Photography Lesson: What is Aperture?

So you want to get into photography but don't know much about it. Or maybe you've been taking pictures for awhile, and have heard of aperture, but don't really know what it is or how it applies to pictures. Chances are, if you have used a camera for more than just posting cell phone pictures on Instagram, you've at least heard the word aperture before. But what is it? Well.....

Aperture is basically the opening and closing of your lens, or how much light your lens is currently letting in. Sounds simple enough, right? Well it is, but it does take practice to make sure you're using it correctly in photographs. This would be a good time to start learning, as aperture is one of the most important things in proper photo composition.

Have you ever looked at a SLR (or DSLR) lens and noticed a tiny number that looks like 1:X.X-X.X? (Ex: 1:2.8-5.6)  The first number after the 1: (2.8) is the maximum aperture of your lens and the second number (5.6) is the minimum aperture. This is where it gets confusing, as you notice 5.6 is a significantly larger number than 2.8. But actually, the smaller the number the larger the aperture.

Aperture is almost always written with an f/ before the number. This is called an F Stop. An F Stop is the numeric value that decides the size of your aperture. The smaller the F Stop value the wider the opening of your lens. For example, a lens that has a maximum aperture of f/2.0 would let in much more light than a lens that has a maximum aperture 5.6.

It used to be thought that there was no such thing as a larger aperture than f/2.0. But with increases in technology and capability, here is the updated true f stop values, from largest to smallest (if you're new to photography these will seem backwards).

True Aperture: f/1, f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4. f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22, f/32, f/45, f/64, f/90

Now, unless you want to shell out a large portion of your life savings you will never own a lens with an aperture of f/1, and you will probably never see a lens that has a range that goes anywhere near f/90, because it wouldn't serve any good in most situations.

I'm not going to tell you how to change the aperture settings on your camera, since all cameras are different. For example, Canon (which I shoot with) has their aperture priority mode labeled Av, but Nikon has their aperture priority mode simply A. It will be up to you to find out how to adjust your aperture, but I will show you some examples of different apertures. It might be helpful to click the first picture to expand it, then use the arrows to scroll through to see all the images in a row.

1/160sec - f/4 - ISO800

1/80sec - f/5.6 - ISO800

1/40sec - f/8 - ISO800

1/20sec - f/11 - ISO800

One thing you'll notice is that as the aperture gets smaller (f stop value gets larger) the salt shaker becomes more in focus. This shows that a larger aperture keeps your subject in focus but the background blurred. This is why lenses with an aperture of f/2.8 and larger are great for portrait photography (and usually more expensive).

The second thing you'll notice is the shutter speed was slower as the aperture got smaller. This is because the lens is not as open, so the shutter speed must be slowed to gather more light. If you don't quite understand this part, that's ok. I'll do a lesson on shutter speed soon enough. Hopefully this helped you gain more knowledge of aperture, and photography in general. If this helped, please LIKE ME ON FACEBOOK and post pictures of your new found aperture skills on the wall! Until next time.....

- Jarvis Creative