Since I absolutely love photos my partner thought it would be a good idea to send me on a photography course. It was brilliant!

Getting to grips with my Canon SLR 500 d was made easy by Danni Brooks.

I thought I'd share a few tips with you:

Depth of field means the amount of image that is in focus. The best way is to grasp this is if you think of your image from front to back, with a large depth of field everything is in focus from front to back, whether it's a sunset or a flower. With a small depth of field, only a small area is in focus, giving a blurred background.This is a brilliant way of making a subject stand out against what would otherwise be a very busy background or indoor photography.

Aperture controls depth of field . It is the iris in your lens that opens and closes. It is measured in f stops. You can take almost every type of photo with your camera set on A or AV. On SLR's you set the Aperture setting through view finder. There is normally a range from f3.5 to f32 although this varies.

Aperture and the camera calculates the correct shutter speed required to capture the image. For Landscapes, in order to get everything in focus, a small aperture is required. So you would need to set your f number to the largest it will go to. A large f number gives a large depth of field but you need to be aware that the shutter speed will very slow, even slower in low light. You will need to use a tripod or other form of support for your camera to avoid hand or wind shake which will make your image out of focus.

In a portrait photograph the subject is usually in focus and the background is usually blurred this is achieved by using a large aperture and moving the subject away from the background. You would set the f number to a small setting, this allows you to keep a really small area in focus whilst creating a blur on the rest of the background. It gives a short (fast) shutter speed. For portrait shots, stand back from your subject and then use your lens to zoom in which will increase background blur.

Remember these rules:

THE THREE L'S : LARGE DEPTH OF FIELD

LARGE F NUMBER

LONG SHUTTER SPEED

THE THREE S'S: SMALL DEPTH OF FIELD

SMALL F NUMBER

SHORT SHUTTER SPEED