If you remember from the last section, exposure is made up of two elements, the time light is allowed to strike the film and the amount of light being let into the camera. These two elements are controlled by the shutter speed and by the aperture. The following descriptions give you an insight on to how these work in their half of the exposure process.
4a) Shutter Speed
Shutter speed is half of the exposure process. On your camera there is a shutter speed selection dial. On the dial there are a number of settings with numbers (1000, 500, 250, 125, 60, 30, 15, 8, 4, etc. ). These numbers represent fractions of a second. The setting 1000 is actually 1/1,000 of a second, 125 is 1/125 of a second, and so on.
So, this dial controls the amount of time the camera
will let light strike the film. Pretty simple, huh?
4b) F-Stop
F-stop is the other half of the exposure process. F-stop is controlled by the aperture ring on your lens.
On this ring there are a series of numbers which are the F-stop settings ( 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22 ). The aperture ring controls an adjustable hole where the light passes through. This hole can be larger, letting in a lot of light, or smaller, letting in just a little light.
The numbers represent the size of the hole. The smaller the number, the bigger the hole will be. So, at F2.8 the hole is very big, letting in a lot of light. Each setting up from F2.8 makes the hole smaller and smaller until at F22, the hole is really small, letting in a little light.
So remember, the smaller the number, bigger the hole.