How to Choose the Best Aperture

[Music] hey guys what's up and welcome back to the channel so we are here in bali indonesia i swear it was sunny about 10 minutes ago and then the clouds have rolled in and it doesn't look great but i still want to take some time to talk today about aperture aperture is one of the most fundamental pieces of photography and i've been trying to get back to some of the more fundamentals here on the youtube channel so today in this video we're going to be talking about aperture what it is what it does and also how you guys can choose the best aperture where you're out shooting for those of you that are new here what's up my name is sean i'm a travel photographer and i produce weekly videos that teach you how to become a better photographer so if you're new here what's up we're happy to have you here and if you guys are interested in becoming better photographers feel free to subscribe also if you guys haven't downloaded it yet i'm giving away a free orange and teal preset pack the link to that is in the description okay with that out of the way let's talk about aperture what is aperture aperture is one of the three main settings on your camera right there shutter speed aperture and iso an aperture is essentially a little iris in your lens it's the little hole in your lens that opens up to let in light the smaller that hole is the less light is going to enter the camera the larger that hole is the more light is going to enter the camera so that's pretty self-explanatory right uh aperture is denoted by a number so also known as an f-stop that might be f 1.4 f 1.8 f 5.6 f 22 and essentially the bigger the number the smaller the hole is going to be the smaller the number the wider the hole is going to be so for example like f 1.4 is going to be wide open there's a lot of light is going to be able to enter the camera whereas like f 22 is going to be a really small hole and not a lot of light is going to enter the camera so from an exposure perspective from a perspective of how much light is entering the camera aperture is pretty darn easy to understand it's pretty simple but what makes aperture so interesting and what makes it so important to photography yes it's the exposure side but more importantly it's the creative side the artistic effect that aperture brings to our photos and that's what i want to focus on in this video today so the creative effect of aperture is its ability to control the depth of field in our image if you don't know what that means the depth of field essentially is the range of distance that is in focus within your image if that doesn't make any sense to you you can always understand it as how much blur is there going to be behind your main subject essentially it's just how much of your frame is in focus and how much of your frame is blurry or what we might call bokeh we can achieve a shallower depth of field where only a very small part of the image is in focus by using a wider aperture so a smaller number aperture like f 1.4 f 1.8 f 2.8 um and even f 4 in certain situations and then if you want to get more uniform frame throughout your focus you would use a a smaller aperture or a larger number like uh f8 f11 f16 or f22 those are good if you really want to have a super deep depth of field in your image so i can sit out here and talk about this all day long but that's not why i came out here i came out here to show you guys what these different apertures look like because i think that's the best way to really understand aperture is just take a bunch of photos of all the different apertures and compare them so i actually did take some photos before everything got really ugly out here but i'm still going to take some more so you guys can see and i'll just show you the better looking photos because they just look terrible right now because it's just super gray and not interesting at all so let's head over to this cool little subject over here i'm going to show you guys what all these different apertures look like okay so we are here we are in a rice paddy because bali is full of these beautiful rice terraces rice paddies and this one is hasn't been harvested yet so it's really pretty and there's this little um shrine i guess you would call it i'm not sure exactly what you'd call it but they have some little prayer things here for the gods bali is hindu so there's a lot of gods and they like to honor them with these things so it's really cool really pretty out here um so i'm gonna take some photos of this thing i think it's a good example to show you guys all the different apertures um and now this is a sony a6400 with a 35 millimeter f 1.4 lens on it so it has a really nice wide maximum aperture of f 1.4 i'm going to shoot all the way from f 1.4 all the way to f 16 which is the s the smallest aperture that this camera is capable of some lenses will do f 22 some lenses will do f 16 this one does f 16. also to note i'm going to be shooting an aperture priority i don't want to spend too much time focusing on the exposure side of aperture i think it's pretty simple i'm going to be shooting an aperture priority and if you guys have seen my other videos you know how much i love aperture priority you can check this video out up here and that's going to explain to you why i always recommend shooting an aperture priority and why i actually think manual mode is kind of a waste of time so i'm actually going to step back here because i don't need to be that close i'm just gonna take a bunch of different photos we'll start off here with f 1.4 all right we'll go to f2 oh we'll go to f 2.8 might be more of a difference there all right all right we'll go to that this is f4 here and we're doing f 5.6 [Music] we'll do f 8. all right do f11 and we'll do f16 so we got them all so when we look at all these images next to each other it's really easy for us to see the difference between apertures that are really wide like f 1.4 and apertures that are really small like f22 and i think this exercise is a really good way to see how aperture is going to affect your scene so you can see that apertures like f16 there's a lot more depth of field in your image there's going to be a lot more focus throughout your frame so not only was our subject here in focus but more of the background was in focus as well we could see more of the houses in the back we could see more detail on the grass behind the main subject whereas at f 1.4 a lot of the grass was out of focus the houses were much more out of focus and we just had a much shallower depth of field so when it comes to choosing your aperture where you guys are out shooting there's two considerations you should make the first of those being exposure considerations if you're shooting an aperture priority you don't need to pay attention to exposure so much because the camera is going to be doing most of the work but just don't shoot with an aperture like f 22 when you're in a dark room there's just not going to be enough light getting into the camera so if you're shooting in a dark and darker environment try to use a wider aperture to make sure that the camera has enough light to take a good exposure after you guys have locked in your exposure the second consideration is just gonna be what do you want your depth of field to be and this is really gonna come with experience the more you guys will shoot the more you're gonna know what kind of depth of field you're gonna want in your images and the more you're gonna understand your lenses and the capability that your camera has at all those different apertures for example i always like to shoot my portraits at something like f 2.8 even though my lenses go all the way down to f 1.4 and the reason for that is because if i'm shooting at something like f 1.4 the depth of field is so so shallow at that aperture that maybe the eye is in focus but then the nose is out of focus so shooting at f 1.4 just wouldn't be practical in those situations and on the flip side of that if i'm shooting a landscape i think a lot of people always think oh if you're shooting a landscape you should be shooting with a really really small aperture and that is the case if you're going to have a foreground a mid-ground and a background because the distance between the first subject that's in focus and the background is really really far so you're gonna have to use a really small aperture but if you're shooting a landscape and there's no foreground there's minimal mid ground and there's just a background the depth of field doesn't need to be deep because there is no deep depth of field in the shot in and of itself so you can shoot and get a really sharp photo at f 1.4 so when you're choosing your aperture just pay attention to how much of the frame that you really want in focus and be aware of the depth of field that your aperture is going to give you so don't try to shoot food with an aperture of f 1.4 because it's just going to be way too blurry on the contrary don't shoot portraits at f 22 because everything is going to be in crazy focus and you're not going to be isolating your subject from the background and that just doesn't look very good but that is about it guys i hope this was helpful for you i hope looking at all those different images was helpful for you i know that when i was learning photography i like to see the differences between all the different apertures all the different shutter speeds etc so if you guys like this video please let me know in the comments down below and also i'd love to hear from you oh do you like to shoot wide open are you often shooting at 1.4 1.8 2.0 or or do you like more sharpness throughout your frame do you like to shoot at smaller apertures like uh f8 or f11 or f16 let me know in the comments down below i would love to hear those and also if you guys are new here once again please subscribe i'm dropping videos every single friday all of which are going to help you become a better photographer so we'd love to have you as part of the family but it is miserable out here it's gonna rain so we're gonna get the hell out of here we're gonna get some coffee or something just get out of this rice field so we're not trapped here um but i'll see you guys next week so once again i hope you enjoyed the video and i'll see you again next friday

Channel: Sean Dalton

Views: 521,719

Keywords: Aperture, how to choose the best aperture, aperture tutorial, aperture explained, what is aperture?, depth of field, wide open, aperture and depth of field, DOF, photography tutorial, photography for beginners, photography basics, photography tips and tricks, photography tips and tricks for beginners

Id: UcLthaaOSk4

Length: 9min 27sec (567 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2020