ISO

The 3rd control on an SLR or bridge camera is the ISO: this is the sensitivity of the digital plate, the general ISO settings are 50, 100, 200 and 400. The lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light and the finer the grain. Higher ISO settings are generally used in darker situations to get faster shutter speeds, although they produce more grainy shots.

A low sensitivity means that the film has to be exposed to light for a longer period of time than a film with a high sensitivity in order to properly expose the image. With a lower sensitivity you also get a better quality image too which is why you should always try and use the lowest sensitivity you can get away with.
I have enlarged these pictures so if you look carefully you can see they get more grainy as you increase the ISO:

Presentation3

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Shutter Speed

Another control on SLR or bridge cameras is the shutter speed: the shutter speed is the unit of measurement which determines how long shutter remains open as the picture is taken. The slower the shutter speed, the longer the exposure time.
The shutter speed and aperture together control the total amount of light reaching the sensor. Shutter speeds are expressed in seconds or fractions of a second (my camera's shutter speeds range from 8- 1/3000 seconds) and is used to take pictures of moving objects. I took some pictures of someone jumping off a bench to demonstrate the shutter speeds:

   

Shutter Speed

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Aperture

One of the three controls on a SLR or bridge camera is the apature; this controls the size of the hole in the lense and therefore controls the amount of light let into the camera.
The aperture affects the Depth of Field; this is the range in the distance of the photograph that appears in focus, everything immediately in front of or behind of the focusing distance begins to lose sharpness and this occurs gradually.
It is measured in F stops, the larger F stops (e.g 2.8) let in the most amount of light but limit the Depth of Field. Whereas the smaller F stops (e.g 8) let in the least amount of light but increse the Depth of Field.
I took these simple photos to demonstrate the effect of changing the aperture:

Aperture

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Experimental Photos

These are just some experimental photos I took to get used to the camera (Nikon, bridge):