Apertures are how you, as the creative photographer, control the amount of light that enters a digital camera’s sensor.
A lens is the mechanism through which light enters the camera and is then later imprinted on a digital sensor.
The wider the light opening, the more light that can enter your camera.
Sometimes it is necessary to get as much light into your camera. And sometimes it is not.
It is better and more natural to think of the aperture as something that controls the depth-of-field of a photo.
What is “Depth of Field”?
Have you been enthralled at photos where the subject was so sharply in focus because of a softly blurred background?
These were photos that grabbed and captured your imagination, right?
This is what depth-of-field is: it controls the amount of background blur in your photos.
Here are some questions to ask yourself when changing aperture settings:
- Do I want to tell a story? – Yes = increase your f-stop to f/8+.
- Do I want to emphasize my subject? – Yes = decrease f-stop to f/5.6 or less.
- Do I want a sharp image throughout the photo? – Yes = increase f-stop to f/11 or more.
F-Stop Numbers
I specifically didn’t mention f-stop numbers, until now. It is easy to become confused by the numbers but this is how they work.
An f-stop is the ratio between the focal length of your lens and the diameter of the opening.
The smaller the f-stop number, the larger the opening…
When photographers talk about stopping down, it means that they are making the lens opening smaller. Similarly, wide open means that the f-stop number is the smallest possible.
The photo on the above left shows the lens stopped down to it’s widest opening. In this case, f/2.8. The photo on the right shows the same lens stopped down to about f/8.
You can see how the opening in the lens becomes smaller as the f-stop number gets larger.
Love your camera. Love yourself. Love your photos.
Related posts:
