There's many different things that are important on a camera. Light is definately one of them. If there was no light, how would we make a picture?

LIGHT

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If you want to make a picture, there's gotto be light in your film. The quality of the light is important for the picture. With different sorts of light you can get different effects. You probably know that if you photograph directly into the sun, your photo will be over-exposed.

Direct light such as spots or the sun is high contrast light. They take care of natural shading in your photo. Diffuse lights such as cloudy days are a different thing. The light has to get trough some sort of 'curtain' and that means: less shadow, because the light is spread throughout your photo.

DIAPHRAGM & EXPOSURE

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If you get out of a very dark room into direct sunlight, your eyes will need time to adjust. Your pupils will grow smaller in light and bigger in darkness. That's similar to what happens with a camera when you go to a dark or light place. We respond very quickly to changes in light. It's so obvious we don't even seem to know anymore.

Photography works with light & dark, that's what we already knew. Another word for it is contrast. That's the differences between the lightest (whitest) place in your photo and the darkest (blackest) place in your photo. A camera is comparable to the pupil in your eye. A camera has two possibilities to regulate the light: the Diaphragm and the Exposure button. The diaphragm is a small hole that can enlarge and vice versa. You can regulate the diaphragm with the times on the ring of your cameralense.

From small to big:
1.7
2.8
4.0
5.6
8
11
16
22
HOWEVER: The smallest number has the BIGGEST exposure time. So, if you want a lot of light on your pic, you'll have to take 1.7 If you want the least light possible, take 22.

There's also a little thing called exposure time. One of the main keys to a good picture is that exposure time. The time that is used to let light pass on to your film can be different for different effects. For instance: I want to make a photo with extreme movement; we all know those pictures with the cars moving by the speedway in one big ray of light. In order to do that, I need a big exposure time. Exposure times can vary from 1/1000 up to 2 seconds or even 'M' which is manual, which means that YOU click the button whenever you want to. That allows you to create exposure times up to as long as you want to.

For sharp pictures, a short exposure time is required. To capture a movement properly, use the 1/125 or the 1/250.

However, if you use a long exposure time, you must make sure that the camera doesn't move. You could, for instance, use a standard.

A diaphragm is also called 'Focus'. The following is a good standard for photography and I suggest if you are new to photography, you use this to get good pictures:

Exposure time:        Diaphragm or Focus
1/1000              1.7
1/500               2.8
1/250               4
1/125               5.6
1/60                8
1/30                11
1/8                 16
1/4                 22

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