Thursday, May 23, 2013

How To Define And Take Control Of Aperture In Photography

By Luke Walker


If you're a newbie photographer, there's a good chance that you don't have a comprehensive understanding that enables you to know how to define aperture (as well as a few other things, which we will get to later). Here I want to explain to you exactly what aperture is and how to use it.

Simply put, aperture is your camera lens opening and closing. Imagine you are taking pictures in a dark place. If you are using a small aperture, less light will enter the camera. You would have to let more light to reach your camera's sensor by opening up your aperture.

You have to know about the numerical values of F stop. This denotes the slice of of aperture. The smaller the F number, the lens will be wider. To allow more light to come in, we should use a smaller F stop number. With larger F stop numbers such as F stop 2, the aperture will be big.There is an directly unproportional link between aperture and the F stop number.

By working with various F stop numbers, you can make various effects, for example a blurred background in a portrait photo, or a landscape photo where everything in the frame is in focus.With an aperture of F2, the lens is wide open. Some lenses can go as low as F1.4 and allow even more light to shine through, which is perfect if it's dark.

As you increase the F number the size of the opening is reduced.The bigger the number, the smaller the opening and vice versa.

To adjust this setting on your camera, rotate the dial on the top left to A or AV. This means Aperture mode. This is semi-automatic, meaning you pick the F stop number and your camera will calculate the ISO value and shutter speed for you.

If you can afford them, prime lenses which can go as low as F1.4 can really be worth the extra money, especially for portrait work.

To get blurred backgrounds, use lower F numbers (such as 2.8). As you move up to F 4.5 or F 9, you will see the background details becoming crisper. Such backgrounds can also take the viewer's attention away from the main subject, so for portrait images you want to choose smaller F numbers. For landscapes, groups of people and so on, you will want to use bigger F stop values.

Your camera should be set on auto focus single (not auto focus auto) otherwise the camera will decide what it should focus on, which is not what we want in this situation.

So, now that you've read this article you should know how to define aperture pretty well, as well as how to use it when taking your photos.




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