Aperture and shutter speed settings can be a thing of mystery when you first begin using a Digital SLR. However, it is more than worth your while to consider a photography course online to teach you how to master these key aspects. Using automatic settings can be fine for many situations, but imagine the power you have when you are in total control of your camera, rather than the other way round. No longer do you need to make do with a photograph that you thought was the best your camera could produce - having control over aperture and shutter means you can always make the most of challenging conditions.
Basically, aperture and shutter speed settings will dictate the exposure of your photograph. Aperture is the hole allowing light through to your photo. It's similar to the iris in your eye - the more light that is available, the more closed your camera's aperture needs to be to control how much light comes through. Too much light leads to overexposure.
Aperture settings also affect the focus of your picture - which parts of the picture are in focus and which parts are out of focus. This is known as depth of field. A small aperture creates a large depth of field, meaning both your main subject and background elements are all in focus. Conversely, a wide aperture gives you a small depth of field, allowing you, for example, to have a subject of a portrait in focus, with the background blurred. Whilst this can seem somewhat daunting to those just beginning, a suitable photography course online will show that this is not a difficult skill to learn. Practice makes perfect, as with most things in life.
Shutter speed dictates how long the exposure goes on for. The longer the shutter remains open, the more light comes in, and the brighter your final image will be. Therefore, this element of the photograph also needs to be carefully managed in order to produce the picture you want.
Secondly, shutter speed affects how movement is recorded in your photograph. So if you were out at a day's motor racing, for example, you would need to use a fast shutter speed to freeze the action, or similarly, slow the shutter speed down if you purposely want to create a final blurred image. This trick works particularly well at nighttime. Try standing on a bridge over a busy road and capturing the traces of car headlights as the traffic passes by - although you would need to additionally use a tripod here to prevent camera shake upsetting your final picture.
Finding the correct combination of aperture and shutter settings can be the difference between an average image and a truly stunning photograph. With most modern digital cameras you can choose these automatically or set them yourself. For the beginner, auto settings work well in most conditions, but a real photographer will control the creative process by making these adjustments manually. A decent photography course online will remove any confusion surrounding this subject.
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