All About Aperture

So, you just got your camera and now you want to shoot on manual mode. The first things you need to learn about are your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. In this blog post I will be going over what aperture is, and how to use it.

First, let’s answer the question you all have been asking, what is aperture? Aperture is the hole in your lens that lets light in. The best way to think of aperture is looking at it like it’s you eye. (See Figure 1)

Figure 1

Look at it this way, the cornea in your eyes, is like the front of the camera lens. It takes in the light and then it passes to the iris. The amount of light will determine if the iris will expand or shrink, which controls the size of the pupil (the hole that will let light pass further into the eye). So, your pupil is like the aperture, the amount of light allowed into the lens. The larger the pupil, the more light that enters the retina.

Now that we have explained what aperture is, lets go over how to use it to take great photos. So, the part of the camera, like the iris of your eye, that controls the size of the aperture is called the diaphragm. What the diaphragm does, is block light except the amount you want to enter the lens. Aperture is measured in f-stops, for example f/8. The f-stops are how we determine how open or closed the aperture is for your photos. The numbers are like this, the smaller the number the more open the aperture, and the smaller the number the more closed aperture. (See Figure 2)

Figure 2

Another thing that goes along with your aperture is depth of field. As shown in figure 2 the more open your aperture, the greater depth of field you have, and the more closed down the greater depth of field you will have. But what exactly does all that mean? The depth of field is the part of the photo that is the most in focus. So, when you have a greater depth of field, and a higher f-stop you will have more of the photo in focus. For example, in this photo (Figure 3), I shot with at f/13 aperture and you can see that the flowers in the background are still in focus.

Figure 3

Yet in this photo (figure 4) I used a lower f-stop of f/5.6 and the flowers in the background are less in focus, and you see more of the bee on the flower.

Figure 4

I hope I have helped you understand what aperture is a little better. Feel free to message me with any questions you may have! Thanks for subscribing to my blog I post weekly.

Jessica

 

 

References

Figure 1. https://optilase.com/news/how-the-eye-works-like-a-camera-and-why-laser-eye-surgery-is-the-answer-when-it-fails/.

Figure 2. https://petphotographytips.wordpress.com/2011/05/24/what-is-an-fstop/.

Figures 3 & 4 by Jess Wyman Photography