Originally Posted by bananaz

1. Shutter speed - the faster it is, the sharper the image. However, the faster it is, the less light is let into the lens so you don't want to make it too fast, especially when you're inside and don't have a ton of available light. I would recommend having a shutter speed of no slower than 1/125s when you're shooting a live subject.

2. Aperture - the smaller the number, the wider the aperture and the more light is let into the lens. Using a smaller number also creates a shallower depth of field and gives you that nice blurry background you see in professional-looking photos. However, if you have too wide an aperture you can end up with too shallow a depth of field and that means blurry pictures. If you're using the 50mm f/1.8 lens I would probably use an aperture of around f/2.0 or f/2.2

3. ISO - the bigger the number, the more sensitive the image sensor is to light so the brighter the picture. But the downside is that if you have this number set too big it can make the photo appear grainy, so I would try not to have it set any higher than 400.

How you have any of these set depends on the environment in which you're shooting. If you're outside and it's bright then you'd probably put the ISO as low as it will go and bump up your shutter speed so the picture isn't overexposed, whereas if it's dark out or you're indoors then you'd slow down the shutter speed and open up the aperture really wide and/or increase the ISO. For the picture of Elsie on the couch, it was indoors but there was a lot of light coming in through the window so I had it in manual mode with the aperture at f/2.0, ISO at 125, and shutter speed 1/250s.

If you want to learn more about this stuff you should check this link out, it goes much more in-depth: [url]http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-exposure.htm

Spoiler

Originally Posted by Leids

Awesome! Every time I see pictures of Elsie I smile. She's so adorable.

I'm finally getting used to manual mode. The live view has been really helpful too, I feel like I'm cheating a little bit with it. I think with the first 3 pictures I had the ISO set to 800 and aperture to 1.8., and I haven't really strayed from 1/125 shutter speed except when I was outside.

Originally Posted by jessicatunnel

I found that if I looked through the viewfinder it focuses A LOT faster and I can get sharper pictures. I hardly ever use live mode now!
Also I never really use 1.8 aperture, I usually use 2.0-2.5, think my pictures come out better then.

ETA: AHH, Elsie and Liam are just ADORABLE! (Leids is Liam what you call your baby? Hehe, don't want to get it wrong!)