Aperture
I don't want to confuse you too much, because aperture is one of the most important variables that can be changed in photography. Especially when you turn the dial to manual. Aperture is based all around f-stops. The lower the f-stop, the more open the sensor is, meaning basically, how much light is going to come into the sensor. If you shoot at f/1.8, then your photos might be overexposed unless your other settings are set properly, like shutter-speed and ISO. If you shoot a photo at f/8, then your photo might be underexposed and you might not be able to see major details. But if you want the silhouette of a person and only the beach to be seen behind them, higher f-stops are recommended.
Each of these photos were shot at 1/320th of a second, and ISO 400. The only variable that changed was the aperture.
Depth of field
This photo to your left was shot at f/1.8. As you can see, the flowers in the middleground are in focus, however, the foreground and background flowers are out of focus.
This is depth of field.
Depth of field is something that can be achieved much better with a prime lens and a low f-stop. I already told you that this photo was shot at f/1.8, which means that the sensor opened up and lots of light came into the sensor. For macro, yes, a lens with a 500mm focal length would work very nicely. You would think. Lenses like that are for taking photos of the moon, not your average ant. A 40mm Micro would work much better due to the f-stops it can achieve. An 18-70mm can only go as far as f/4.5 at 18mm, and f/5.6 at 70mm. Primes can achieve lower f-stops, resulting in better depth of field, resulting in a better macro shot. Enough of a lesson?
This is depth of field.
Depth of field is something that can be achieved much better with a prime lens and a low f-stop. I already told you that this photo was shot at f/1.8, which means that the sensor opened up and lots of light came into the sensor. For macro, yes, a lens with a 500mm focal length would work very nicely. You would think. Lenses like that are for taking photos of the moon, not your average ant. A 40mm Micro would work much better due to the f-stops it can achieve. An 18-70mm can only go as far as f/4.5 at 18mm, and f/5.6 at 70mm. Primes can achieve lower f-stops, resulting in better depth of field, resulting in a better macro shot. Enough of a lesson?
shutter speed and |
Shutter speed
If you plan on being a sports photographer, or you want to take photos of action, or crispy clean shots in general, shutter speed is most likely going to be the most important factor for your photography. If a photo of a sweeping wave is taken at 1/4000th of a second, all the small droplets of water will be frozen in time. If you go at 1/60th of a second, then not only will the shutter take longer to open and close, the water might be blurry depending on if you have a tripod or not.
Have you ever seen those photos of waterfalls that look like the water is just silk that you could touch? Well the person who took that photo probably took it at a 1s exposure or more. This creates an effect like none other.
Have you ever seen those photos of waterfalls that look like the water is just silk that you could touch? Well the person who took that photo probably took it at a 1s exposure or more. This creates an effect like none other.
ISO
Think of it as artificially added light. It's like turning up the exposure and brightness though your camera's settings. ISO comes standard on all digital cameras, not film however. Some cameras have a auto-ISO function if you're too lazy to bother with it, or if you want to completely get rid of it, just get a film camera. Anyways, for cool-looking waterfalls like the one above, you don't want to bring the ISO anything above 320. If there is natural light that can be used instead of ISO, use it. ISO does increase the brightness in low light, but it has one problem, noise. Noise is something that all photographers hate. It's the term used to describe photo distortion. It doesn't make your photos look good. Trust me. Take a look: