Understanding Aperture, ISO, White Balance, and Shutter
Speed
White BalanceWhite Balance affects the balance of the images; it
could make it warmer or cooler. This has a massive effect on the
feel of the image. There are a number of settings that could be
chosen on a DSLR and cameras that corresponds to the current
lighting, for example cloudy, sunny, fluorescent etc. Below are
several examples of the same object taken at different
settings.
Different settings give off a different feel to the image, for
example the incandescent white balance setting, gives a very cool
aura to the image. The white balance of the image should always be
taken into consideration before photographing as it dictates the
colour the image, a mismatched white balance could potentially have
degrading effect on the quality of the image, or turn your whites
into yellow. This shows unprofessionalism and makes your work
appear amateurish, unless that is the feel you are going for.
ISO
ISO, dictates the sensitivity of your cameras sensor to the
light, it has different ranges depending on how light and dark it
is. It is vital to stick to relatively low ISO at most times, to
prevent noise and keep most of the details on your images. Normally
a lower ISO such as 100 is used when photographing in brightly lit
situations, whilst Hi.2 is used when photographing stars in
complete darkness. Below are examples of the same object
photographed in different ISO settings.
As you can see the higher ISO setting completely washes out the
images in light, this has occurred because a higher ISO setting is
normally used when it is far darker. It is important to take into
consideration the ISO setting you are using, it is always advised
to stay in a lower ISO setting as there is some manoeuvrability
within post-production to change its brightness, however a photo
shot in a high ISO setting such as the one above does not.
Aperture
Aperture is the number that shows the size of the iris of the
camera, it is measure in f/stop, a low aperture such as f/1.8 means
that the iris is wide open, whilst f/13 is almost closed. The
aperture dictates the amount of light that is let into camera
sensor. This also dictates the depth of field within the shot, a
lower f/stop means a low depth of field (background blurred) whilst
a higher f/stop means that the foreground and background are almost
both in focus. Below are photographs of the same object with
different apertures.
As you can see from these images, the lower f/stop allowed lots
of light to enter into the lens, making the image bright and very
sharp, but making the background blurred because it has a high
depth of field, whilst the image with the higher f/stop is dark,
and not as sharp, the background is now not blurred but in focus.
The aperture of your lens should always be taken into consideration
as it dictates the feel of the image.Shutter SpeedShutter speed
also known as exposure is the length that the cameras shutter is
open, this once again dictates the amount of light that goes into
the cameras sensor, it can range from Bulb mode to 1 second to
upwards of 1/1000. The higher the shutter speed the less light will
enter, but this will allow you to photograph very fast moving
objects and freeze it, lower shutter speed below 1/60 will give any
moving objects motion blur, although this is not bad, as this will
give your images a dynamic feel to it. Below are examples of the
same objects photographed with different shutter speed
settings.
As you can see from the images, the image with the longer
shutter speed allowed more light to go into the cameras sensor thus
washing out the image in white, whilst the bottom in image with a
shorter shutter speed, just allowed enough light for a balance
shot. It is important to take into consideration the shutter speed,
whether you want photograph fast moving objects or take long
exposures.