I am providing you with the settings I use a good majority of the time. These are basic settings to get your started.
You can go down a rabbit hole with reading about all the various settings photographers use. However, there are basics you should learn first.
My goal in this article is to break the camera settings down into simple ways for you to learn and apply.
Best Camera Settings for Exposure
Exposure/Light TRIO
The Exposure trio includes the three elements that control how a camera captures light and determine the overall brightness and contrast of a picture. The light trio is fundamental to getting the correct exposure. These involve: The Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO.
Aperture
The aperture is an adjustable opening in the lens that controls the amount of light that hits the sensor. Aperture settings are expressed as f-stop numbers, with lower (smaller) numbers indicating a larger aperture (opening).
This is counter intuitive and can be challenging to grasp at first.
Higher F-Stop numbers= smaller opening. A smaller opening gives you a greater depth of field which means every object in the scene is in focus from front to back.
Lower F-Stop numbers= larger opening. Also gives you a more shallow depth of field. A good example is a portrait where the person is in focus and the background is blurred.
For street photography, an aperture around f/8 to f/11 generally works well. This range helps keep both the subject and the background in focus, giving a sharp and detailed look to your shots. This is what is meant by deep depth of field.
If you want a blurred background (shallow depth of field), you will need to set your camera to a lower F-Stop, such as F1.8. Sometimes you can even blur a background up to F5.6.
Shutter Speed
The shutter speed is how quickly the shutter on the camera opens/closes. This affects the amount of light coming through.
In other words, shutter speed is the length of time a camera’s shutter remains open to let light in when taking a picture.
You can use Shutter speed to freeze action or add some creative blur. For candid street moments, a shutter speed of 1/250 or faster freezes motion well. If you’re looking to capture light trails or add some movement, slowing it down to around 1/30 will work.
ISO
The ISO is the third factor in this light trio. ISO is the setting that measures the camera’s sensitivity to light and affects the brightness of a photo. The ISO also controls how much light the camera lets in, which impacts the exposure of a photo.
For daylight, you can keep the ISO from around 100-400. For evening or night shots, setting the ISO to 800 or higher helps your camera get to higher shutter speeds when necessary (in low light settings). This is because when the ISO is increased, the camera’s sensor becomes more sensitive, allowing for shorter exposure times.
Camera MODE Settings
AV Mode– You set the aperture and the camera decides on the appropriate Shutter speed.
TV Mode– This is the shutter mode on Canon. (S on Nikon and Sony) TV stands for Time Value. You set the shutter speed and the camera decides on the most appropriate aperture.
Full Manual: You set the aperture and shutter speed.
Manual mode offers total control but requires constant adjustments. Aperture priority mode (A or Av) strikes a good balance, letting you control the depth of field while the camera manages the shutter speed.
I keep my camera on AV mode for this reason. I don’t want to mess with both aperture and shutter speed when I need to take the shot quickly.
Additional Camera Settings
White Balance
White balance ensures the colors in your photo look natural. Auto white balance or daylight works well for a variety of street scenes. You might want to switch to a specific setting (like daylight or tungsten) based on the lighting for more control.
The photographer Sean Tucker always sets his White Balance to 5500 Kelvin. Here is his video explaining why.
At this time, I use auto white balance the majority of the time. I think next time I go out, I’ll try the settings Sean suggests.
Metering Modes
Metering modes decide how your camera reads light. Matrix or evaluative metering usually works well for street photography, providing a balanced exposure. For tricky light situations, like backlit subjects, try using your spot metering.
The majority of the time, I set my camera to the evaluative metering mode.
Auto Focus
Autofocus modes play a major role in capturing sharp images on the street. Continuous autofocus (AF-C) is great for moving subjects, ensuring they stay in focus as they move through the frame. Single autofocus (AF-S) works well for stationary subjects, allowing for precise focus adjustments.
Picture Style
Picture Style is a camera setting that controls how contrast, saturation, sharpening and color tone are applied to images as you take them. Setting the correct Picture Style can reduce the amount of post-production required.
The picture styles on my Canon include: Auto, Standard, Landscape, Portrait, Monochrome, Fine Detail, Neutral, Faithful.
For Street Photography, I leave my setting in Standard or Portrait.
Practical Application -Shutter Speed and Aperture
For these examples, I took the two images below at noon on a bright sunny day.
Example #1- Setting the Dial to TV/T- (S on Nikon and Sony)
I first changed the dial to Shutter Speed (TV) . This means since I set the shutter speed, my camera chose the aperture automatically.
I set the TV (shutter speed) to 0.5 (half a second) and the aperture automatically set to an opening of 22 (smallest it can go).
The result of this image below was major overexposure. The sky is completely blow out and you can’t even hardly tell that I took a picture of the trees.
F22 is the smallest opening my camera goes to. There was still too much light coming through to get a correct exposure.
Example #2- Setting the Dial to AV
For this second example. I set the AV (aperture) dial to F8.0, and the camera automatically set the shutter speed to 1/250. As you can see, this resulted in a correctly exposed image.
Take Aways:
**When you use AV or TV, it doesn’t always guarantee a correctly exposed image. As you’ve seen from my examples.
**If you want to blur motion during the day (like a water fountain or water fall) you’ll need an ND Filter. (An ND filter reduces the amount of light that enters the camera).
**To blur motion, you need a slower shutter speed. During daylight hours, your aperture may not stop down far enough for a correct exposure.
**An aperture of F8 allows for everything in the image to be in focus.
**In my example, the correlating shutter speed was fast enough to stop motion.
**AV Settings: The higher you set your aperture, the lower your shutter speed will adjust automatically. For instance, when I set my aperture to 9.5, my shutter speed changes to 1/180.
When I set the aperture to F11, the shutter speed changed to 1/60. Keep this in mind if you want to stop the action of an object or person. A person moving at 1/60 will be blurred.
**When I set my ISO from 200 to 400- it automatically doubled my shutter speed when I was in AV mode.
Summary
Understanding the light trio is one of the most fundamental, yet important things to know. The light trio includes aperture, shutter speed and ISO. These all work together in creating an image with the right exposure.
The higher aperture numbers give you smaller openings, allows less light through and will give you a greater depth of field. Lower aperture numbers are larger openings, allow more light in and will give you a blurred background.
With the AV or A mode- you set the aperture and your camera sets the shutter speed automatically. In TV mode, you set the shutter speed and your camera sets the aperture automatically. In Manual mode, you set everything yourself.
As I stated previously, these are basic settings to get you started. Over time, you may find that you like to use the manual mode only- or you use certain combinations of shutter speed and aperture not commonly used.
If you are a newbie or a guru- would love to hear your thoughts on the Basic Camera Settings I suggested!