I recently enrolled in my first digital photography class and am already learning a great deal about the features on my digital camera. I plan to do several of these quick tutorials over the next few months to show you guys some of the neat things I am learning.
Today I will give you a quick explanation on aperture, also known as F-stop. Simply put, aperture is the diameter of your camera’s lens opening when it snaps a photo. Most point-and-shoot cameras will have a fixed aperture but if your camera has a manual mode, you will have control over this feature. Aperture is measured in F-stops, or steps. My Nikon D80 starts at f/3.5 and goes up to f/22 (@ 18mm). I could easily spend an hour or more going into full detail about aperture, but the easiest way to describe it is to show you an example of it in action.
First up, I have taken a photo at an aperture of f/3.5
The focus was set on the far can. Notice how the can closest to the lens is out of focus. Now, look what happens when I change the F-stop to f/22
Notice how all cans now have a very sharp focus!
So when would you want to use a low-number F-stop and when would you use a higher number one? Low number F-stops are best for portraits. You will be able to put a hard focus on your subject, while everything in the background will be blurred, giving a nice effect. Want less background blur? Use a higher F-stop number. Higher F-stop numbers are great for landscape photos, where you want everything in the screen to be in focus.
There are a few things to keep in mind when manipulating F-stop numbers. Lower numbers mean larger lens openings, thus letting in more light. This is usually not a big deal to compensate for, using your camera’s other features like ISO and shutter speed. Higher F-stop numbers mean that the lens opening is much smaller and in turn, lets in less light. You will need to adjust your ISO and more importantly, reduce the shutter speed in order to get enough light in the camera to product a good photo. Depending on the setting, it may be necessary to use a tripod with high F-stop numbers to prevent blurring because of the slow shutter speed.
I hope this quick tutorial has given you a bit of insight into your camera’s aperture features and settings! Please feel free to comment if you have any questions.
