hey glad to hear you have an intrest in photography. i'm sure you've seen we have quite a bit of talent on the forum when it comes to photography so i'm sure alot of people will chime in. 28-80 is the focal length; that's not too hard to understand. the only thing you might want to watch out for is around 28 strait lines may bend a little. I know they do at 18 but i'm not quite sure about 28. now aperture... it's you're best friend in most situations. i can't really tell you how it's measured, but, i can tell you how it works. basicly aperture is the the size of the hole that lets light in. the lower the number the bigger the hole, it's kinda backwards. but also with aperature you can control your depth of field. since your aperture range is pretty narrow it's safe to say you have a pretty small depth of field, meaning if there's 2 subjects one of which is closer than the other you'll only be able to focus on one. if you're shooting say a landscape you can focus the whole thing however. if you were to use a lens with an aperture of let's say 22 you can get both close subjects and far subjects in focus. and as how to set aperature on your camera when in aperture priority mode which is the "A" on your dial you can just spin the scroll wheel by the shutter realease. when in full manual i believe your going to have to push in the button that reads "+/-" by the shutter realease to adjust it. i hope this helps and is followable. if you have any other questions just ask. everyone here should be happy to help.