To lead with, the easiest way I think to approach these three things is

to understand physically what they mean inside your camera. So, here
we go.
ISO speed: A measurement of how quickly your cameras sensor
absorbs light.
Shutter speed: A measurement of how long your cameras shutter
is open for when you take a shot.
Aperture: A measurement of how wide the shutter on your
cameras lens opens up when you take a shot.
For completeness I should note that ISO speed is not specific to digital
cameras with sensors. On film cameras, a particular roll of film will
have a specific ISO speed that it is rated for. Fortunately for DSLR
users like us, we can change the ISO speed without having to change
film. All three of these parameters affect how light gets to your
cameras sensor to create an image, so lets start looking at them in
more detail.
ISO Speed
The ISO speed changes how quickly the sensor absorbs light. Lower
numbers mean less quickly and higher numbers mean more quickly.
Now, the thing to keep in mind is that at high ISO speeds, you will
introduce some graininess into your image. Therefore, the basic rule
of thumb is that you want to shoot at the lowest ISO speed that you
can get away with given the environment you are in. For example, if
you are outdoors in the middle of a sunny day, you can probably shoot
at a very low ISO speed like 100 or 200. Conversely, if you are
shooting indoors or at night (or both) you will probably need to shoot
at a high ISO speed in order to properly expose your image.
Shutter Speed
This one is probably the easiest of the three to get your head around.
Its exactly what it sounds like: the length of time that the shutter is
open and light can get in through the lens to your sensor. Shutter
speeds on Canon cameras are displayed as inverse numbers against
one second. So, if your cameras shutter speed is set to 125, that
means that the shutter will be open for 1/125th of a second. Therefore,
higher numbers mean that the shutter is open for less time. The effect
this has is on the sharpness of the image. If the shutter is open for a

very short amount of time, then even if the thing you are shooting is
moving you will be able to get a sharp image of it, because it wont
have time to move around before the shutter closes again. The
downside is that if the shutter is only open for a instant, then not a lot
of light can get in to the sensor.
Aperture (or F-Number)
The third and final member of our roster here is the aperture. This is a
measurement of how wide the shutter opens up when you take the
shot. In terms of the F-Number, it can be a little bit confusing at first.
Youll see lenses listed with specs that read like 35mm f/2 which
doesnt mean too much at first, so lets take a look at that. The
35mm part is the focal length of the lens, in this case fixed at 35
millimeters. Now, the f/2 part means that the ratio of the focal
length to the maximum width that the shutter can open up to is 2.
Confused? Lets use some real numbers. This is saying that on this
35mm focal length lens, the maximum diameter that the shutter can
open up to is 17.5mm. So, the smaller the F-number is, the wider the
lens can open up relative to its focal length.

Understanding the effect this has on your image is a little more

complex than with the others because two different effects come into
play. The first is the depth of field in your shot. Ive personally always
thought that the term depth of field is a bit, well, wrong for what its
used to describe. In my opinion, a more accurate description would be
plane of focus so Im going to run with that. Here we go. Imagine
you are taking a picture, and that there is a magical plane of glass
somewhere in front of you that is parallel to the front of your lens.
Magical because it can pass through other objects, like the ones
youre taking pictures of. Everything within the plane of glass will be

in focus, and things that are in front of or behind the plane of glass
will be blurred. Got that? Good. Now heres the neat trick: the wider
your lens opens up when you take the shot (low F-number), the
thinner that plane of glass becomes. Conversely, if your lens opens up
only a teeny amount (high F-number), then the plane of glass becomes
very very thick. So, a very high F-number means that probably
everything in your shot will be in focus. A very low F-number means
that only a thin plane will be in focus in your shot.

Still not quite making sense? Its a little hard to visualize at first.
Fortunately, Ryans taken a great shot at a wide aperture that should
help make things clearer.

Canon 100mm macro, f/4, ISO 400, 0.001s

As you can see, with a wide aperture, the caterpillar is in focus but the
areas both in front of and behind it are a bit blurred out. This is often
used to make objects in the foreground pop into sharp relief by
blurring out the background, which is a standard portrait shooting
technique shown here.

Canon 50mmL, f/2, ISO 1000, 0.013s

So the first of the two effects is related to which parts of your shot are
in focus and which arent. The second again relates to light. The wider
your lens opens up, the more light gets in to the sensor. So shooting
with a wide open lens can help you in low-light situations. On the
other hand, if you have tons of light, then you can shoot with much
smaller apertures if you so choose.

Putting it Together
Now you should have a good understanding of what these three
numbers are actually doing on your camera. Lets talk a little bit about
how the three are interrelated. All three of them share a common trait,
namely that they affect how light gets into your camera to produce an
image. This is one of the reasons that youll read over and over that
lighting is the most important thing in photography. Lets look at a
few scenarios, starting with a situation in which you are doing social
shooting in very low light. In this case, you will typically want to set
your ISO speed very high at something like 1600, and youll want to
open your lens up as wide as it will go (low F-number.) Then, you will
set the shutter speed as fast as you can get away with while still
getting a reasonable exposure. A good rule of thumb for the shutter
speed is its the inverse of the focal length of your lens. Meaning, if
youre shooting with a 50mm lens, try to have the shutter speed 1/50th
of a second or faster. Practically, I get away with a slightly slower
shutter speed than this rule dictates all the time, but its a good thing to
keep in mind.

Canon 50mmL, f/1.2, ISO 1600, 0.025s

You definitely see the grain here due to the high ISO setting of 1600.
Also, youll note that while the subjects left eye is right in focus, her
hair over her right shoulder is a bit blurred. This is due to the very
wide aperture of f/1.2. The shutter speed was 1/40th of a second, and
fortunately she wasnt moving very much so I was able to get a sharp
shot. This was despite the fact that there were only a few tea light
candles to illuminate this frame.
Lets look at a more extreme kind of shot next. Low light, but where
you want a low ISO to avoid the grain, and a reasonably small
aperture so things are in focus. If thats the situation you are in, then in
order to get enough light into the camera to get the image, you have to
have a very, very slow shutter speed.

Canon 17-85mm, f/8, ISO 100, 25s

In the shot above, taken by Ryan, the ISO speed is very low at 100,
and the aperture is at f/8. In order to get the exposure correct, the
shutter was open for 25 seconds. Obviously, in order to do this

effectively, you need to be using a tripod or some sort ofstabilizing

device to keep the camera still so that the image comes out sharp.
Lets look at one more thats not in such an extreme low-light
situation.

Canon 24-70mmL, f/2.8, ISO 100, 0.001s

This photo was taken in the late afternoon when there was a
reasonable amount of ambient light out. The ISO speed is set very low
at 100 so the image isnt grainy. I have the aperture open quite wide at
f/2.8, so Demians head is in focus but the background is nicely
blurred out. The shutter speed was 1/1000th of a second in this shot,
so I didnt have to worry about movement from Demian or the camera
affecting the sharpness of the shot.
Do I really have to worry about all of this?
At this point hopefully you have a better understanding of why these
three magic numbers are important for your photography.
Nonetheless, you may also be there thinking Seriously? Do I have to
worry about all of this stuff all the time? The answer in this day and
age is no, you can make the camera do at least some of the work for
you.
If youre just getting into your DSLR, youve probably noticed that it
has a variety of different shooting modes. When I first started learning
about all of this, my more experienced friends advised me to use
Aperture Priority mode when taking pictures. I recommend that you
do the same. In Aperture Priority mode on my Canon rig, you select
an ISO speed and the aperture to use, and the camera will pick out the
shutter speed for you. This is convenient because you dont have to
constantly readjust the shutter speed as youre trying to get your shots.
Theres also a Shutter Priority mode, which Ive barely ever used, and
it does more or less the opposite. In that mode, you pick the ISO speed
and the shutter speed, and the camera will select the aperture for you. I
know that on some cameras like the new Nikon D300 there are modes
that will also select ISO speeds for you, but I dont have a rig that has
this functionality personally so I dont know too much about how to
use it.

At any rate, shooting in Aperture Priority mode is a great way to start

out since it lowers the number of things you need to concern yourself
with. And you can always see what the camera is recommending for
you in the viewfinder, or by looking at the EXIF data later on when
youve processed the image. Ive personally been shooting in fully
manual mode a great deal as of late, but thats mostly because I keep
finding myself in very dark situations and Im generally insistent on
getting a sufficiently fast shutter speed so that the shots are clear. That
said, for normal daytime shooting, myself and many of my friends use
Aperture Priority mode a great deal of the time.
In Conclusion
I hope this serves to clarify some of the jargon that you may be
absorbing. Theres definitely a learning curve with photography, but
once you get the basics down its an incredibly fun endeavor. If
anybody has questions please ask them via comments and Ill do my
best to answer them. Happy Holidays!