Beautiful Beasties: A Creative Guide to Modern Pet Photography

Photography Basics

Exposure: ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speed

In this chapter, I will go over technical settings, such as ISO, aperture, shutter speed, metering, exposure, shooting modes, focusing, and color balance, which are all important elements of photography. They are also all necessary to understand in order to create high-quality images. If you get confused by the relationship between ISO, shutter speed, aperture, and metering, and you wish that all of these things didn’t have to be so technical, mathematical, and, well… complicated. I am here to tell you it doesn’t have to be! My hope is that this chapter will help you understand technical settings in a real life, practical way that will have you blurting out “Ah ha!” not only while you are reading the book, but during your photo shoots long afterward, as well. You will be amazed at how simple it can be. And the more you understand the concepts, the more easily and readily you will apply them in real life. And this can only mean one thing: Your photography will quickly and dramatically improve.

One note I want to make before talking about exposure is how I qualify and categorize a shoot as either controlled or dynamic. A controlled pet shoot is one in which you are controlling most of the elements of the shoot, such as ...