Aperture and shutter speed, and the effect they have on images, are by far the most important two elements of photography to understand.
Once you have cracked this, everything else is relatively straightforward. But it can take years to drill it into your brain to the extent that it becomes second nature, so don’t worry if it doesn’t sink in after five minutes. Once you start putting it into practise, it will all make more sense.
When you take a picture, you have to decide on the right aperture (size of hole in the lens) and the right shutter speed (length of time the shutter is open) in order to get the correct amount of light to hit the the sensor, and hence expose the shot correctly. But there is more than just one way of getting that correct exposure.
So, for example – on an average day which is not too bright or too dark, I could choose an average aperture and an average shutter speed and this would give me a correctly exposed image. BUT I could also choose one of the following:
a) a large aperture and a fast shutter speed - lots of light, but for not much time
b) a small aperture and a slow shutter speed – so not much light, but for a longer time
Both of these will result in the same exposure, because both of them will let in the same amount of light eventually – just in different ways. And this is the key point behind exposure – there isn’t just one right answer for any shot you take.
The settings you choose are what enables you to tell the camera the type of shot you are looking to achieve - for example a blurry background on a portrait, or freezing the action on a sports shot, or capturing motion blur. This is where you become a photographer!
However, the important thing to understand is that if you change the amount of light hitting the sensor using one of these settings, you then have to alter the other one to compensate for the change.
If you make the aperture bigger (increase the size of the hole in the lens) you would let in more light in the same time period – so you have to make the shutter speed faster (have the shutter open for less time) to reduce the amount of light back down again.
Think of it like a see-saw – if one side changes, the other side has to change in the opposite direction to compensate, so your shot is always correctly exposed.
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