One of the key concepts in photography that is essential to understand in order to take control of your camera and take consistently better photos is exposure. Exposure is how bright or how dark your photo is, and three settings in your camera determine whether your photo is going to be underexposed (too dark) or overexposed (too bright).

Photos by Corey Bradder

Aperture: Inside your camera’s lens there is an Iris that expands and contracts to let more or less light hit the camera’s sensor. How large or small the aperture is measured by a system called F-Stops or as you may hear your favorite photographer or photography guru call them “stops”. The larger the opening in the lens is the smaller the number is going to be, and the smaller the opening in the lens is the larger the number will be. I.e. F2.8 is considered a large aperture or a wide open aperture, while F16 or F22 is a much smaller opening in the lens. A couple things will happen as you change your aperture; the larger or wider the aperture is (F1.4, F2.8 etc.) the less will be in focus in your photo, this is referred to as a shallow depth of field and is great for portraiture and separating subjects from the background of your photo. The smaller the opening in the lens (F16, F22, etc.) the more will be in focus in your photos which is ideal for landscapes and nature, or architecture photography. Also as you decrease the size of your aperture the shutter will have to remain open longer in order to allow enough light to hit the sensor of the camera to capture the image.

Shutter Speed: When you press your camera’s shutter release to take a photograph the amount of time that the camera’s sensor is exposed to light is called the shutter speed. Shutter speed is usually measured in seconds or fractions of seconds, but can be as long as minutes or hours! Your shutter speed has a direct effect on the outcome of your photographs not just for the exposure but the look of the photo as well. A fast shutter speed which can be anything above 1/250th of a second and will freeze any action in the frame giving you a clear photo of your moving subject. This is great for when you are taking action photos of sports, kids, or anything else that moves quickly. On the other hand a slow shutter speed which can be anything less than 1/60th can cause any object in your photo that is moving to be blurred or not appear clear. This can be used to create an effect in photos where the rushing water in a river is smooth and blurred, or showing the movement of a person moving through the frame to create a story within the photo. When you use slow shutter speeds it becomes more important to use a tripod otherwise your photos can become blurry from handshake which can ruin the photo you are trying to take.

ISO: Controlling how sensitive to light you camera is can be controlled by the ISO. Raising the ISO will cause the camera’s sensor to become more sensitive to light which will allow the sensor to gather more light in darker situations. If you are taking a photo in a room with no windows an ISO of 100 will be much too low, but if you raise your ISO to 400 or 800 the camera is able to compensate for the lack of light and you will be able to take a photo that is properly exposed and clear. Raising your ISO can have some negative effects on the photograph, although modern technology has made incredible leaps in this area you still can get noise or colour artifacts in your photo. Noise is similar to film grain but without the pleasing aesthetic and can decrease the quality of your photograph.

Now for how this all ties in together, think of the 3 settings like a triangle if you change one it is going to affect the other. If you raise your ISO you’re going to have to either increase your shutter speed or make your aperture smaller to compensate for the increase in light sensitivity so your photo is not too bright. If you are to change your aperture from F2.8 to F11 you are going to need to slow your shutter speed down to make sure the sensor is getting enough light, or increase the ISO so that the sensor can gather more light with less light coming through the lens. And finally if you are to raise your shutter speed from 1/60th of a second to 1/500th of a second, you will need to open up the aperture to let more light through the lens or raise the ISO to make the sensor able to capture more light. When you talk about exposure on paper it can seem like a confusing or complicated concept but once you get the hang of it, it will become second nature. The best way to understand exposure is to set up your camera to take a photo of one scene, and keep changing the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO to help visualize how these settings will affect your photos when changed.