exposure – Photography Know How

Photography Basics

Camera Shutter Speeds

In this photography lecture we’ll discuss camera shutter speeds. The shutter speed is one of the controls that determines the exact amount of exposure your film or image sensor receives.

Shutter speed controls the time of an exposure by controlling exactly how long the aperture remains open. The shutter speed also has other effects on your pictures which will be covered as well.

The following is a list of the full shutter speeds, starting with 1 second:

1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, etc.

Each of the above shutter speeds is 1/2 the amount of time as the previous speed.

Photography Basics

Apertures and F-stops

A camera is basically a light tight box, and in order to expose an image, there must be a way of letting in a controlled amount of light.

An aperture is simply a hole that lets in light.

The size of the hole is controlled by an iris diaphragm, a series of overlapping leaves located in the lens, that can be adjusted to various sizes.

Adjusting the size of the aperture controls the amount of light that enters the camera during exposure.

The size of the aperture opening is measured in f-stops.

Starting with f/1.0 we have a series of numbers that represent full stops.