This photograph was taken by the dynamic duo, Gary and Julie, at Hughes Fioretti Photography. If you haven't stop by their website http://www.hughesfioretti.com/, you have to go check it out. I love their work!
And…we’re back! Are you confused? Gosh, I hope not.
I need to take a second to thank my husband who I force to read my posts over and over again until I get them right. Or at least my unique version of right. I am sure that he would like to rip his eyes out just to escape the misery that has become his life. LOL! Thanks for being so supportive, you sweet adorable man! And to my friend Adrienne, thank you for your endless support, excitement, and being my personal guinea pig! You are the bomb! And to my friends and family who have subscribed to my blog! I love you guys too! I now have 4 subscribers! Woooooooo-Hooooooooo!
As always, I must add my disclaimer….blah blah blah…not an expert…blah blah blah…try to help.
Basic Camera Know How: Just a quick sub-thought!
I have chosen to go over Aperture in this post but, before I do I want to explain a few things about your camera. First if you are using the Auto setting on your camera, it will choose what it thinks is the proper exposure and set all three elements to the best of its ability. If you are using one of the priority modes on your camera such as Aperture Priority (A, AP, or AT) or even Shutter Priority (S, SP, or ST), then you are allowing the camera to choose the proper exposure and the settings for the other two elements. What I mean by this is if you select Aperture Priority, then you are only choosing the aperture and your camera is choosing the shutter speed and the ISO. Therefore, as you change the size of the aperture, the programming in the camera is changing the shutter speed and/or ISO to maintain what it has determined as proper exposure. Remember the Photographic Triangle from my last post? (if not, click here) If you change the aperture, then your camera will move the shutter speed and ISO to keep the ball in the center. So no matter how you change the aperture, the camera will keep moving the other two elements to return to basically the same exposure. If this is the case, then you probably won’t see a dramatic change in how the photo is lightened or darkened.
What if you don’t like the exposure that the camera has chosen? Well, then you are going to have to be in control of at least two elements of the triangle in order to change the exposure. To do this, switch your camera to Manual mode. Now that you are in control of two of the elements (shutter speed and aperture), your camera can not continue to balance the ball in the middle. Try this with your camera; turn your camera to Auto mode, take a picture. Then switch it to the Manual mode. Set the Shutter to 1/60 (60), this will fix that corner of the triangle. It will not move. Now if you move the Aperture corner up and down, you can tip the scales one way or the other. Try changing your aperture to f/2 (2 or 2.0); take a picture. Move the aperture to f/4 (4 or 4.0); take a picture. Were you able to see a difference in the amount of light in the photos? Keep moving the aperture until you get to what you think is the “proper exposure.”
There is still one more aspect to each of the three elements. It is what I will call their "artistic element." If all you want to do is play with one of the creative elements of a photograph then one of the priority settings is a perfect way to do that. In the priority settings, you are letting the camera pick and maintain the proper exposure while you play with the artistic look of a photograph.
So now it’s on to defining Aperture. The first thing I want you think about is that each element has two primary functions. The first is the way it helps to capture light and the other is its “artistic element.” I have broken the following paragraphs down by Aperture’s technical and artistic aspects. That way if you just want to play with the Artistic elements you can skip down to that section. However, if you would like to understand the technical aspects of Aperture as well, then start with the next paragraph.
TECHNICAL:
Aperture is the volume of light allowed to hit the digital sensor or film in your camera. What does this mean? I will refer to an example given in one of my books (Photography, Ninth Edition, Pearson Prentice Hall). Imagine water from a faucet filling a bucket. The description I am going to give may be a little different than what is presented in the book, but this is my post. So there! LOL!
A faucet handle opens and closes a water valve just as the dial on your camera opens and closes the blades inside the lens; the size of the opening is Aperture! The water would be the light, and the bucket would be the sensor/film. Filling the bucket is the equivalent of reaching proper exposure. If you only turn the handle far enough to allow the faucet to drip, this would be the equivalent of a small aperture because only a small amount of water (light) is able to pass through the valve and enter the bucket. If you open the faucet fully, this would be the equivalent of a wide aperture because a lot of water (light) is allowed to pass through the valve and enter the bucket.
Another way to look at Aperture is very similar to the pupil. Think about this: if you go out at noon on a clear day when the sun is at its highest, your pupils will automatically contract (small aperture) to allow less light in so you are still able to see. Now walk into a very dimly lit room and your pupils will dilate (wide aperture) in order to gather as much light as possible so you are able to see. Well, aperture works very much like your pupil. Look at the following sketch of how the blades open and close.
(Sketch borrowed from Synaptic Light)
Doesn’t it look like a robotic eye? All lenses have an aperture, no matter how simple or complex.
So…why would you adjust Aperture? Well, there are two main reasons. The first is you need more or less light to reach proper exposure (technical) and/or the second is to control the Depth of Field (artistic).
Let’s start with the technical. If your photograph seems dark, this can be remedied by widening the aperture to allow more light to hit the sensor and lighten the image. The opposite is true if the image seems too light.
(Sketch borrowed from Synaptic Light)
Ummmm…what? “Why I gotta go and make it all complicated?” Just to let you know, this one took me a while to absorb. Here is an explanation I found on Ehow.com:
“Aperture is expressed in cameras by the F/stop, which is a value that compares the focal length of the camera to the aperture diameter. To calculate the aperture diameter, you need only know the camera's F/stop setting and focal length...”
Here’s what I hear…blah-ba-blah-bla-blah! I am not that good at, or even interested in all that complicated math. If you’re not either, let’s look at it another way. Is mine an actual reflection of what the numbers mean? Well, no! But, it may help you see the connection between the numbers and the width of the opening. So here we go...
Look at the f/stops like fractions of an inch: Let’s start by changing the f to a 1, as below:
f/2 is like 1/2 or half an inch
f/2.8 is kind of like 1/2.8 or rounding it 1/3 or a third of an inch
f/4 is like 1/4 or a fourth of an inch, and so on until you reach
f/16 (or higher) which is like 1/16 or a sixteenth of an inch.
Does that help you visualize why f/2 is bigger than f/16? A 1/2 inch opening is wider than 1/16 inch opening, right? Did I redeem myself? Did I make it a little simpler? Do I get a cookie now? No really...that’s what I do all of this for...my love of cookies!
One last thing about the technical aspects of Aperture. Every time you move from one aperture (f/stop) to the next, you are either doubling or halving the amount of light allowed to hit the sensor. (Please remember you cannot use the fractions above to do the math; it won’t work. Remember those are more visual rather than actual.) Look at the following sketch again:
With that in mind, if you think you need about double the amount of light in a photo, then you know that you only need to move one f/stop in order to do that. For example, moving from f/8 to f/5.6 (f/8 to f/4 would allow 4x the amount of light and so on). Or, if you only need half the light, then you could just move from f/16 to f/11 (f/16 to f/8 would cut the light by a fourth and so on). Does that make sense? I’m not going to elaborate extensively on this point, because I feel like the more I try to explain it, the more complicated it may seem. Just keep that concept in the back of your mind because as you become more familiar with your camera, this will start to make more sense.
ARTISTIC:
Whew…that was a long one. Are you ready to be creative? Great! The main thing that Aperture affects is the Depth of Field.
Depth of Field is basically the area from near to far, that is acceptably sharp in a photograph.
Great, that’s the definition of Depth of Field but does that really clear it up for you? It didn’t for me until I saw it in a photo. So let’s look at a few:
I borrowed this photo from Photoshopsupport.com
Do you see how relatively sharp the chess pieces are from front to back in the top photo? This is a wide/large depth of field (small opening, such as f/16). Now in the second photograph, do you see how the first chess piece is in focus but as you look through the rest of the photograph the pieces become blurrier? This is a shallow depth of field (wide opening, such as f/2). Are you starting to see the difference between wide and shallow depth of field? A little? Well, let’s look at a few more photographs.
This photo was borrowed from ClubSnap.com.
This photo is another example of a wide depth of field (small opening) because everything from the foreground to the background is relatively in focus.
This photo was borrowed from ClubSnap.com.
This photo is an example of shallow depth of field (wide opening). Do you see how the toes are in focus while the little girl is blurred in the background?
Are you starting to see how depth of field affects the artistic element of a photograph? Let’s discuss why you may want to use depth of field.
Let’s start with eliminating any distracting elements in a photograph. For example, you want to take a photo of your son doing something cute; but when you pick up your camera and compose the shot you are unable to avoid a few unwanted background elements. Maybe there is a pile of laundry in one corner of the frame, a few dust bunnies on the floor, and grandpa is asleep, drooling in a chair in another corner of the frame. Well, if you want to blur those elements you can choose a shallow (wide opening) depth of field. In doing so, you will bring the focus to your son and not the distracting elements in the room.
So let’s say you want to take a portrait style photograph of one of your friends or family. One of the best ways to keep the focus on their face is to blur the background (wide opening, shallow depth of field) as shown in the following photograph.
This photo was borrowed from Squidoo.com/basic.photography
Do you see how blurring the background keeps your focus on the girls face instead of the trees behind her? This is a shallow depth of field (wide opening).
Now, let’s look at why you may want to use a large depth of field. Let’s say because I wrote this spectacular post that you wanted to take me on a much needed vacation. Hint…Hint! And while we’re in some exotic, tropical, amazing, beach location you want to take a picture of a dramatic scene. You probably want keep the entire scene in focus. Take a look at the picture below to see what I mean.
This photo was taken by Susan Stripling (http://www.susanstriplingblog.com/)
Do you see how keeping everything in the photograph in focus adds to the drama? This is a wide depth of field (small opening). I’ll be expecting those tickets any day now!
Let’s look at another example of how a large depth of field can add to the creative elements in a photograph.
This photo was borrowed from www.photoax.com
See how everything is in relative focus from the rock in the foreground to the mountains in the background (wide depth of field; small opening). This would not be possible with a shallow depth of field (wide opening). The reason is because with a shallow depth of field some of the scene would be blurred.
Are you wondering how to create this effect for yourself? Well to try and keep it simple, the wider (large opening) the aperture the shallower the depth of field. The narrower (small opening) the aperture the larger the depth of field. For example an f/stop of f/2 will produce a very shallow depth of field and f/stop of f/16 will create a very large depth of field. (Refer to the technical section for an explanation on f/stops.) Look at the following photograph for a visual of the difference.
This photo was borrowed from www.nightphotographyclass.com
Can you see how changing the f-stop from f/22 (small opening) to f/2.8 (wide opening) changes the focus in the background. Can you see how it changes the feel of the photograph? Try this the next time you are taking pictures. Set your camera to Aperture Priority mode and while you change the f/stop take several photographs of the same image or scene. See what happens.
So in conclusion, to answer Lexi’s question of “When do I use aperture?” I have to answer like this…it depends on what you want to do. I know that is such a frustrating answer but as you can see it is all part of the creative decisions that are possible in photography. I hope that all of the information I provided gives you some clarity and inspiration on using aperture.
Before I go, here is another helpful hint: Your eye will naturally move to the sharpest part of a photograph first, so you can use aperture to bring the focus to your primary subject.
Well…that’s all folks. Please feel free to post any questions or comments on this or any other post. Stay tuned for the next installment where I attempt to demystify shutter speed.
Till next time!
