3 Important Parameters of Photography

    In previous article where we discussed about the basics of photography, you may have come across these three terms- shutter speed, aperture and ISO. Well, these three terms are the three main parameters of the photography. These three parameters can be found in the details attached of every photograph. Whenever you take a photograph, just check the details of that photograph, you'll see these three terms in the details. For example go to your camera roll in gallery of your mobile and open any photo's details. You will find something like this-

    Here you can see the some numbers in front of these parameters. I will explain that later, but first to know what these parameters are, we have to know about hardware of the camera. No matter which camera, every camera has same type of architecture, which is- lens>shutter>sensor.

    So lens is the main thing on which the light falls and passes through the shutter. The shutter looks likes this in DSLR camera-

    These are mechanical parts and they open and close. The light passes through this and falls on the sensor inside which takes all the data and is processed further. So now that you know these basic hardware and architecture of camera, we can now learn and understand these parameters.

1. Shutter Speed

    Shutter speed is the speed at which the shutter opens and closes after we press the button to click the photo. We have different shutter speeds in the settings menu to select from. Shutter speeds are displayed as 1/20, 1/100, 1/4000, 5",  15", etc. These numbers depict speed per second, for example the shutter speed 1/20 is basically the shutter opens and closes in 1/20th of a second. That means it will stay open for 1/20th of a second and light and can only pass through that period of time. Also 15" means the shutter stays open for  15" after pressing the click button.

    So, faster the shutter closes, lesser light gets passed through and hence resulting in a darker image, but also is useful in capturing moving object and still produce a still photo. Hence some shutter speed relations that will help you while clicking photographs-

• Faster shutter speed = darker photos, but gives still photos
• Slow shutter speed = brighter photos, but some disturbance can give you a shaky photo.

For example- Fast shutter speeds- 1/200, 1/500, 1/2500, etc.

Slow shutter speed- 1/10, 1/5, 5",  etc.

2. Aperture

    The mechanical part inside the lens that has the ability to expand and contract is where the aperture is based on. It can expand and contract to various sizes. These are know as F-stops. It looks like this-

    F-stops has some values just as shutter speed. They are f/1.4, f/2.0, f/2.8 and so on. Here, smaller the F-stop number is, wider the aperture is open. And wider the aperture is open, the more blur the background gets. So, just like shutter speed we have aperture relations that will help you while clicking photographs.

• Smaller aperture value = wider opened aperture
• Wider aperture = brighter image and more blur background
• Narrower aperture = darker images, less blur background. (This setting helps while clicking a close-up of extremely bright object such as light bulb )

3. ISO

    ISO is an universal standard which decides the brightness of an image. ISO has values such as 50, 100, 200, 1600, etc. Higher value of ISO gives you a brighter image but also gives grains which degrades the quality of the photo and vice versa. Don't forget that ISO is an universal standard, which means ISO 50 on Nikon camera is as same as on Canon camera. Hence, ISO can be used on any camera without expecting different results. Relation in terms of ISO-

• Higher ISO = brighter image but grainy image.
• Lower ISO = darker image but less grainy and high quality.

    This is it from this article where I tried to explain the three important parameters of photography. In the upcoming articles I will tell how to use for taking a good photograph. But for taking a good photograph you must avoid doing some mistakes. To learn more about these mistakes, click here. 

    And let me know what you feel about this article, also don't forget to comment/discuss photography in comment section.