Hello friends! Happy Wednesday! It’s that time again! Last week we had spring break so I took a break from posting so here we go! This is a good one! We have been talking about the Big Three! Those three little things that go into creating the PERFECT PICTURE or we could say PERFECT EXPOSURE. So far we have covered, ISO and SHUTTER SPEED. If you missed those posts you can click HERE for the ISO episode and HERE for the SHUTTER SPEED. Lots of good info there you will want to read!
Okay let’s get on with it!! The last of the 3 SETTINGS is APERATURE or F-STOP.
The aperture is the size of the opening in the lens, and is yet another way to control how much light enters the camera. If the shutter functions like a blinking eyelid, the aperture is like the pupil of the eye. It gets larger or smaller depending on how much light there is in a given situation. Unlike our eyes, however, the aperture does not adjust automatically- that is up to us! If you want more light in, choose a larger aperture. If you want less light in choose a smaller aperture. It’s pretty straight forward. If it’s bright go smaller, if it’s dim go bigger!
Another word for aperture is F-stop. For the largest aperture opening use the smallest F-stop number. This is really confusing at times. It would make more sense if the largest opening was the largest number but that would be to easy! 🙂 The largest aperture- where the most light comes in- has an f-stop of 1.0 (f/1). The smallest aperture- where the least amount of light comes in- has an f-stop of 22 (f/22). I told you it was confusing!
Changing your aperture also gives you another powerful tool in determining the outcome of your image. Aperture controls your depth of field. The depth of field is the amount of your image that is in focus. Let’s say for example, you are taking a portrait of a child. You want his face to be sharp and the background to be blurry. This is called shallow depth of field.
Now let’s say you are photographing a beautiful landscape like the Grand Canyon and you want the entire image to be in focus. This is called a deep depth of field. Here is another example of where the numbers are reversed. A large aperture (low f-stop number) a smaller area will be in focus. A small aperture (high f-stop number) a larger area will be in focus.
There you have it! The confusing world of the F-stop! Now next week we are going to be going over how to put these three together to get that perfect exposure. And it will ALL MAKE SENSE! It is going to be a fun post! I’m going to give you my exact recipe. 🙂 Thank’s for reading! I really am enjoying these weekly posts and hope that you are all learning something new!
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