THE CAMERA

Literally, room in Latin. The instrument

with which photographs are taken,
consisting, at least, of a light-tight box, a
lens which admits focused light, and some
device for holding the film in position. In
a digital camera, the film is replaced by a
light sensitive digital sensor.

THE CAMERA

LENS

Light passing through a

lens is inverted. The
object photographed is
turned upside down on
the film or digital
sensor. In a SLR
camera, a set of mirrors
called a pentaprism
corrects this inversion.

During the exposure, the

mirror in the SLR
camera body flips up to
allows light to pass
through to the film or
digital sensor.

SINGLE-LENS REFLEX
(SLR) CAMERA

A single-lens reflex
camera shows you
the scene directly
through the lens by
employing a series of
mirrors.

SLR CAMERA

CONTROLLING THE AMOUNT

OF LIGHT

SHUTTER
Controls

the amount of light by the length of time

it remains open

APERTURE
(size of the lens opening) controls the brightness
of light that reaches the film
STOP refers to a change in exposure, whether the shutter speed or aperture is
changed
one stop more exposure means to double the light reaching the film
one stop less exposure means to half the light reaching the film

SHUTTER

Leaf Shutter
Located

inside the lens

Quieter than a focal-plane
shutter
Slower shutter speeds than a
focal-plane shutter
(only up to 1/500 sec.)

SHUTTER

Focal Plane Shutter

Located

inside the
camera body,
directly in front of
the film plane
Allows for faster
shutter speeds
(1/8000 sec.)
When using a flash,
must use slower
shutter speed

SHUTTER
SPEED

Slower
blurred
motion

-Each shutter speed is marked as the

bottom part of the fraction of a second
that the shutter remains open
2 (1/2 second)
8 (1/8 second)
*1/60 hand held
-Each full stop shutter setting is half or
double the time of the next one
B (bulb) shutter stays open as long as the release
button is pushed down
T (time) opens the shutter with one press of the
release, and closes with another

Faster
freezes
motion

SHUTTER SPEED

Slow shutter speed

Fast shutter speed

SLOW SHUTTER SPEED

FAST SHUTTER SPEED

SHUTTER SPEED

Panning

During the exposure,

the camera is moved in
the same direction as
the subject.
Resulting in a
reasonably sharp subject
and a blurred
background

Each f/stop number can be though of

as the bottom part of a fraction

APERTURE

The larger the f/stop number, the

smaller the lens opening
f/11 is a smaller opening

than

f/4

Each full stop aperture

setting allows half or
double the amount of
light as the next one

f/1.4

f/2

f/2.8

f/4

f/5.6

f/8

f/11

f/16

f/22

APERTURE

APERTURE

The area from near to far in a scene that is

acceptably sharp in a photograph

DEPTH OF FIELD
The smaller the aperture size, the more that a
scene will be sharp from near to far (deep
depth of field).
The larger the aperture size, the less that a
scene will be sharp from near to far (shallow
depth of field).
f/22 provides more depth of field than f/4

DEPTH OF FIELD

DEPTH OF FIELD

DEPTH OF FIELD

Smaller aperture (f/22)

Larger aperture (f/4)

deep depth of field

shallow depth of field

DEPTH OF FIELD

Shallow Depth of Field

Deep Depth of Field

SHUTTER and APERTURE

To get a correctly exposed picture, you need a

combination of shutter speed and aperture
Each

shutter speed lets in twice as much light as the

next faster speed
1/60 lets in 2x as much light as 1/125

Each

aperture setting lets in twice as much light as the

next smaller opening (larger-numbered setting)
f/4 lets in 2x as much light as f/5.6

EXPOSURE

EXPOSURE

F stop

f/22

f/16

f/11

f/8

f/5.6

f/4

f/2.8

shutter speed 1/4

1/8

1/15

1/30

1/60

1/125

1/250

EQUIVALENT EXPOSURES

FOCAL LENGTH

FOCAL LENGTH