Camera Basics

As I studied photography at A-level, we were not taught much on the basic terminology of camera settings etc. such as "aperture" "f-stops" and "ISO"

For me to progress in both being able to talk through my images and actually improving my photographs i will have to understand these terms. This will be a quick explanation on such terms.

ISO

ISO is basically how sensitive the image sensor is to the amount of light you are looking at through the lens. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive the lens will be and therefor images can be taken perfectly in high light situations.

ISO button on a Sony Alpha DSLR

APERTURE 

Aperture is basically the size of the opening of the camera lens.

When you hit the shutter button of your camera lens hole opens up that allows your camera catch an image of the scene you’re wanting to capture. The aperture that you set impacts the size of that hole. The larger the hole the more light gets in and the smaller the hole the less light.

F-STOPS

F-stop is a measurement of Dynamic Range on a digital camera. F-stop simply means how much light exposure the digital camera is getting. 

Each measurement of how open or how closed an aperture is was given a name. That name is an F Stop. F-Stops are opposite to how far the lens is opening. For example to let in a lot of light and make the aperture larger, it might be an F-Stop of 4

On the other hand, if you want to reduce the amount of light out, the aperture might shrink to a small circle, only letting a small amount of light in on a setting of e.g. F-Stop 22

F-Stop and Aperture measurements