Article 1: Shutter Speed and Aperture for Advanced Dummies
1.1Shutter Speed and Aperture for Advanced Dummies
For the first article to be posted on this site, I chose to start with something simple yet important. Shutter speed and aperture are the judges to how your photo turns out, they work in unison and both have important parts in how the photo looks. With digital cameras selling for less each year, the simplest point-and-shoot cameras now have the ability to allow you to change aperture and shutter speeds.
This is where the creative part of you comes out. With the ability to select shutter speeds and aperture you now have more control over what your photos will look like, getting further away from the snapshot looks, and more towards professional looking.
Ok, are you ready for this? Its simple, and with a bit of practice, you will have mastered the camera!
1.2First we'll start with shutter speed. You chose this setting by switching to "S" or Shutter Speed Setting on your camera. Technically this is how fast the shutter lets light into the camera. This is done by the "shutter", which can be either a curtain type (think like a small theater curtain opening from one end) or a flip up kind (we'll say like a solid garage door opening upwards). This action takes as little time as 1/8000th of a second in better cameras to as long as you hold down the button (possibly hours if you have it locked down).
The amount of time you have the shutter open depends on the amount of light that is coming in the lens, so the darker it is around you, then the longer you want it open. More light around you = shorter shutter speed. Less light = longer shutter speed. Makes sense?
Now how does this help me you say? Well let's look at a common problem with "snapshot" looks. Say you're taking a photo in a darker room, so the flash has to be used. You get a shot where the people in front of the camera are bright but it is just black behind them. No background can be seen. Here is where we use the manual shutter speed. Normally (and I say that loosely because it depends on the camera), the shutter speed that the camera wants to use for a flash is something like 1/100th of a second. This lets in the right amount of light for the flash, but not enough for the rest of the light in that room.
To get the room to show up we need to change the shutter speed to allow in the light, meaning A LONGER SHUTTER SPEED. Remember, less light = longer shutter. So we change the shutter speed to 1/15th of a second. The flash's light still hits the same amount, but the background lighting is given more time to reach the camera's sensor, and will show off more. Try this on your own, you may find that 1/15th is too long or still too short, and 1/10th or something else could be right. The benefit of digital is that you get to see your results for no cost, so play around!
1.3Time to take a look at aperture. Your aperture does two things for your photos: it dictates how much of your photo will be sharp (provided it is focused right), and it acts as a variable opening which limits the light that comes in the lens. Both of these features work together. The smaller your aperture hole, the wider your area of sharpness is (this is called your Depth of Field) and visa versa.
You choose to change just the aperture with the "A" or Aperture Setting on the camera. The aperture works as a circle of inward facing "petals", which close off or open depending on the aperture size(called the F-Stop) that you choose. The F-Stops are seen as a sequence of numbers, which are the same on every camera. The size of the opening depends on the F-Stop number, with the smallest number being the largest opening. Here are the basic F-Stop numbers in sequence:
f/1.4 f/2 f/2.8 f/4 5.6 8 11 16 22 32 etc
(larger opening --------------------------------------------------(smaller opening)
Ok enough with the technical. Here is how you use this to your advantage. First, as I said, the aperture determines your Depth of Field, which regulates how much of your photo will be sharp (provided it is focused right). What this means is if you focus on a person who is 8 feet away from you and you use a large aperture (small number, eg: 4) then the tree 10 feet behind the person will be fuzzy. BUT if you focus on the person 8 feet from you using a small aperture (large number, eg: 18) then the tree 10 feet behind the person would be more in focus because your Depth of Field (Focus) is larger.
Aperture settings should be remembered if you want a special Depth of Field(Focus) because most automatic cameras try to keep the F-Stop in the mid range, so extreme Depth of Field must be set by you.
Now for your aperture's F-Stop to work properly, it must co-exist in balance with your shutter speed. Here's why: if you choose a large aperture (small number), then it is letting a lot of light into the camera's lens, so you don't need a long shutter speed, or your photo will be overexposed. The same goes in the opposite direction, if you want a small opening to get a bigger Depth of Field (larger number) then you must use a longer shutter speed or your photo will be underexposed.
Digital cameras make testing out all of this very easy. Take some time and test out these features if you haven't before.
By Aaron Robb