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Exposure in Digital Photography - Aperture

Exposure in Photography is determined by the Shutter Speed, the aperture of the lens, the sensitivity of the ISO and the lighting of the scene.

In this post I'm going to talk about Aperture.

Simpy put Aperture is ‘the opening in the lens.’
When you press the shutter release button on the camera the the whole opens to the desired opening (also called f stops). The larger the hole the more light that gets in – the smaller the hole the less light.


Keep in mind that a change in shutter speed from one stop to the next doubles or halves the amount of light that gets in also – this means if you increase one and decrease the other you let the same amount of light in – very handy to keep in mind).

 There are a number of results of changing the aperture of your shots that you’ll want to keep in mind as you consider your setting but the most noticeable one will be the depth of field that your shot will have.
For example in the photo below the guitar is in focus and the background is blurred, this is a wide aperture of f1.2, this gives the image a shallow depth of field.


Vise versa in the below image the flowers on the left have a larger depth of field, this shows the background in focus.

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