Camera Basics - Aperture

what is aperture perhaps the most influential parameter of photography aperture plays an important role in composition and setting up a shot let's take a closer look simply put aperture is the hole in the lens through which light travels into the camera body and onto the camera sensor to understand let's look at the human eye all cameras are designed like human eyes the cornea of our eye is similar to the front element of the lens gathering light and bending it inward toward the iris the iris can expand or shrink controlling the size of the pupil which passes light into the inner eye the pupil is what we refer to as the aperture in photography the amount of light that falls on to the retina is determined by the size of the pupil the larger the pupil the more light falls onto the retina the larger the aperture of the lens the more light enters the camera the iris of the lens controls the size of the aperture and is called the diaphragm the diaphragms function is to block all light with the exception of the light that goes through the aperture in photography aperture is expressed in f numbers also known as f stomps f stops our way of describing how open or closed the aperture is the smaller the f-stop means a larger aperture while a larger f-stop means a smaller aperture this can be tricky to remember since large F stops means small aperture sizes so an f-stop of F 1.4 is larger than F 2.8 and much larger than f/8 or f/11 aside from controlling the amount of light passing through the lens and into the camera the aperture has a direct impact on the depth of field the area of the image that appears sharp a large F numbers such as f-16 will bring all foreground and background objects into focus while a small F number such as F 1.4 will isolate either the foreground or background objects and make everything else blurry every lens has a limit on how large or small the aperture can get if you take a look at the specifications of your lens it should indicate the maximum apertures lowest f-numbers and minimum apertures highest def numbers the maximum aperture of the lens is much more important than the minimum aperture because it shows the speed of the lens lenses with apertures of F 1.4 or F 2.8 are considered fast lenses because they can pass more light into the camera then for example a lens with a maximum aperture of f/4 or F 5.6 that's the reason night photography usually requires fast lenses the minimum aperture of a lens is usually not important and should rarely be used as diffraction will cause the image to lose clarity it is also worth noting the two types of lenses primes and zooms prime lenses have a fixed focal length meaning they cannot zoom without physically moving closer or further away from the subject zoom lenses give you the flexibility for you to zoom in or out of an object while remaining stationary while prime lenses will have a fixed maximum aperture the maximum aperture of a zoom lens will often get smaller as the focal length increases these lenses are called variable aperture lenses this is important because for a zoom lens with a focal length of 70 to 200 millimeters the aperture may increase from F 3.5 2f 5.6 decreasing the amount of light entering the camera because aperture controls the amount of light entering the camera it also affects other parameters such as ISO and shutter speed a larger aperture or smaller F number will let more light into the camera allowing you to use a faster shutter speed or lower ISO value this is beneficial to eliminate motion blur and reduce the amount of noise that your camera will produce if it's ISO gets bumped up faster shutter speeds can be essential in scenes with lots of motion like sports and wildlife photography so a fast lens can help increase your shutter speed or decrease your ISO value if your shutter speed is set to a specific value fast lenses are also imperative for any kind of nighttime photography whether you're taking pictures of the Milky Way or doing a moonlit photo shoot large apertures will let as much light in as possible small apertures can be useful as well shooting landscape scenes requires everything in crisp focus so smaller apertures will sharpen any out-of-focus areas that may come about to enable manual adjustment of aperture values set your camera to either aperture priority or manual mode aperture priority will let you change aperture values manually while leaving shutter speed and ISO up to the cameras internal metering system manual mode lets you control every aspect of the camera allowing you to change ISO aperture and shutter speed I personally leave my camera in aperture priority mode 99% of the time for most types of photography with all this information you should be able to start using your lenses and cameras to the best of their ability aperture is probably the most stylist extending you can change on your camera allowing for unique effects that can take your images to the next level

Channel: Apalapse

Views: 3,033,274

Keywords: aperture, tutorial, dslr, aperture setting, what is aperture, help, information, educational, animation, dslr camera help, dslr camera tutorial, best aperture, night photography, aperture for landscape photography, aperture explained, explanatory, milky way, dslr lenses

Id: YojL7UQTVhc

Length: 5min 19sec (319 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 22 2017