If you want to just point and shoot, then using pre-set modes (like "sports" or "macro" on your camera make it easy to get a perfect shot. If you're learning about photography, one of the first things you will learn is that if you want more creative control, you must learn how to use the aperture and shutter speed settings. If you're wondering which cameras have these settings, some digital compacts have them while most of the bridge (prosumer) cameras do and all SLRs have them.

At first it seems a little daunting to start using manual camera settings, but the vast improvement in your pictures will be worth the effort.

Photography 101 - Learning About Camera Aperture

The aperture of a camera works a lot like how the iris of a person's eye works. Just like your irises widen or narrow to let in more or less light through the pupils, the camera's lens diaphragm widens or narrows to let in more or less light through the lens. The aperture is the size of this lens opening.

Aperture allows you to increase or decrease the amount of light that reaches the sensor and therefore helps determine how dark or light the picture will be.

The aperture also controls the depth of field of the image.

To get a good idea of what this means, make a fist, holding it in front of your eye. Then slowly open your fist. See how everything is in focus when the opening in your hand is small? But when it's open wide the object closest to you is sharper than the background?

A small aperture is good for taking pictures where you want it all in focus, like a landscape.

An Aperture Priority setting on your camera allows you to set the aperture within the camera's range of f-stop numbers (or called f-stop for short). These numbers represent ratios, and the larger the f-stop number, the narrower the aperture. So when the f stop setting is larger on your camera, then there will be a larger depth of field.

The reason for the "Priority" in the setting's name is that when you set the aperture, the camera does its best to set the shutter speed so that the exposure is right (not too dark or too bright). Another way to look at it is, the aperture setting will have priority while the shutter speed plays a secondary role.

Photography 101 - Learning About Shutter Speed

While the aperture controls how much light at one time falls on the image sensor, the shutter speed controls the length of time the camera allows in the light.

You may have noticed how people in pictures taken in the 19th century rarely are smiling. Shutter speeds used to be so slow that people would have to remain very still for several minutes in the early days of photography. No wonder they had such a serious look!

The most common shutter speeds today are 1/500th of a second to 1/60th of a second. By using Shutter Priority, you can then choose the shutter speed (within your camera's range) for the exact effect you want.

For shutter speeds slower than 1/60 you will probably need a tripod or other camera support because when the shutter is open that long the camera records the tiniest jiggle, causing the photo to be out of focus or outright blurry.

If you want to freeze action (like what Sports mode does), set the camera's Shutter Priority to a fast speed. Only with this manual setting, you can be more selective. For example, a dog sitting quietly will require a shutter speed of around 1/125 in order to freeze the small twitch in the dog's tail. On the flip side, taking pictures at a soccer game may require up to 1/500 to freeze fast moving actions.

When using settings like Shutter Priority and Aperture Priority you get more creative control which often means you can end up with much better pictures.