Exposure: A photographers most important triangle...

I think it best to really start my growth as a photographer talking about the first thing you learn about when getting into cameras beyond your regular point and shoot settings: exposure. For those unfamiliar with the term as it relates to photography, exposure is the amount of light that reaches the camera image sensor (for DSLRs specifically) based on the combination of shutter speed, lens aperture, and ISO (International Standards Organization). This almighty trio truly is the foundation by which you can dramatically change the way and image is captured and appears to the human eye.

So let's take a step to break down each component before putting them together:

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed is how fast the lens shutter can close and re-open and is measured at fractions of a second. So for example, if we had a shutter set to 1/8, the shutter will take one-eighth of a second to close. Hence, smaller fraction = faster lens. A faster shutter makes it very easy to take action shots. A slow shutter is ideal for low light or night shots. Just be mindful that the slower the shutter, the more prone your image is turning out blurry without sturdy hands or a tripod. That is, unless you want are purposefully looking for the blur.

Aperture

Aperture is the size of the opening of the lens. This unit is measured by "f-stops." Now this unit can be a little tricky to understand at the beginning because it uses reverse logic. The larger the f-stop, the smaller the opening of the lens. So a f-stop of 8 has a smaller opening than that of a f-stop of 1.4. Adjusting this factor impacts the depth of field - or the amount of your image that is focus. Larger f-stops (remember reverse logic) like 2.8 cause a shallow depth of field, which creates a crisp image of what you are focusing on and blurs out everything else around in the back or front of your focal point. A smaller f-stop like 22 causes a large depth of field which creates an image where a larger portion of the overall image is in focus.

ISO

ISO (pronounced eye-so) impacts the sensitivity to the camera sensor. This unit impacts the amount of light needed by the sensor to determine good exposure. In addition, it impacts the overall quality of the image. In today's DSLR cameras, you can pretty much attribute the quality to pixel size. Smaller units, like 100, require more light to hit the sensor whereas larger units, like 3200, require less light. However, be mindful that the larger the ISO, the more "noise" you will capture and will impact the overall quality.

At the end of the day, factoring all three components is a balancing act depending on the circumstances of what you are trying to photo. You can take the same photo with the same end results by having a different combination of the three components. Or you can take the same subject and take entirely unique photos by altering any one or more of the three elements. I found this helpful image from Virtual Photography Studio (www.virtualphotographytudio.com) on how of the balance among the three components.