I know I’ve already started with other things, but I’d like to indulge a friend’s request and start with camera basics. It is, after all, what we all need to know before we can start making full use of our cameras.
I’m going to start off with the aperture (also called an f-stop or lens opening).
Relating it into something that would be easy to understand, the aperture is like the pupils of our eyes. It is where light passes through to get to wherever it is that it’s going. In the case of the camera, the light goes to the sensor.
You’ve probably noticed that the darker the lighting is, the wider our pupils get. That’s because it’s trying to get as much light as it can. The same thing goes with the lens aperture. You set your aperture setting to a bigger opening to catch as much light as possible.
A quick note, though, before we go on. The lower the f-stop number, the bigger the lens opening is.
In bright light, however, we tend to squint and our pupils constrict. The body does this to let in less light. In a camera, you have your aperture setting set to a smaller opening so that you don’t come out with a really bright, washed-out image (not unless that’s what you’re aiming for).
Also, another think you might want to take note of, is that the smaller the lens opening, the more details you get into the photo. And vice versa, a larger aperture opening gives the photo a shallow depth of field (DOF). But more on DOF in the following days.
Depending on your camera, you have a wide selection of aperture sizes to use. Choose the best one for the current lighting condition and pair it off with the right shutter speed (which I’ll dabble on in my next few posts), and you’ve got yourself a clear photo.
