Getting Back to Basics 3

A new month, a new post. I love August. Some of the best people I know where born in August. In our last Back to Basics discussion I talked about getting the right exposure. It is very important to understand how the aperture and shutter speed work in relation to each other. This is what I always had a hard time understanding so I am going to go over it again. If you meter a shot at f/8 and 1/125 you will get the same exposure on film if you shoot it at f/5.6 and 250, f/4 and 1/500, and (going the other way) f/11 and 1/60.

Whenever you adjust the shutter speed or the aperture in one direction you are either cutting the amount of light by half or doubling it. Shutter speed increases (higher numbers)...aperture opens up (lower numbers).

I hope this makes sense. Like I said, I still have a hard time with this. On my camera the dials are on the lens and it helps to remember that if I move one dial one way, then the other dial goes in the opposite direction.