Photography Basics: Aperture

Nowadays many people are carrying DSLR, Point and Shoot cameras, and even camera phones. But the question is do these people really know how to use camera? In this tutorial I will share what i know about photography. I will make this plain and simple so here goes.

Aperture: To put it simply - aperture is the size of the opening in the lens where the photo is taken. Aperture values is measured in f-numbers or f-stops (i.e. f/2.0, f/2.4, f/2.8, f/3.5, and so on). The lower the value the larger the hole in which the light pass through (more light is permitted); the higher the aperture value the smaller the hole in which light pass through (less light permitted).

The aperture along with the shutter speed, regulates the amount of exposure to light. Aperture is also responsible for controlling the depth of field DoF.

A lens with a very small aperture is called fast lens because it allows more light to go to the sensor. These type of lens is typically expensive.

The photo bellow shows different aperture values and their corresponding opening sizes. Notice that as the aperture value gets larger, the opening gets smaller

Credits to pookeyhead

Stay tuned for more photography basics. Will update as soon as i finis my next article