Name: ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture Explained | Exposure Basics for Beginners
Uploaded: 2026-03-14T08:48:53.000Z
Duration: 3 min 31 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

A photograph is the delicate balance of shutter speed, aperture and ISO.

Relative clauses (Restrictive vs. nonrestrictive)

These are the camera settings that come together to emphasize an aesthetic, create a style to make the image.

Timing, depth of field, light sensitivity, all three are equally important.

But in order to balance these camera settings, you must prioritize the exposure trinity in a way that best presents your subject.

For the sake of simplicity, we're going to show each image individual camera setting and the way that it affects an image.

Shutter speed is the measured time of an image.

The moment between the opening and the closing of the camera shutter.

We've got Jake here in a very windy environment.

To freeze this motion, we need to use a very high or fast shutter speed.

But if we want to emphasize motion blur of the hair, we we'll want to do just the opposite.

A low or slow shutter speed will give us the opposite effect.

So the higher or faster the shutter speed, the more likely you'll be able to freeze action.

The lower or slower the shutter speed, the more likely you'll be to blur the motion.

Aperture is the size of the hole the that lets light into the camera.

Here we have a very nice portrait setup for Jake.

By changing our aperture, we're able to specify how much of our lovely subject stays in focus.

Shooting at a larger aperture, like f2.8, the smaller the number, the larger the hole, creates a very narrow area of focus, stopping the aperture down to say, F20.

The larger the number, the smaller the hole, gives us greater depth of field.

With more of the subject and background in focus.

The larger the F stop, the more shallow the depth of field.

The smaller the aperture, the more overall focus in the image.

ISO is the chosen light sensitivity of the film or sensor.

It's Jake again in a room with ample light.

Shooting at a lower sensitivity like ISO 200 should be fine.

Here highlights and shadow detail are clean and virtually without noise.

But when the lights go down, we'll need to raise the sensitivity to make an exposure.

Employing a higher ISO allows us to make photographs in this challenging scene.

But it also introduces noise to the image, particularly in the midtone and shadow areas.

So choose lower ISOs in bright or well lit scenarios and choose higher ISOs in dark or poorly lit situations.

Shutter speed, aperture, ISO, all three are equally important.

If you want to make a photograph of something fast moving, you want to freeze the action, you need to shoot with a higher shutter speed.

If you'd like to make a photograph with a shallow depth of field, open your aperture up, shutter speed and ISO.

If you're in a dark situation, raise your ISO up, then set the aperture and shutter speed accordingly.

For more on exposure, photography and all things imaging, visit B and H. I'm photographer David Flores.