California Academic Content Standards (Reinforced)

• ELA.9-10.R.CAGT.2.6 Demonstrate use of sophisticated learning tools by following technical direction...2
• M.2.NS.4.1 Recognize, name, and compare unit fractions from 1 12 to 1 2.1
• VA.9-12 (advanced).CE.SPMT.2.1 Create original works of art of increasing complexity and skill in a variety of ...

• Hook - Hooks / Set

  In the old days before 1980 you had to constantly worry about your Aperture setting or how high your ISO was at or how slow the Shutter was, but today almost all cameras just set these themselves in Program mode. But, knowing how each of these elements works and affects your picture can give you a big advantage in creating very compelling and unique photographs.
• Video - Demo / Modeling

  This is a video tutorial on how to understand and use aperture, shutter speed and ISO to get professional looking images.

  The man is quite interesting and I'm sure the students will get a kick out of him, but very informative.

  • Aperture Shutter Speed and ISO, Photography 101 [ Go to Site ]
• Lecture - Lecture

  Teacher will describe the 3 elements of light sources:

  
  

  Aperture is how wide the lens' iris opens. The wider it opens, the more light gets in. It's exactly the same thing as the iris of your eye which opens as the light gets darker. The wider it opens for the same subject, the shorter the shutter speed will be to get the correct exposure. This is because the camera chooses shutter speed based on how much light gets into the camera. A brighter subject or wider aperture lets in more light.

  Big apertures have smaller numbers, like f/4. Smaller apertures have bigger numbers like f/16. These are fractions, so 1/16 is smaller than 1/4. Big apertures like f/4 will tend to have just one thing in focus. A smaller aperture like f/16 will tend to have everything in focus. How much is in focus is called depth of field.

  ISO is how sensitive your film or digital camera is to light. This depends on the the film, and can be changed with special development called pushing or pulling. Digital cameras can be set to almost any ISO.

  Use the lowest ISO that gives you the apertures and shutter speeds you need. Pump up the ISO up to get smaller apertures and faster shutter speeds. Unlike film, digital interchangeable-lens SLRs usually look great even at higher ISO's like 1,600.

  For film or point-and-shoot digital cameras, a normal ISO is 50 or 100. Faster ISO's are something like ISO 800 or 1,600. Digital SLRs are more sensitive to light than film or fixed-lens digital cameras, so their slowest ISO is often ISO 200.

  The reason you want the slowest ISO is for lack of noise or graininess. The higher/faster settings often are more grainy or have image noise than the slower ones.  Image noise is the random variation of brightness or color information in  images produced by the  sensor and circuitry of a  scanner or  digital camera. Image noise can also originate in  film grain and in the unavoidable  shot noise of an ideal photon detector.

  Shutter Speed is how long the camera stays open to expose itself to the image. Most of the time it's just a short fraction of a second. The dimmer the light the longer the camera needs to collect it to make a good looking image. At night outdoors without a flash this can stretch into seconds or minutes.

  If you want to change how motion is rendered you can use different speeds. 1/30 of a second looks about natural for running water. 1/500 of a second freezes everything. For sports, use the fastest speed you can for most things unless you want deliberate blur. Several full seconds will make waves look like a big, foggy blur.

  Here is another way to think of these settings using a window as a metaphor.

  The Aperture is the size of the window. The bigger it is, the more light it lets in, making it brighter.

  The Shutter Speed is how long you leave the window open. The longer you leave the window open the more light it lets in.

  Now imagine that you’re inside the room and are wearing sunglasses (hopefully this isn’t too much of a stretch). Your eyes become desensitized to the light that comes in (it’s like a low ISO).

   

  There are a number of ways of increasing the amount of light in the room (or at least how much it seems that there is. You could increase the time that the shutters are open (decrease shutter speed), you could increase the size of the window (increase aperture) or you could take off your sunglasses (make the ISO larger).

  Knowing how to adjust these settings can greatly improve your picture taking process and probably save you a lot of time in post production editing.
• Lab/Practice - Lab / Shop

  Students will practice in groups of 2-3 people changing the Aperture, ISO and Shutter Speeds to achieve various results. They will each take 10 photos at various settings and note the settings of the Aperture, ISO and Shutter and review the results of the pictures.

  Most importantly – a change in one of the elements will impact the others. This means that you can never really isolate just one of the elements alone but always need to have the others in the back of your mind.

  • F-Stop Chart [ View Image ] [ Download Original ] A chart to show the various results with those settings.
  • Shutter Speed Chart [ View Image ] [ Download Original ] A chart to show the various speeds.
  • ISO Chart [ View Image ] [ Download Original ] A chart showing a photo at various ISO settings.
• Check for Understanding - Check Understanding

  Students will take 6 photographs of the same subject but at different Aperture, ISO and Shutter Speeds to achieve various results.

  Students should use different settings each time and record the results on a piece of paper to compare later on.

• Exposure [ Go to Site ] A great website that goes into great detail about the 3 exposure settings.