Photography is all about light. To let the camera “see” what you wish, you have tools controlling how much light reaches the camera sensor: the aperture and shutter speed controls. With too little light, your photo will be too dark. With too much light, it will be too bright.

When shooting, your goal is to expose the right amount of light to the camera sensor (that’s why it is called exposure). If you provide an insufficient amount of light, the photo will be too dark. If you expose too much light, the photo will be too bright. The larger the deviation from the normal exposure is, the more chance you have to hopelessly lose image data.

Aperture and depth of field

As explained above, aperture defines how large the hole is through which the sensor sees the world. In photography, aperture is measured in units called F-numbers, F-stops or whatever else with this F-. Without going into details about what exactly this F- is (I would need to look it up myself to explain, physics again), all you really need to know is the following. The smaller the F-number is, the larger the aperture hole is, and the more light reaches the sensor. From now on by “large aperture” I will mean a large aperture hole (and a small F-number), and vice versa by “small aperture”.

Shutter speed

Shutter speed is the time while the shutter curtain is open, exposing the sensor to light. Don’t worry, there are no frightening F-numbers here :-). Shutter speed is measured in normal seconds. At bright day light, we usually use hundredths of a second. When cloudy, in shade etc., might be tenths of a second. At night it comes to full seconds.

Shutter speed

Shutter speed is the time while the shutter curtain is open, exposing the sensor to light. Don’t worry, there are no frightening F-numbers here :-). Shutter speed is measured in normal seconds. At bright day light, we usually use hundredths of a second. When cloudy, in shade etc., might be tenths of a second. At night it comes to full seconds.