As you grow, you never stop learning.
For example, in the past year, I've learned all about ISO speeds.
The speed refers to how sensitive film or a digital sensor is to light. For example, an ISO 100 film is half-as-sensitive to light as ISO 200 film is. ISO 400 film is twice as sensitive as 200, and four time as sensitive as 100. As you get higher in "speed" (800, 1600, 3200), sensitivity doubles. As you get lower (800, 400, 200, 100, 50), sensitivity is halved.
Recently, I've learned about aperture and shutters. The shutter speed is how long the shutter (the opening in the camera) stays open. On the Fujifilm camera I use, it can stay open for as long as 8 seconds and as short as 1/2000th of a second. The aperture is measured in f/stops, which is a ration between the focal length and the aperture.
In that, I've also mastered using the manual settings to create fantastic long-exposure photographs. Long-exposures are very useful in night photography, which require steady hands or a tripod.
If I find the long-exposure photographs interesting enough, I'm going to post them in a new column called Nachfoto,which sort of means 'night photo' in German.
To start it off, here is a night photograph I took of Dallas Baptist University from a park a mile away across a lake. I call, very cleverly, University by the Lake.
I have many more, so I'll post regularly.
For rights usage on any of these photographs, please see here.
