# Exposure guide card for beginners



## EW1066 (Apr 8, 2008)

I was going through my old gadget bag and found this exposure guid card. I got it while going through a U.S. Navy Intelligence Photography school. I carried it around in my wallet for years. Even after I memorized it. We learned to shoot strictly B&W all manual, on Canon F150's "I think they were". The guidlines work for color as well. 

I am posting this for anyone who wants to learn to use their camers in manual mode but has trouble understanding how shutter speed, iso and apature interact. Once you learn to use the card...its relatively easy. Everything on the card is represented in 1 stop incriments. Once you set up the camera you use the graphic guid to help visualize what you need to do.

In the days of film only you didnt have much choice of iso and realy couldnt do much to change it once you bought your film. So...for a bright sunny day you set your apature @ f16 and your shutter @ 1-1 for iso/asa...ie asa 100 film got a beginning shutter speed of 1/125, asa 400 got 1/500. 

Once set up properly for lighting conditions you can make adjustments for speed of the object or to get the desired depth of field by simply following the card. To maintain the correct exposure on a sunny day if you need to speed up you shutter you need to open the apature stop for stop

Lets say you are using asa 100 @f16 @1/125 but you feel the the object is moving to fast to stop motion at 1/125, so you bump you speed to 1/500...thats 2 full stops (darker)....now inorder to maintain the same exposure you must open the apature 2 full stops (lighter) to f8

Everything on this side of the card is in 1 stop incriments, apature, shutter speed and asa/iso







The front of the card also explains how to compensate for difficult lighting conditions like back lighting and light and dark objects. It says only to adjust by 1,2, or 3 STOPS.... this can be accomplished with apature or shutter. This does not include use of a flash or filters, ie polorizers or skylite filters.






I realize that this is only like my 10th post here and you guys dont know me from Adam.....But I realy think and sincerely hope that this can help demystify exposure for many. 

If you have any questions about this feel free to ask....this is a great tool and I will do what I can to help you learn to use it. Anyone out there who has seen this or knows how to explain how to use it, feel free to chime in

Vince


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## asfixiate (Apr 8, 2008)

I'm sure this will be useful to some.  Any info is helpful by the way.


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## Dao (Apr 8, 2008)

Thank you very much!


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## ksm (Apr 8, 2008)

i've seen those before. Very helpful for a beginner. Good find.


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## venky_agas (Sep 21, 2009)

A neat exposure guide for iPhone users and a lot more including DOF, time lapse etc to mention a few. Totally worth the buy

Purplehaze Apps | power 2

iTunes Link : iTunes Store


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## ann (Sep 21, 2009)

basic sunny 16 rule.

kodak used to have guide line printed on all their film boxes. I haven't used their color film in a long time and so don't know if they still provide that information.


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