Understanding Exposure

Here to get a better handle on your photography? This is the place! These lessons are free, self-paced, and open to anyone.

A quick heads-up on what this is. I’m not going to cover every camera setting or every kind of photography. I’m keeping it to the handful of things you need to understand to really get a handle on your camera. If you want to go further, I offer one-on-one mentorship over Zoom, and I’m hoping to bring in-person workshops back once I’m settled.

I believe that you can never do the fundamentals well enough. When it comes to photography, it all comes down to controlling two things: exposure and focus. We start with exposure. Focus is coming soon!

Pause here. Take a deep breath. I am not teaching you math, or science. In fact, I’m really not teaching you anything at all. In fact, you are already familiar with all the concepts. I am just teaching you the vocabulary.

I am nothing more than a translator between you and your camera. For example, have you ever filled a glass from your kitchen faucet? Well, you already know aperture and shutter speed. You just don’t know it. So you know something, but you don’t know you know it, and once you know it you will realize you already knew it.

Have you ever turned your stereo up too loud and noticed that it starts to sound a little funny, with some static and other odd sounds? If so, you already have a pretty good idea of what ISO is. Another “you already knew it” moment.

Let me show it to you here in our fun fundamentals.

Fun Fundamentals

That’s the first half. Now that you know what an exposure is, the next question is how you know when it’s right.