Photography 101 – Camera Aperture and Shutter Speed Basics

If you want to just point and shoot, then using pre-set modes (like “sports” or “macro” on your camera make it easy to get a perfect shot. If you're new to photography, two of the most important things to learn are aperture and shutter speed settings as these will give you a lot of creative control. If you're wondering which cameras have these settings, some digital compacts have them while most of the bridge (prosumer) cameras do and all SLRs have them.

At first it seems a little daunting to start using manual camera settings, but the vast improvement in your pictures will be worth the effort. And with all of your great new images, you'll have lots of fun selecting different styles of wood photo frames and metal picture frames that make each picture stand out.

Photography 101 – Learning About Camera Aperture

The aperture of a camera works a lot like how the iris of a person's eye works. Similar to your irises and how they widen or narrow to let in more or less light through the pupils, the camera's lens diaphragm narrows or widens to let in less or more light in through the lens. The aperture is the size of this opening.

Aperture lets the photographer (or the camera's exposure computer if it's set to automatic) increase or reduce the amount of light that gets through to the sensor, thus helping determine how bright or dark the picture will be.

The camera aperture also controls the image's depth of field.

To get a good idea of what this means, make a fist, holding it in front of your eye. Then slowly open your fist. Notice when the opening in your hand is small everything you see is in focus? But when your fist is open wide, the object closest to you is sharper than the background?

A small aperture is good for taking pictures where you want it all in focus, like a landscape.

When you use your camera's Aperture Priority setting you can set the aperture to whatever f-stop number you want. These f stop numbers represent ratios meaning that the larger the f stop number, the narrower the aperture. So the larger the f-stop number on your camera, the larger the depth of field.

The reason for the “Priority” in the setting's name is that when you set the aperture, the camera does its best to set the shutter speed so that the exposure is right (not too dark or too bright). In other words, in the wider scheme of exposure, the aperture setting will have priority, while shutter speed plays a supporting role.

Photography 101 – Learning About Shutter Speed

While the camera aperture controls the amount of light that hits the image sensor, the shutter speed controls the length of time the camera allows in the light.

You may have noticed how people in pictures taken in the 19th century rarely are smiling. Shutter speeds were so slow back then that people had to hold perfectly still for several minutes – not to mention in all those stiff clothes they wore for picture day. No wonder they  looked so stern!

The shutter speeds most commonly used today are 1/500th of a second to 1/60th of a second. By using Shutter Priority, you can then choose the shutter speed (within your camera's range) for the exact effect you want.

For shutter speeds slower than 1/60 you will probably need a tripod or other camera support because when the shutter is open that long the camera records the tiniest jiggle, causing the photo to be out of focus or outright blurry.

If you want to freeze action (like what Sports mode does), set the camera's Shutter Priority to a fast speed. You can be a lot more selective with this manual type of setting. For example, a soccer game may require up to 1/500 to freeze the action, while if photographing a pet sitting quietly, a shutter speed of around 1/125 will freeze the small actions, like a slight twitch of the tail.

Using manual settings like Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority give you more creative control, which means better pictures that you can display in nice picture frames.

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