What effect does adjusting the Iris on a camera?Is it regarding the amount of light information that the camera lets in?And what is a safe bet to set it at for an unexperienced user.
Set to halfway perhaps?
Thanks in advance,
PaLaCe
Sony Z1 iris
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palaceat4am
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Sony Z1 iris
Last edited by Stephan on 16 Jul 2010 20:09, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: it's Z1!
Reason: it's Z1!
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acgold7
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Re: Sony ZI iris
Yes, it changes the amount of light hitting the chip, but the other settings will compensate if they're in Auto. Just leave everything in Auto until you gain more experience with the camera and understand basic photographic and video theory.
Adam
Re: Sony Z1 iris
Principally it adjusts the amount of light entering the camera by making the area of the hole (or iris) that the light enters either twice as large or twice as small, for each f-stop you change. f5.6 let's in half as much light as f4. f2.8 let's in twice as much light as f4.
The iris (called aperture in photo terms) is an APPROXIMATE circle.
The main other effect of changing the iris/aperture in photography or videography is that it does affect the Depth-of-Field of the shot. This is the area in-front of and behind the focal plane. The bigger the iris/aperture, (f2 is a big aperture, for eg) then the shallower the depth-of-field (basically the range or area where objects APPEAR to be in sharp-focus). So you can use iris/aperture in two ways : to change the amount of light entering the lens AND to change the depth-of-field that you want for the shot, or a combination of these two.
Like everything in photography / videography it's all a trade-off and there are other effects, like diffraction, that can result from having too small an aperture, but don't worry about that. Just experiment with iris/aperture, and you will start to see the effect it can have.
Be aware that sometimes things like iris/aperture are changed, to compensate for things like a shutter-speed that is desired, rather than directly a DOF that is desired. If you want a faster shutter-speed for example, typically you could choose to open up the iris/aperture to maintain the same exposure. This is all basic theory of photography (and hence video too) and should be well understood ideally.
The iris (called aperture in photo terms) is an APPROXIMATE circle.
The main other effect of changing the iris/aperture in photography or videography is that it does affect the Depth-of-Field of the shot. This is the area in-front of and behind the focal plane. The bigger the iris/aperture, (f2 is a big aperture, for eg) then the shallower the depth-of-field (basically the range or area where objects APPEAR to be in sharp-focus). So you can use iris/aperture in two ways : to change the amount of light entering the lens AND to change the depth-of-field that you want for the shot, or a combination of these two.
Like everything in photography / videography it's all a trade-off and there are other effects, like diffraction, that can result from having too small an aperture, but don't worry about that. Just experiment with iris/aperture, and you will start to see the effect it can have.
Be aware that sometimes things like iris/aperture are changed, to compensate for things like a shutter-speed that is desired, rather than directly a DOF that is desired. If you want a faster shutter-speed for example, typically you could choose to open up the iris/aperture to maintain the same exposure. This is all basic theory of photography (and hence video too) and should be well understood ideally.
Re: Sony Z1 iris
palaceat4am,
To add to the above, diffraction is a problem with cameras such as the Z1 with relatively small HD sensors. To control this there is a setting in the menus to limit the smallest iris that can be set, either manually by the user or when shooting on full auto. I normally leave mine to prevent it going smaller than f5.6, which when used with the neutral density fliters, (ND1 & ND2) will allow you to cope with most lighting conditions. The Z1 lens is at its best at around f4 so its not a bad area to work in. The lens does have some barrel distortion at the wide end though.
Steve
To add to the above, diffraction is a problem with cameras such as the Z1 with relatively small HD sensors. To control this there is a setting in the menus to limit the smallest iris that can be set, either manually by the user or when shooting on full auto. I normally leave mine to prevent it going smaller than f5.6, which when used with the neutral density fliters, (ND1 & ND2) will allow you to cope with most lighting conditions. The Z1 lens is at its best at around f4 so its not a bad area to work in. The lens does have some barrel distortion at the wide end though.
Steve