You need to learn some basics about photography in general, in particular something called the exposure triangle. There are three factors effecting your exposure, depending on their settings, the picture either gets brighter or dimmer. However each of them come with their own caveats, so it’s helpful to know what each one does:
- ISO: The sensitivity of the sensor itself, lower volumes mean less light sensitivity, so a darker image. Higher volumes mean brighter images, however noise will increase at higher settings.
- Shutter speed: Determines how long the shutter actually allows light to reach the sensor. The longer the sensor is exposed, the brighter the image will be, however it’s more prone to motion blur. The shorter the sensor is exposed, the darker the image gets, however you counter motion blur and can freeze moving scenes like waterfalls, waves or dancers.
- Aperture: The physical opening of the lens, for most smartphone camera, all Nothing Phones included, this is a fixed value which can’t be changed. Yet since it still is there, it’s still a part of the triangle, just you can only work with the above two options to determine you exposure.
By default, the camera app tries to get an evenly exposed image, you further manipulate the exposure by changing ISO and Shutterspeed (“S”). Let’s say for example you want to photograph some performers at a concert, you want a rather short shutter speed of 1/250, 1/500, maybe even faster, depending on the scene. As you increase the speed, less light gets to the sensor. So in order to boost the exposure back again, you need to increase your ISO values.
A vice versa example would be trying to smoothen out moving objects, giving them a dreamy motion blur. In this case you need to decrease the shutter speed. A busy streets with people rushing by can be transformed to ghostly shades by lowering it to ⅒ or even ¼ of a second. Another popular choice is to capture a beach with silky smooth waves, in which case you might want to use full 2 seconds or even slower. However due to the large amount of light exposed to the sensor, you need to lower your ISO.
The AF setting allows to manually adjust the focus point, which is especially helpful on a tripod or when you want to focus on something which isn’t centered in the frame.
The WB setting is for white balance, changing it gives your images a warmer or colder tone, often depending on the lighting of your scene.
