Before we dive straight into the features and functions of your camera, we need to lay the groundwork of how a camera takes a picture.  Every camera has 2 components that create the picture:  the aperture (or f/stop) and the shutter speed.  Understanding how these 2 components work together will help you to use the features of your camera, which will help you to get the shot you want.  Let’s start with the functions of the aperture.

The aperture is a hole in your lens that controls two aspects at the same time:

1. How much light is coming through the lens, and 2. How clear the focus will be before and after your subject.

• Next post in the Point-and-Shoot Instructional Series:  Part 2:   How the aperture controls light and overall focus of your image.