Experimental Photography

I think I learn best by doing, so last night I started experimenting with the settings I was told are important (shutter speed, aperture, and ISO). It was definitely a lot of trial by fire. I was learning more explicitly what the settings did and how drastically they can effect your photos. Sometimes I would only make minor changes to try and make a picture brighter, and I would end up having a completely black screen for my image. Definitely one of the most confusing things is how a camera measures aperture size. Instead of making it simple and relatable to other things that involve size, camera makers decided that confusing you with their settings is much more amusing. For example, if you want to make your aperture size LARGER, to let in more light, you have to make the aperture number SMALLER. I'm a pretty simple person who likes simple things and when I figured out the backwards logic involved with this setting, I was pretty angry at myself for not correcting something that was making my pictures look awful and dark. Also, since I am only home when its dark, I have to learn what settings are best for minimal light. So far I've found that a very large aperture (something like 5.6) and a high ISO (1600) with a slow shutter speed will make your photo look like what you're actually looking at instead of a blank black screen.

Hopefully I will better understand these little details so I can actually start taking decent photos. Also, I will start posting some of my experimental photos to show you what rookie photography looks like.