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Aperture (AV mode)Aperture is to do with how large the hole is in the back of a camera lens. This controls the depth of field. *look at the photograph on the left hand side, the f number determines how large the hole in the back of the lens is going to be. A lower f number (a bigger hole) gives you a bigger aperture. By doing this, you are increasing the amount of light that can reach the image sensor (as the hole is bigger) but you are decreasing the depth of field *look at the second photograph marked F1.8 (this gives you an idea of how f numbers work visually). A higher f number (a smaller hole) gives you a smaller aperture. By doing this, you are increasing the depth of field in your photograph, but are allowing less light into the image sensor. *Look at the photograph on the left marked F22 (this again gives you an idea of how f numbers work visually.

As stated above F numbers change the aperture of the image, but can some problems arise when doing so? Let's assume your camera is on aperture priority mode (this meaning it is only the aperture of the camera you have to manually change) When using a high f stop number, the camera will have to prolong the time the shutter is open to allow more light in. This can cause a problem as not everyone has a tripod to hand & using a shaky hand will disrupt the image quality.

A large depth of field (high f number, smaller aperture) allows you to capture the whole image in sharp detail. It allows the closest & furthest objects in the photograph to be in focus.A shallow depth of field (low f number, large aperture) allows you to capture a specific part of an image in sharp detail. This only allows the main subject to be focus & the rest of the image will be out of focus (blurred & not easily visible). Both can be used as strengths & weaknesses in certain genres of photography. For example, a small aperture would be ideal for a landscape photograph, whereas this may not be useful in photography like portrait (where a larger aperture would be ideal).

The use of a low aperture (big hole) of 3.5 in this photograph has decreased the depth of field in this particular photograph. As you can see, the photograph is not focusing on what is directly in front of the lens, but more on what is happening on the first computer you can see. The rest of the photograph is out of focus. The low aperture would have allowed a quick shutter speed to occur as a lot of light can hit the image sensor due to the big hole.

This is around a middle aperture (medium hole) for the camera I was using. As I increased the aperture to 10.0, the depth of field would have increased as well. You can clearly see in the photograph that this has occurred, as the only thing really out of focus now are the earphones & a part of the desk. The rest of the photograph is in focus. The medium aperture would have allowed a slightly slower shutter speed compared to a low shutter speed, as more light would have been needed to hit the image sensor.

This is a high aperture (small hole) for the camera I am using. As I increased the aperture to 22.0, the depth of field continued to increase. You can that everything in the photograph is in focus (up until you reach the back wall). The high aperture would have allowed a much slower shutter speed compared to the two apertures above. This is due to the small hole in the lens, it cannot gather enough light with a quick shutter speed. This can possibly cause shaking to be visible in the photograph but it is not in this photograph.

F3.5

F10.0

F22.0

Shutter Speed (Tv mode)Shutter speed is basically how long the shutter of the camera will be open before it closes when you take a photograph. Different shutter speeds give you different results in your photography. For example *look at the left hand side photograph marked 1.5 seconds this shows you a slow shutter speed. A slow shutter speed will allow more light to hit the image sensor. This can be good when you are capturing a photograph in a dark place. An example of a fast shutter speed *left photograph 1/500second. This allows you to capture a very quick image which does not let a lot of light in. This can be useful when you are shooting on a bright, sunny day.

Each kind of shutter speed comes with its own ups and downs *the photograph on right. The slower the shutter speed, the more 'movement' you will produce in your image. Compare this to a faster shutter speed, you would produce an image that freezes the movement. Each technique can be useful, depending on what photograph you are wanting to produce. With a slower shutter speed, you should expect shaking & unwanted movement in your photographs (this is if you do not have a tripod with you. with a faster shutter speed, you can find that not enough light is being produced in the image, so you will have to counter balance this by increasing the ISO. This will lead to a lower quality image that can feature noise & grain.

If you want to take photographs like these and not have to worry about changing other things, I would recommend using the camera on TV. This allows you to only change the shutter speed manually. You can produce the kind of images you want & the camera will do the rest.

This photograph was taken with the shutter speed of 1 second. Because the shutter speed was slow, the image sensor could pick up on a lot of light & shaking that was occurring. You can now see this within the image. It has picked up on the movement of my hand whilst I was shaking & moving it. The aperture would have been high as a lot of light wold have been able to hit the image sensor.

This photograph was taken with the shutter speed of 1/50 of a second. This shutter speed is faster than the one above, but is still slower than the one below. As it is faster than the one above, it has captured less movement in the image, but there is still some blurred lines on some of my fingers due to the movement. The aperture should have decreased to allow more light in, but I used TV mode and it appears that the camera did not do this automatically.

This photograph was taken with the shutter speed of 1/1000, which is a very fast shutter speed on this camera. It is faster than the two above, which has allowed the camera to stop the movement in the image. This id due to the fact the image sensor does not have a lot of time to pick up moving parts of the image. Just like the photograph above, I used TV mode which should have lowered the aperture to make the image brighter, but the camera has not done this. This has then made the image a lot darker than it needed to be.

1”

1/50

1/1000

ISO settingsThe ISO is another feature found on some cameras. What the ISO does is change how sensitive the sensor in the camera is to light. The bigger the number is, the more sensitive the sensor is. For example an ISO of 100 will not increase how sensitive the sensor is a lot, whereas an ISO of 6400 will increase the sensitivity significantly. Most of the time ISO is not needed in photographs, which is one of the reasons why it has not got its own setting on the camera (like AP or TV).

Looking at what the ISO can do for an image, look at the two photographs at the bottom of the page In the first photograph, you can see that the increase in ISO has increased how much light is featured in the image. In the second image, you can see how ISO can end up ruining an image. When the ISO is at 100, you can see a clear image with no noise. You then look at the image with an ISO of 6400, you will see a lot of noise featured in the photograph. Noise happens due to the fact the image sensor will try & heighten the individual pixels found in the photograph & heighten there colour as much as possible, the sensor does not always do this very well. This leads to discolouration & noise within the photograph.

For the reasons stated in the above paragraph, it is always recommended to alter other features like aperture & shutter speed before using ISO. Sometimes ISO is essential though as the other features have their problems too.

I took this photograph with an ISO of 100 (which is the lowest the ISO goes on the camera I used). The ISO changes the sensitivity the image sensor has to light. As I kept it low, the sensitivity was also low. This allowed for an even photograph with virtually no grain or noise found within the image.

As I increased the ISO, I increased the sensitivity of light. This has given me a slightly lighter image that the one before. Due to the fact I increased the ISO, some slight noise has become apparent on the mouse. No discolouration has occurred though, which can be seen as a good thing.

I again increased the image sensors sensitivity to light again by increasing the ISO to 1600. This a the second highest ISO on the camera I used. As I increased it again, the image has an increase of noise in it. I also noticed some discolouration around the edges of the light on the mouse, which is due to the high ISO. This decreases the overall quality of the image.

100

400

1600

White Balance

White balance is another feature you will find on this camera. The white balance basically does what it says in the title: it balances the white out in a image. The camera has to do this as 'true white' is differs depending on what kind of lighting you are taking the photo under. On the camera you will find different settings for different kinds of light. The table & diagram below explain very well what K (Kelvin) different kind of lights have.

Usually, the auto-white setting is enough to use in most situations, but some photographers like to alter the white balance on purpose. Altering the white balance on purpose can allow the photographer to have a colour filter over their photographs. For example, a photographer could use a shade setting (which would be around 9000K) but not on shade, but on a sunny day. This would give the photograph much warmer tones. Using this trick, the photographer can convey different emotions & tones in his/her photography.

The four above images are just 4 of the different automatic light balance settings you will find on this camera. The different settings have altered the same image in different ways.The first image was taken with the daylight white balance setting (around 5000/6000k), this has not altered the image a lot so the colouring is exactly how you would actually see it. The next image was taken with the white balance setting of shade (you would usually use this in a situation with 9000K). This setting would usually be used in a dark & cool setting (the setting would then make it warmer) but as it was used in an already warm & sunny area, it has just added on to this. The next image was taken with the white balance of tungsten light (around 2000K). This setting would make the tungsten light less warm & cool it down. Due to this fact, it has made the sunny seen very cool & very blue. The last one was taken with the automatic white balance setting of Flash. Flash has a similar K to the first photograph I had taken, which has allowed a similar looking image to be produced, but with a slight warmth coming through the photographs.

ShadeDaylight

FlashTungsten Light

Original image

Cropped

Curves

Levels

Dodging and burning

Colour adjustments

Curves (red, blue, green) Hue & saturation

Colour balance