Soulburn Studios Art Lessons

Camera Basics
By Neil Blevins
Created On: Oct 13th 2025
Software: Any

If you've ever taken a photography class, you may have heard terms like Aperture, ISO, or Worms Eye view. These terms are not only useful in photography (traditional and digital), but also for digital 2D and 3D art as well. This quick lesson will explain many of these concepts and how they relate to each other and their real world origin.

Camera Settings & Terms

First off, old cameras used real film to take photographs. Film was replaced in digital cameras with an image sensor. However, regardless of whether it's traditional film or digital, the same terms and settings apply to both methods. Let's start with a simple glossary of some of the more common camera settings and terms...

Aperture: The Aperture is the opening that lets light into the camera. Measured in f-stop. Aperture values range from say f/1.4 to f/8.0. The larger the opening, the more light comes in. The larger the number, the smaller the hole and the less light gets in.
F-stop: The value used to define the size of the Aperture.
Focus: an object that appears Clear in your photo, as opposed to "Out Of Focus" which means the object is blurry.
Depth Of Field (DOF): The distance between the nearest and farthest object that's in focus. A large f-stop value (smaller hole) makes most objects in focus in your photo. A small f-stop value (larger hole) makes more objects out of focus.
Film Grain: How noisy your image is.
Shutter Speed: How long the Aperture remains open to collect light. Faster shutter speeds collect less light than longer shutter speeds. Slow shutter speeds you may need a tripod to keep the camera steady otherwise the image might be blurry.
Motionblur: The amount of directional blur an object has when it's moving fast. Higher shutter speed = less motionblur, lower shutter speed = more motionblur
Film Speed: How sensitive your camera is to light. Measured in ISO. Lower speed (say ISO 200) produces a darker result, higher speed (say ISO 800) produces a brighter result. Low speed creates less contrast and more accurate colors. High speed creates a higher contrast final image and less accurate colors.
ISO: The value used to define the Film Speed.
Focal Length: How zoomed in the image is. Measured in mm. A low mm (say 16mm) is a wide angle lens and you appear to be further from your subject. A high mm (say 100mm) is a telephoto lens and you appear much closer to your subject.
Field Of View (FOV angle): How much of the scene you see, related to the Focal Length. A low focal length means a much larger field of view, and vice versa. Measured in degrees. Different types of cameras have a different ratio between the Focal Length and the FOV.
Exposure: The amount of light per unit area reaching a frame of photographic film or the surface of an electronic image sensor. You can change your exposure by changing settings such as Shutter Speed or Aperture.
Over Exposed: When there's too much light in your environment for your camera settings and so your final photo is too bright.
Under Exposed: When there isn't enough light in your environment for your camera settings and your final photo is too dark.

All of these settings relate to each other in a complex way. If you change one of them, you may need to reduce or increase others to get the image you expect or want. Here's some more info on how they relate...

Bright Environment (Sunny Day):

You need to collect less light to take your picture, because the environment is already very bright
Small Aperture (ex: f/32)
DOF: more objects in focus
Use Low Speed Film to capture less light, this will cause less Grain, less Contrast, and more Accurate Colors
Use High Shutter Speed (ex: 1/96 sec) to capture less light, this will cause less motionblur

Dark Environment (Night Time):

You need to collect more light to take your picture, because the environment is very dark
Large Aperture (ex: f/2.8)
DOF: less subjects in Focus
Use High Speed Film to capture more light, this will cause more Grain, more Contrast, and less Accurate Colors
Use Slow Shutter Speed (ex: 1/24 sec) to capture more light, this will cause more motionblur

If your subject is too close to your camera:

Use Wide Angle Lens (low mm, say 16mm), but this will cause your image to potentially look more distorted (see How Focal Length Affects Camera Distortion)

If your subject is too far from your camera:

Use Telephoto Lens (high mm, say 100mm), but this will cause your image to potentially look more flat (see How Focal Length Affects Camera Distortion)

And here's some common situations you might be in and how to fix them based on these relationships.

If your photo is too light (Over Exposed):

it can be darkened using a smaller aperture (larger f-stop).

it can be darkened using a lower ISO, and your image will have less grain.

increase your shutter speed, it will darken things down.

If your photo too dark (Under Exposed):

it can be brightened using a larger aperture (smaller f-stop).

it can be brightened using a higher ISO, but the image will be more Grainy.

decrease your shutter speed, it will brighten things up but it might be blurry because you're jiggling the camera.

DOF causes your object to be too out of focus, increase f-stop, this will cause the image to be darker, so increase the ISO or decrease shutter speed.
DOF causes too much of your scene to be in focus, decrease fstop, this will cause the image to be brighter, so decrease the ISO or increase shutter speed.
Your object is moving fast (like a soccer player, a moving car, or a running animal), lower shutter speed to avoid too much motionblur. Use a high ISO film to get more brightness since the low shutter speed reduces the light your camera collects.

Camera Positions

The placement of your camera and what you're pointed at will also heavily affect your final photo. Here's some common photographic camera placement terms:

Wide shot: Your are further away from your subject, and see more of the environment. If there's a person in your scene, you can problem see all of them from head to toe.
Close up: You're very close to your subject, if a person, you see probably just their face.
Medium shot: Half way between a close and wide shot, if a person is in the picture, you likely see them from waste up.
Extreme Close up: even closer than close up, you may just see their eyes.
Worms Eye View: The camera is low and you are looking up at your subject.
Birds Eye View: The camera is above your subject and you are looking down.

Optical Effects

When using a camera, there are some special optical effects that can occur due to the way the camera lens interacts with the light in your scene. Sometimes you might want these effects, sometimes you don't, but regardless it's good to know about them...

Lens Flare: When something in your photo gets really bright (like the sun), you can see a flare occur that appears as a bright star with secondary circles.

Bloom: A soft glow in your photograph called a Specular Bloom that appears in the brightest spots of your photo. Consider this a mild Lens Flare.

Chromatic Aberration: Different wavelengths of light separate in a lens causing you to see a prism effect around the edges of objects.

Bokeh: Small Circles of light that appear when some part of your photo is bright and really out of focus.

Conclusion

If your goal when painting in 2d or rendering in 3d is realism, some or all of these camera effects can be added to increase that reality. Or removed to get a more stylized look. Hopefully this helps explain some of these terms and how they interact to create the scenario you see before you.