You can see the maximum aperture written on the lens somewhere. If you’re using an entry-level camera that came with a ‘kit’ lens, that lens is likely to have a maximum aperture of around f/5.6. Your camera/lens may be able to shoot at f/1.8, or f/3.6 for example, but you can still easily visualize where these apertures would fall on the scale above. Note that there are other f-stop numbers that aren’t shown in the diagram above. The larger the aperture (‘opening’ in the lens), the smaller the numerical f-stop value. It shows how the larger the opening of your lens, the smaller the f-stop number that’s displayed: The picture below should help explain this better. When you see a number on your camera’s LCD which is preceded by a letter ‘f’, the closer that number is to zero, the lighter your photo should be. If I gave you the mathematical explanation about diaphragms and factors of light, this would be just like every other boring article on aperture out there, so just remember this instead: The smaller the f-number, the larger the aperture. The larger the f-number, the smaller the aperture. I’ve been a pro photographer for several years now and still can’t recite them… In photography school, you’d be expected to learn those numbers (f-stops) off by heart, but this really isn’t necessary. You might have heard a photographer ask, “what’s your aperture?”, or “what aperture are you shooting at”, and the reply would usually be the letter “f” followed by a number. We talk about aperture in photography using something called ‘f-numbers’ or ‘ f-stops‘. OK, so here’s a question for you: How do you adjust your camera lens’ aperture (opening) to make it bigger or smaller? a large aperture) since I needed as much light as possible to come through my camera’s lens (since it was a dark scene lit only by the small bulbs above). We’ll explore more on this in the understanding exposure lesson, but here’s a quick image to illustrate what I mean: Other times you may be forced to choose a certain aperture based on the available light you have in your scene. (Check out these examples of using a small aperture in photography.) Using the aperture to control the amount of light that comes through your lens is sometimes a creative choice you make. What happens when a lot of light comes through the lens? Your photo gets brighter… and if you make that opening smaller, guess what? Less light!Īperture controls how bright your photo is. do I want a lot of light to be able to pass through the lens (via a big opening) or not much light (via a small opening)? a small aperture) to reduce the amount of light that was entering the lens.īefore taking a photo, ask yourself this:ĭo I want a big opening or a small opening in my lens? i.e.
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