..Probably one the most difficult method to master is creating a perfect exposure. The reason for this is only experience can make good exposures. Do not expect to go out and take perfect images with excellent depth-of-field. It is a lot like riding a bike, you have to learn to balance. The balance balance in photography is to get a proper exposure. The balance is controlled by the Aperture and the Shutter Speed.

An aperture is the diameter of the opening for light to pass through the lens. Just like your eye, the camera just can't have a fixed opening, otherwise we would sometime have too much light and othertimes too little. Therefore we control the aperture of the camera to allow more or less light to be focused onto the film.

On the other side on this balancing act we have our shutter speed. The two have no real relationship other than they control the amounts of light. Aperture control the intensity while shutter speed controls the time that light is allowed to expose your film.

These two basic principles form the Law of Reciprocity. This law is the most important you'll ever learn. The better you understand it the better your images will come out. As we talked about earlier, basic daylight exposure, is the constant exposure for all increases or decreases made to an exposure. The Law allows you to trade off f-stops for shutter speeds to achieve the same exposure. You may be thinking that it sounds too easy. Well there is one thing we left out. When these exchanges take place between f-stops and shutter speeds, you are either "increasing" or "decreasing" your depth-of-field.

Your depth of field is something that we will discuss in more detail in later sections. For now just remember that it is what is in focus at different distances in the same scene.

Recording motion is also something that will be discussed in the next section, but for now it just needs to be known that motion is how a moving subject appears to be on your film.

Aperture is talked about among photographers as f-stops. These are unitary measures for the size of the hole. The strange thing and important idea to remember is that as your f-stop number increases the actual size of the hole decreases. Strange yes, don't ask why, I still don't even understand it ; ) For example if you were outside and it was BDE f - 16 would be letting in less light than if you were inside shooting at f - 8. THE LARGER THE NUMBER THE LESS LIGHT! It is an often mistake for students to forget this rule.

Below is a chart representing what an aperature looks like at different settings:

This all may seem very confusing, but soon you will master this and think nothing of it. Just think of it as learning to ride your camera, instead of your bike. If you need "training wheels" there is always the automatic function on the newer cameras. We don't recommend learning on those crutches at first, at least practice it until you have the concept down fairly well.

Click here to see the difference when changing your f-stop, you change the negative's density. Through this chart, compare the difference between all the different exposures and decide which one you would like most. This chart has a normal exposure setting "N" and the other variables in this instance were printing time and filter used. Don't worry about those other variables at this time. They are basically used to alleviate under or over exposed negatives. As you will learn later, you are usually not stuck with the negative you have to make a print.

By using filters and adjusting your printing time you can almost always make significant improvements to your photographs. This is a last resort however, the optimal way to make a good print is to have a good negative. To have a good negative you have to be a good photographer and understand the balancing act. m...

 

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