# Help with shutter speed and indoor outdoor shooting with canon A-1?



## myabn (Feb 3, 2011)

Please bare with me, I'm new with using film cameras. My first question is, I read on one post that the shutter speed and aperture for taking pictures indoors is:

Living room lighting = 1/30th at f1.8.

Bright kitchen lighting = 1/60th at f2

Are those right? Or is it best to just leave the shutter speed on P? My other question is, I tried setting the shutter speed to 1/30th but the viewfinder says 60?? last question, what does it need to be on for outdoors shooting? thanks so much.


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## Mike_E (Feb 3, 2011)

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Film is no different than digital in practically every instance in taking the photo. (depending on your experience we could go into chromes and grain and on and on)

The proper exposure depends on the amount of light that is hitting your intended subject.  Nothing else.  So there is no one exposure for one room.

This is a digital tutorial site but read through it and you should be good to go..  (remembering that ISO is determined by the film you buy) and have fun.
Digital Photography Tutorials


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## Shiva_42 (Feb 3, 2011)

Your A-1 has both a meter and aperture priority auto-exposure mode(s).  Why not let the camera do its' job and set the correct exposure for you?


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## Canon AE-1 (Feb 3, 2011)

I'm sure that post was meant to be a general guide. It depends on your room lighting, film speed, etc, meter it and see what the camera tells you. Or you can leave it in Program and let the cam do the work. If your getting creative with a portrait with depth of field you can use AV or if your dealing with motion of some sort use TV. Make a couple of test shots.


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## trojancast (Feb 4, 2011)

I'm guessing that post was for a sunny 16 rule, where you have a camera without exposure meter and you have to estimate the exposure settings.  Believe it or not, there was a time all exposures were guesstimates.  With your camera, you have a built in exposure meter to help you out.  The suggested settings will work fine if you are shooting B&W, but the camera meter will do a much nicer job of color.  Bottom line, go out and expose some film.  You will learn as you go.

Best of luck.


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## djacobox372 (Feb 4, 2011)

I think I was the one that gave you those numbers, they're just rough estimates, and they' were for iso 400 film.

Shutter speed, aperture and iso are all important factors. 

If you're shooting without a light meter, then ballpark guessing is all you can do.  I for one sort of enjoy the challenge of going without a meter. 

Here's an online calculator, you just put in your film iso and then select from a huge list of lighting situations: Photographic Exposure Calculator for Available Light

You might hear people talking about the "sunny-16" rule, which means that when outdoors on a sunny day you should set your aperture to 16 and your shutter speed to whatever your iso is.   So if you're shooting iso 100 on a sunny day you'd set your camera to 1/100th of a second at f16--this gives you a good starting point for guessing outdoor exposures.


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