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| Bitterroot River at Maclay Flat Missoula, Montana |
Not every landscape needs to be photographed at an aperture of f/16 or f/22 to enable the whole scene to be sharply focused. In this location, the spotlighted trees against the shadowed hillside were across and downriver from me by many yards. Effectively, everything in the scene was at infinity focus distance. So I chose the lens' sharpest aperture of f/11, adjusted the shutter speed to 1/250 second since I was hand-holding the camera, and changed the ISO to 400 for a proper exposure.
Understanding which aperture, shutter speed or ISO setting to use for a particular subject enables you to make a photograph you like instead of settling for a quick snapshot the camera creates. You can learn more about these camera controls in Getting to Know Your Digital Camera which meets November 14, 2026, at the Lifelong Learning Center in Missoula, Montana. Click here for details and registration information.