The Ultimate Guide to Camera Settings: What Do They All Mean?

If you’re serious about photography, understanding camera settings is key to taking professional-looking pictures. It’s like a photographer’s best friend!

But what do they all mean? Check out this roundup of the camera settings and find out what they each mean!

Shutter Speed

In photography, shutter speed is the length of time that the camera shutter is open to allow light to reach the film or sensor. It is measured in seconds, minutes, hours, or days. There are three main speeds: 1/60th of a second (1/sec), 1/100th of a second (1/sec), and 1/200th of a second (1/sec).

The faster the shutter speed, the more blurred the image will be due to motion blur. A fast shutter speed can also freeze action in a photo. A slow shutter speed will let more light into the camera and result in a brighter image with less motion blur.

Aperture

The aperture on a camera is the hole in the lens that controls the amount of light that enters the camera. It’s measured in f-stops, with smaller numbers representing wider apertures and larger numbers representing narrower apertures.

When setting the aperture, the first number of the f-stop notation represents the size of the aperture opening (in millimeters). The second number is the size of the central F-Stop (in stops).

For example, an aperture setting of f/4 would mean that the opening is 4mm wide and allows just enough light through to photograph correctly at ISO 100. An aperture setting of f/2 would mean that the opening is 2mm wide and will allow twice as much light through to photograph correctly at ISO 100.

ISO

ISO is an abbreviation for “international standardization organization”. ISO sets global standards for photographic materials and processes. In other words, ISO helps ensure that images taken with different cameras look the same when printed or displayed on a screen.

There are three main types of ISO: 100, 200, and 400. Each corresponds to different sensitivity to light. 100 represents the least sensitive, 200 represents the middle range, and 400 represents the most sensitive.

The default setting for most digital cameras is usually ISO100. This setting is good for shooting in brightly-lit conditions such as indoors or at night. If you want to shoot in low-light conditions such as at a concert or in a dark room, you’ll need to switch to ISO200 or 400.

White Balance

What does white balance do in photography? White balance is the process of recording a digital image with the correct color temperature for the light source in which it was taken.

This can be helpful when taking pictures of items in a room that have varying colors. Or when taking a picture outside on a cloudy day and you want to ensure the colors are accurate.

Different light sources will produce different colors. So, it’s important to find the white balance setting that corresponds with the lighting you’re using.

There are three main types of white balance: auto, daylight, and tungsten. Auto white balance will try to guess what type of light is present and adjust accordingly. Daylight white balance is ideal for taking pictures outdoors under direct sunlight. While tungsten white balance is good for shots taken indoors under artificial light.

There are also two other settings called “flash” and “fill”, which have less importance in photography but may be useful for specific tasks. Flash white balance uses flash to take pictures by warming up the camera’s sensor so that the photo appears brighter than usual.

This is used for pictures with a very bright background, such as when taking a picture of someone at night or inside during broad daylight where there isn’t enough natural light. Fill sets the camera to fill in any areas in an image that are lacking brightness, such as shadows or areas without any lighting.

Exposure Compensation

Most of the time, your camera will do a pretty good job of picking the right exposure for a photo. But there will be times when you’ll want to override the camera’s meter and choose your exposure. That’s where exposure compensation comes in.

Exposure compensation is a feature on your camera that lets you tell the camera to make the photo brighter or darker than it would otherwise be. It’s measured in stops, and you can usually adjust it by up to +/- 3 stops in either direction.

Why would you want to use exposure compensation? There are a few situations where it can be helpful.

If you’re taking a photo of a backlit subject, you might want to use exposure compensation. This is to make the photo brighter so that the subject is better exposed.

You might also want to use exposure compensation if you’re taking a photo of a scene with a lot of white (like a snowscape). This is to make the photo darker so that the whites don’t get overexposed.

If you’re taking a photo of a fast-moving subject, you might want to use exposure compensation. And this is to make the photo darker so that the subject doesn’t appear blurry.