Sounding Board

Feel free to skip over this... It's just me studying... :)

Exposure- how much light you allow to reach your camera sensor.

The amount of light that reaches the sensor(exposure) is the result of the interaction of three factors being, your ISO, aperture, and shutter speed.

ISO- International Standard Organization: A rating scale used to determine how sensitive a sensor is in reading light.

Depending on your camera, it can be anywhere between 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, or 6400. Each step represents a doubling of the sensors sensitivity to light.
With lower ISO being less sensitive, and higher ISO being more sensitive. With higher ISO the camera loses it's ability to record detail. Your photos will be less sharp and have more noise. Shoot at the lowest ISO possible!

Aperture- refers to the mechanism inside the lens which controls the amount of light which passes through the lens to the sensor when the shutter opens.

Snack attack... ok so I've been working on this for hours... and looking forward to some of my All Dressed chips after my hard work... well I go downstairs and grab the bag only to find it has been devoured with a few crumbs left in the bottom of the bag! Oh man... so much for snack attack...

Anyways.. back to work.

Aperture- most cameras range from f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11 and f/16. Each increment represents a halving or doubling of the amount of light that will pass through the lens to the sensor during the exposure. Contrary to ISO, the larger the f/stop number the less light will pass through the lens. Example: f/4 let's in more light then f/8.

Aperture effects the depth of field or DOF. The smaller the aperture setting, the less depth of field. If you want more of the image in focus use a higher number of f/stop. If you want a very shallow depth of field use a smaller number f/stop.

Shutter Speed- represents how long the cameras sensor is exposed to light, measured in seconds.

Rules of Thumb regarding Shutter Speed

To take sharp photos, your shutter speed must be equal to or more then the reciprocal of your focal length for non-moving objects. Example: if you are shooting at 55mm, your shutter speed must be at least 1/60. To freeze movement in your photos, you must be shooting at least at 1/500.

Are you getting all this?? I know I'm not... see I go over some of my pics and for instance there is one of these berries... here let me show you. Ahh I can't find it... Time to go to bed... anyways f/11 and super shallow depth of field so what the heck?

Ah whatever... I'll finish another night. Chances are you'll have to put up with me studying for a while.