CAMERA APERTURE
But now I can do additional things because I get it."
What is the camera's aperture? The aperture relates to how much of the lens is opened. When you look at your camera lens, one end extends the furthest from the camera, while the other is next to a diaphragm in the body of the camera. The diaphragm controls the size of the aperture. When you go outside on a sunny day, your pupil constricts (that's tech talk for "gets smaller") because it wants to reduce the amount of light that enters your eye. The aperture in your camera works the same way. When there is a lot of light, the aperture will usually be set to a small physical opening (denoted by a large number). Click the "play" button below for more information on the aperture. When there is very little light available, the aperture will usually be set to a large physical opening (denoted by a small number). One of the most confusing aspects of basic photography is sometimes just the terminology. The aperture is often described by several terms. Most common are: F-stop or f-value, but we will use "F-stop" for our purposes. The photographic image captured is determined by how much total light (based on what you are photographing) enters the camera via the lens. This amount is determined by the camera aperture. During a specific given time period (example: 1/250th of a second) the larger the physical opening (the smaller the "F-stop" number), the more light enters the camera. I know this is confusing, so don't blame the messenger! As you begin to shop for digital cameras, you will notice that each camera offers a different range of F-stops for their lens. If you intend to focus on close-up portrait work or macro photography (when the distance between camera and subject is less than 6 inches), then Small F-stop numbers are important to you. An F-stop of 2.8 or lower is fine. A small F-stop will blur the background while your subject is in focus. If, however, you want to have your subject and background in focus, a large F-stop number is required. An extreme example would be if you were taking a photograph of a large group in front of yacht, and you want EVERYTHING & EVERYBODY to be in focus. An F-stop of 22 or higher would be good, although a lower number is often acceptable for most uses.
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