DSLR Camera Guide

In this post, I will discuss DSLR cameras and their functions.

• DSLR stands for Digital Single Lens Reflex. 
• It basically means a camera with one lens and a mirror which reflects the light, where pictures are recorded on a digital card instead of film.

 Exposure

• Exposure is the amount of light a digital camera's sensor captures when a photo is taken. 
• Too much light results in a washed out photo (overexposed). 
• Too little light and the photo will be too dark (underexposed). 
• A camera's Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO settings directly affect exposure, but more importantly, they allow you to control how each photo will look.

Overexposed:

Underexposed:

Aperture

Aperture settings control the size of the lens opening that allows light into your camera. This allows the user to blur the foreground and background surrounding your subject (depth of field) by opening up the aperture with a low f-stop number. Alternatively, you can keep the photo sharp from the foreground through to the background (wide depth of field) by closing the aperture down with a higher f-stop number.

• The aperture setting controls the size of the lens opening that allows light into your camera.
• You can blur the foreground and background that bracket your subject (known as shallow depth of field) by opening up the aperture with a low f-stop number.
• Alternatively, you can keep your photo sharp from the foreground through to the background (known as wide depth of field) by closing the aperture down with a high f-stop number.
• High F-Stop number allows less light in, creating a wider depth of field. This provides a sharp foreground, mid background, and background. 
• Low F-Stop number allows in more light, giving a shallow depth of field and an out of focus background and foreground.

What is an F-Stop number? 
F-Stops are how aperture size is measured. A small F-Stop such as f/2:0 means the aperture will be wide open and lots of light allowed into the camera. A higher F-Stop like f/32 gives a small aperture, which doesn't allow as much light in. 

Large Aperture (f22):

Small Aperture (f 2.8):

Shutter Speed

• The shutter speed setting controls how long the shutter opens to expose the image sensor to that light. 
• Open it for just a millisecond and you can freeze a fast moving subject. 
• Alternatively, you can show the movement of a fast-moving subject by keeping it open longer with a slow shutter speed. A longer shutter speed means the shutter is open for longer and can capture more light as more reaches the image sensor, this means moving objects will be blurred.
• However less light will allow the image sensor to capture photos of fast moving objects.

Short Shutter Speed (1 second):

Long Shutter Speed (1/6000):

ISO

• The ISO is how sensitive your image sensor is to light. 
• With the ISO setting, a camera's image sensor can be adjusted to detect more, or less light as needed for a good exposure. 
• The higher the ISO, the more sensitive the sensor will be, and the brighter the image will be. 
• The lower the ISO, the less light it's going to bring in, and the darker the image is going to be. 
• If you're shooting in low-light, you will want to boost your ISO so that the image will be brighter. 
• If you're shooting in a bright, sunny place, you'll want to lower your ISO, or the image will be overly-bright. 
• High ISO will cause graininess so as a rule use the lowest ISO possible. 

High ISO (6400):

Low ISO (100):