And I know I am still a dumb in photography. And I am here to learn from the experienced guys like you. Just a small help I nee [sic]. Just for a start up, please suggest me a basic setting from where I can start up. And latter on I will keep changing them in various conditions to observe the difference so I can learn myself more about the camera settings.
Sounds like what you need to do is set your camera to
Manual mode, and play with the three legs of the exposure triangle, to get a feel for how they relate.
Study page 57 of the manual that came with your camera for instructions on using M mode, and changing the shutter and aperture settings therein. Make sure the “Auto-ISO” mode is turned off (see page 129), and see page 51 to learn how to change the ISO value.
Start by setting the ISO to 100, the shutter speed to 1/100 of a second, and the aperture to ƒ16. That should be about right to take pictures outdoors in bright sunlight.
If you take a picture, and it is too dark or too bright, you can change one of the three legs to compensate.
The three legs are:
- ISO: In a stone-aged film camera, this would be determined by the film. With most such cameras, you'd load a roll of film, and for that entire roll, this parameter remains unchanged; you'd be stuck with it until you finished that roll of film, at which point you could start with a different roll of a different kind of film. Film “speed” refers to this parameter. A “fast” film is more sensitive to light, and has a higher ISO value. Faster films are usually grainier. On your DSLR, of course, you're not using film, and you're not stuck with the same setting for the whole roll of film. You can change it at will, from one picture to the next. Your D3200 supports an ISO range from 100 to 6400, plus a “HI-1” setting that supposedly is about equivalent to ISO 12800. Manually, you can set it to any of the following values:
- 100
- 200
- 400
- 800
- 1600
- 3200
- 6400
- HI-1 (12800)
Note that each of these values is twice that of the previous. A change of double or half is a “stop”. Under manual control you can change the ISO value in one-stop increments. A higher number means the sensor is more sensitive, and it takes less light to form a properly-exposed image. But as you go to higher ISO values, the sensor becomes noisier.
- Shutter speed: The D3200 lets you change the shutter speed in ⅓-stop increments. Increasing the shutter speed by three clicks will double it, halving the total exposure. Decreasing the shutter speed by three clicks will halve it, doubling the exposure. A slower shutter speed lets more light in, but also allows greater potential for motion blur. The faster things are moving in the picture that you want to come out sharp, the faster a shutter speed you need to use. Your own ability to hold the camera steady is also a factor. Conventional wisdom holds that one should generally expect to be able to go no slower than about 1/30 or 1/25 of a second with a handheld camera and a standard-focal-length lens.
- Aperture: As with the shutter speed, you can change the aperture value in ⅓-stop increments. The numbers are a bit less obvious than with ISO or shutter speed. The smaller the number, the wider the aperture, the more light it lets in. With ISO and shutter speed, doubling or halving the number doubles or halves the exposure. One aperture value differs from another a full stop away, not by a factor of two, but by a factor that is very close to, but not exactly the square root of two. In perfect theory, it would be by exactly the square root of two, but established convention uses numbers that are close, but much neater. Thus, an aperture of ƒ5.6 lets in twice as much light as ƒ8. Changing the ƒ value by a factor of two changes the exposure by a factor of four. ƒ8 lets in four times as much light as ƒ16. A wider aperture lets in more light, but also gives you less depth-of-field.
So, start at some set of settings, and take a picture. If it's too dark, increase the ISO, decrease the shutter speed, and/or go to a wide aperture (smaller ƒ number) and take another picture. One great thing about digital photography, compared to stone-aged film photography, is that you can see the result right away, and know what changes you need to make to make the next shot come out better. You also don't have to worry about wasting film. Just try it with the settings a certain way, take a picture, and then adjust the settings and try again.
When you've got the exposure right, play around with changing the parameters around. If you increase the shutter speed by one click, open the aperture one click, and the total exposure will be the same. Since the aperture and shutter change in ⅓-stop increments, and the ISO value in full-stop increments, you''l need to change shutter and/or aperture by three clicks before you can adjust the ISO by one click to compensate.
In general, you'll need to think about what kind of sharpness you want to sacrifice, in order to improve another.
If you want to stop fast motion, then you need to use a fast shutter speed.
If you want large depth of field (so that objects at different distances from the camera are in focus) then you need a small aperture (large ƒ-number).
If you want to keep the noise level low, then you need to go with a low ISO value.
Hopefully, this is enough to get you started. From here, I can't teach you anything. You need to learn yourself, by playing with your camera, and with these parameters.
