Mobile publicists must master a wide range of media. It's no longer enough to understand just writing copy. We have to learn (among many other things) how to shoot our own photos.
Even if you are shooting with a smartphone, it's a smart idea to understand what photographers call the exposure triangle: shutter speed, ISO and aperture.
Shutter speed is simply how long the shutter allows light into the camera. If you want to stop a runner in mid-stride, you want to use a short speed. If you want to capture the moon at night, you need a long speed.
The
ISO is a concept from the analog days of photography. It is the "speed of the film." A low ISO is good on a sunny day. A mid-ISO is good for indoor work. A high-ISO is good for darkness. But beware: The higher the ISO, the more "noise" you are likely to capture on your image. Generally, an ISO of 200 to 800 is considered all-purpose, except for the most extreme situations like night photography.
Then there's
aperture, which controls how much light reaches the shutter. The smaller the aperture, the deeper the focus. So if you want everything in the shot to be in focus (think "Citizen Kane"), you want the smaller aperture you can reasonably use in your situation. If you want to blow out the background or the foreground, and focus entirely upon the main subject, then you want to open up the lens to the widest aperture that is reasonable for the situation.
It's all a matter of balancing how much light goes to through the aperture to the shutter, and how much light your camera registers on the image.
OK, that's the executive summary. Here's short guide to walk you through getting the most out of your aperture settings from blogger Ashley Beolens:
