U know what aperture is? actually it is a small set of blades in the lens that controls how much light will enter the camera. The blades create a octagonal shape that can be widened (we photogs call it shooting “wide open”), or closed down to a small hole. Obviously, if you shoot with the aperture wide open, then more light is allowed into the camera than if the aperture is closed down to only allow a tiny hole of light to enter the camera.
So suppose you take a picture that is too bright. How do you fix it? Simply choose a smaller aperture. Simple! Aperture sizes are measured by f-stops. A high f-stop like f-22 means that the aperture hole is quite small, and a low f-stop like f/3.5 means that the aperture is wide open.
Let's test your knowledge to make sure you have it down. If you take a picture and it's too dark at f/5.6, would you choose a lower f-stop number or a higher one? Yep! You'd choose a lower f-stop number, which opens up the aperture to let in more light. The size of the aperture controls more than the brightness or darkness of the picture, though.
The aperture also controls the depth-of-field. Depth-of-field is how much of the picture is sharp, and how much is blurry. If you want to take a picture of a person and have the background be blurry, you'd use shallow depth of field. If you want to take a picture of a sweeping mountain vista, you'd want to use a small aperture size (high f-stop number) so that the entire scene is in sharp focus. If you, like me, are more of a visual learner, then I think this graphic will help solidify the information about aperture. Take a minute and make sure you understand this info before moving on.
Hi! I am a robot. I just upvoted you! I found similar content that readers might be interested in:
https://improvephotography.com/photography-basics/aperture-shutter-speed-and-iso/
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit