or the other, you can change both the shutter speed and aperture.

  1. To do this, take your exposure table that you printed out and align 1/250 with f-16
  2. Move the f-stop to +6, now making the exposure 1/250 @ f-2
  3. Now that you have opened your aperture as much as your camera will allow, the next thing to do would be to change your shutter speed. Remember that opening your aperture 1 stop allows the same amount of light into the camera as making the shutter speed one speed slower.
  4. Move the shutter to 7 speeds slower, making the exposure ½ @ f-2.8. Your exposure is now +13!