Aperture through and through

When it comes to Photography basics, Aperture is an important aspect you should consider. It is among the three main pillars of Photography. By three main pillars, I mean Shutter speed, ISO, and Aperture. These three pillars are explained in the Exposure triangle.

As you develop as a photographer, you will want to have more control over your Camera. And you will start turning towards manual modes. And you will have to learn to control these three things in the exposure triangle simultaneously.

Understanding Aperture

You can think of Aperture as the pupil of your eye. As the pupil works as an opening and closing of your eyes depending upon the light, you can control the opening of your camera lens according to the lighting conditions. If you look properly into the lens you will see a type of adjustable hole. This is called the diaphragm.

You can widen or narrow this hole according to the light coming in the lens and adjust your exposure. The catch here is that when the hole is fully widened the aperture value is minimum and when it is fully narrowed the value is maximum. The value of the aperture is given in f-stops.

Aperture is measure in f-stops

The value of aperture is measured in f-number or f-stop. You may have seen numbers like f/1.8, f/2.8, f/5.6, f/7.1, f/8, etc. or maybe without slash like F1.8, F5.6 and F8. These are the same just the representation is different.

 

When people say small aperture they mean f-stop like f/12 or f/16. And when they say large aperture they mean f/1.8 or f/1.2. It is simply written in 'fraction.'

As we know 1/2 cup water is more than 1/8 cup of water similar to it the Aperture f/1.8 is larger than the Aperture f/10. This is a simple logic you should understand to work with Aperture.

 

Effect of Aperture on the Exposure 

Like I said before Aperture is one of the main pillars of Exposure Triangle, it has a lot to do with the brightness of your Photograph. When you widen the aperture (decrease the aperture value i.e. f-stop number), you allow your lens to bring in more light on the sensor and when you narrow the aperture (increase the f-stop number), you restrict the amount of light passing through the lens.

 

Effect of Aperture on Depth of Field

We talked about how the Aperture affects your Exposure. But it is not the only thing it does. Have you wondered about how to achieve perfect background blur or that bokeh, well aperture is the key to your question.

Depth of field is basically the portion of your image which is in focus. You can control the depth of field in you Photograph by changing the Aperture. You will have a shallow Depth of Field (less amount of area in focus) if your aperture is wide open and deep Depth of Field (more amount of area in focus) if your aperture is narrow.

 

Effect of Aperture on Shutter Speed

Shutter Speed and Aperture go hand in hand with each other if we exclude the artificial brightness that is ISO. To get the proper amount of light in your sensor you have to set the values of these 2 things appropriately.

 As you widen the aperture the diaphragm of the lens opens and the amount of light passing through the lens increases therefore we have to increase the amount of shutter speed which will reduce the time for which sensor is exposed to light and we will get the perfect amount of light in the photograph and vice versa.

 

 

How to use Aperture in different situation

        1.     While Shooting Portraits

While shooting portraits it is important that the viewer first see the model therefore it is important to keep the model in focus and rest everything out of focus. The appropriate range of aperture according to me is f/1.8 – f/2.8 for a prime lens and assuming you have the kit lens I would prefer to stick on the widest aperture (lowest f-number).

 

        2.   While Shooting Landscape

While shooting landscape you should keep everything in your frame in focus as everything in your frame is important therefore according to me the appropriate aperture range should be f/8 – f/12.

 

Conclusion

This is my approach on aperture, I have almost covered this topic in detail because no matter how much you learn there is always more in photography. I hope this article helped you.

If you have any suggestions or any topics you want to understand feel free to tell me in the comment section below. And I would love to add those in the blog.