APERTURE
The aperture is one of the three basics every photographer should know about, feel free to learn about the two others (ISO & shutter speed).
The aperture is simply the opening of your lens. When you open your lens at the maximum then it will let a lot more natural light hit the sensor than if you do not open it at the maximum. The aperture is pretty much the same thing as the pupil in your eye, the iris (diaphragm for the lens) of your eye automatically adjust itself all depending on the amount of light available, by adjusting itself, it increases or decreases the size of the pupil. Normally when it is very dark the iris of your eye will become dilated so the pupil will be larger and let more light hit your retina (the camera sensor in this case). When it is very bright then the iris of your eye will contract it will make the pupil of your eye smaller and will not let a lot of light hit your retina. Aperture is exactly the same thing as the pupil, except that in a camera you can adjust the opening of your lens (aperture) manually. |
In your camera you will be able to set the aperture by looking at (f(number)). When the number after the f is small, let's say f1.8, then the opening of your lens will be very large. If the number after the f is very high, let's say f22, then the opening of your lens will be very small. In a dark environment, it is always better to change the aperture of your lens before increasing your ISO, the ISO will affect the quality of your image, but increasing the aperture will simply let more natural light hit your sensor without affecting the quality of your picture.
Credits: Wikipedia.
When you increase the aperture (decrease the f.stop), let's say going from f2.8 to f1.2, more light will hit your camera sensor and you will also have more bokeh effect. It is possible that you do not know what is the bokeh effect. The bokeh effect is simply when you have one object in focus in your picture, but everything else is completely blurred. It is better to use a low aperture when you want the viewer to really have his attention to one object. Also during the night a low aperture will let more light hit the sensor of your camera, you will be able to capture great pictures with a descent amount of light before having to increase your ISO.
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When you decrease the aperture (increase the f.stop), let's say going from f5.8 to f22, less light will hit your camera sensor and you will also have less bokeh effect. Normally it is better to use a small aperture when you are taking a picture where you want everything to be in focus, you can think about landscape photography, when you want the things which are very far as clear as the thing which are closer to your camera.
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