Linda Roina

I have a Nikon D500. I just want to know what is the purpose of using Shutter Priority for sports when you can't move the aperture? I tried it and got pretty much a dark mess in bright sunlight. Thanks for helping.

BebuLamar

The aperture would change automatically depends on the light. Use it to make sure the shutter speed stay the same and the aperture automatically changes to control exposure. However if you pick a high shutter speed and the aperture already opened to maximum it can't open any more and it would give you underexposure. The range of aperture of most lenses are only about 5 stops not like the range of shutter speeds.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Was there any indication in the viewfinder that there was insufficient light for the selected shutter speed?

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

I don't understand your question. In shutter priority you select a shutter speed, and then the camera selects an aperture which should give proper exposure given your choice of shutter speed; if some areas are very bright and others are very dark, then it will select a compromise which may over-expose part of the image and under-expose part of it, but within the limits of your dynamic range, it should be correct. The purpose of this is to select a shutter speed sufficiently high to "freeze" the action.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

If the ISO is set too low and the shutter speed too high, the camera won't be able to get a correct exposure and under exposure will result.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

If you manually set the ISO too low that would account for it. You can experiment by turning on auto ISO and see what kind of results you get. The other possibility is you adjusted exposure compensation without realizing it.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Yes, but if a fast shutter speed is selected and the lens aperture is not wide enough to compensate for the shutter speed the ISO setting may need to be increased. The ISO may have been explicitly set to too low a value. If the OP changes to auto ISO it should correct the problem and as she goes forward and becomes more experienced with this camera she can then decide to select explicit ISO values herself based on her experience.

Designdweeb Loc: Metro NYC & East Stroudsburg, PA

In the days before auto-exposure we learned to meter with our eyes. It would serve you well to use this as a starting point. Full sunlight is between f11-f16 with the 1/shutter speed = to the iso. So, with sun to your back, full frontal or 3/4 lighting try iso 1000 @ 1/000 of a second between f11- f16, depending on the ‘zone’ you need, the highlights or shadow tones. Digital files need to favor preserving the highlights, but auto-exposure makes everything 18% grey if it uses the average mode, rather than center-weighted, spot or some other variation.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

This will help you understand better what is going on.

http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm

Towards the end of the page, there is a chart of Exposure Values for common situations.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Sitting down with a book, video or online articles such as Gene51 provided will help you more than getting bits and pieces from a forum discussion. I'm going to guess, as did a couple of other folks, that you had a fixed ISO and set your shutter speed very high.

You will not understand what that means until you learn the basic foundations of exposure - which includes ISO, not just shutter speed and aperture. They are interrelated and there are reasons and consequences to any change you make, especially if you go to any "extreme." Learn the basics and you will be far less frustrated in the future.

I have never read it, but Bryan Peterson's book "Understanding Exposure" is often recommended for beginners. Or check with your local library to see if their online resources includes a free subscription to lynda.com. Otherwise, I think there's a 30-day free trial. I was very impressed with that site!

sergio

Higher the ISO.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Your exposures should have been correct. My guess is that you exceeded the limit of your camera because your ISO was too high. You will see 8000 flashing in your window telling you the camera cannot go any faster and as a result your images will come out dark.

CaptainPhoto

What every one is saying about aperture and shutter speed is correct, but why not set our ISO to Auto. That will compensate for the limits you are experiencing on the aperture. It's all about the exposure triangle - ISO-Shutter Speed and Aperture.

Notorious T.O.D. Loc: Harrisburg, North Carolina

This is likely the root of your problem... Shutter priority is usually selected to make sure you freeze the motion of the shot. A blurry shot is generally of no value and can't be sharpened to usefulness. It can also be used to shoot other effects such as panned shots of cars or other objects moving and giving a sense of motion. With the shutter speed locked in the camera can adjust the aperture to get a proper exposure. If the lens aperture is wide open then the camera may not be able to gather enough light to achieve a proper exposure. If it cannot then you would have to increase the ISO to a higher number, more gain on the sensor, reduce the shutter speed or add light with a flash if that is an option. Several have suggested using auto ISO and that is an option on many newer cameras. I don't use auto ISO much myself as I have found it can vary very widely. You may want to try it though if your camera has that option, which I suspect it does.

Two other things to keep in mind. If using shutter priority the aperture can vary and that will result in the depth of field of the shot varying too. DOF can be very shallow at wide open apertures, long focal lengths and close subjects. Invest in a DOF calculator app and play with it to understand how the DOF changes with changes in aperture, lens focal length and distance to subject. The other thing to understand is that Exposure Compensation is in reality changing the exposure. If you are using shutter priority and the aperture is variable then adding EC will try to open the aperture more. Negative EC will try to close down the aperture. And you can bump into the situation where the EC cannot be achieved because you hit wide open aperture. There is much more range in using EC with Aperture priority mode because the shutter speed can vary more widely than aperture can. However you can get to shutter speeds that are too slow to stop motion either in the subject or in movement of the camera itself while shooting. I am always surprised how many people seem to not understand how EC works. I probably shoot about 95 percent of the time in shutter priority as I am shooting moving, usually fairly fast moving, subjects.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Look at your exposure indicator in the viewfinder and adjust the aperture or ISO accordingly. If you're open as wide as the lens can open, then increase the ISO. That's what I would do. Hopefully your scene will have fairly uniform lighting so you don't have to constantly correct.