In today’s fun post I’m going to show how camera settings can transform a photo.

Within moments, you can change a scene from night into day with a few changes to your camera’s settings. That’s one of the most important reasons it’s so important to know your camera’s settings. Once you master light, f-stops, shutter speeds, and ISO… you understand how camera settings can transform a photo.

In the image below, slide the slider from left to right. I took these two images one after another. They are, indeed, two different images, and not just photoshopped. You can see that in the car light streaks in the “daytime” image.

How Camera Settings Can Transform a Photo: The Breakdown

Let’s look at each image. The composition and camera placement are identical in the two photographs of the fountain at Crown Center in Kansas City. (you’ll probably notice the fountain from the blog post with my Canon R5C review). For the shot below, here are my camera settings:
F-Stop: 22
Shutter Speed: 13 seconds
ISO: 320

Now, in the “night time” image below, notice the difference in the camera settings.
F-stop: 22 (same)
Shutter speed: 10 seconds
ISO: 100

I kept the aperture (f-stop) the same in both images because in both I wanted everything to be in focus. I also wanted to leave the shutter open for a long time to make the fountains look milky, so I had to have an f-stop of 22. That leaves shutter speed and ISO available to me for adjustment. ISO refers to the camera sensor’s (or film, if you’re shooting film) sensitivity to light. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive the camera sensor is to light. Futhermore, the shutter speed was 3 seconds longer in the “day time” shot. So, shutter open longer exposing a sensor that is more sensitive to light… well that is how camera settings can transform a photo! Pretty interesting, right?

Talk to you soon,
Dale