Understanding Exposure: what you need to know about light to take pictures that shine

How aperture and shutter speed work together

As we’ve established, your aperture and shutter speeds work together to capture an exposure. This means that there is no one single combination that will give you a suitable exposure.

You can pair a slow shutter speed with a narrow aperture, or a fast shutter speed and a wide aperture and get a shot that is equally as bright.

So 1/100 sec at f/5.6, 1/50 sec at f/8 and 1/25 sec at f/11 will all let in the same amount of light to produce an identical exposure.

In the examples below we’ve illustrated how common shutter speeds and apertures work together to produce desirable and undesirable results.

Over-Exposed

1/50sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

Under-Exposed

1/160sec at f/13, ISO 100

Good Exposure

1/100sec at f/9, ISO 100

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Posted on Friday, August 17th, 2012 at 2:00 am under Beginner.

Tags: camera tips, DSLR tips, exposure, hot