What did you learn today?

[zero_kanipan]

adjust shutter speed to convey movement via blur, or freeze a moving thing. also useful if you want light exposure effects.
adjust aperture size if you want the background to be blurred or not.
adjust ISO for light sensitivity, ie, how dark or bright the shot will be.
shutter speed and aperture size actually also affect overall exposure and light sensitivity, but not as much as ISO setting.
quicker alternatives to ISO settings (or to fine tune brightness) include exposure adjustments and brightness/contrast adjustments.
using flash automatically limits minimum settings for shutter speed and aperture size.

for toy/macro photography, use manual focusing and low numbers for aperture. shutter speed and ISO can be adjusted to get standard exposure values (unless you want a specific lighting effect). particular for my camera, i need at least around two hand's widths distance from near the viewfinder hole to the subject. alternatively, at least one hand's width from the tip of the lens.