I was visiting one of the forums I follow and a sweet girl there asked about improving her photography skills. Now I'll admit that I'm no master on the composition side of photography, but since I started with a manual film camera I do know a fair bit about the technical aspects of the hobby. I'll gladly share with you what I know so that you can improve your photos.
I learned about the technical aspects of photography on a Dakota RZ-2000 and a Canon A-1 (both film SLRs) in \ high school and college courses. I currently shoot with a Sony A200 primarily in aperture priority mode. Why aperture priority mode? Well, I find that understanding and using the aperture properly allows me to have more creative control over my finished photograph. Today I'm going to do a little tutorial on what aperture is and how you'll use it. Generally, this information is only applicable to a camera containing some ability to manually control the settings.
Aperture: What is it?
Aperture is simply the opening through which light enters a camera. It can be adjusted to let in more or less light. Aperture is measured in f stops. I have a couple lens for my non digitals that are extremely "fast" with an f stop of f/1.4 when the lens is wide open to let in maximum light. The range of full f stops is typically:
- f/2.8
- f/5.6
- f/8
- f/11
- f/16
- f/22
My digital is also capable of stops that are less than full such as f/9 or f/13.
Aperture: How does it work?
Aperture rings inside your lens control the amount of light allowed onto your film/sensor. When focusing your lens will be "wide open" (whatever you highest f stop is), but when you depress the shutter it activates a mechanism to stop the lens down to the aperture you have set.
Here is my best attempt to take photos of the aperture structure inside a manual lens. (I had to shoot these images at a super high ISO because of lighting. Excuse the grainy appearance.)
This lens is wide open at f/2.8
Stopped down to f/8
Stopped down to f/22
To get an idea of how aperture works in images, we're going to imagine that the aperture ring in a lens is like the pupil of your eye. When it's really dark in the house, the pupil/aperture of your eye is wide open to let in the maximum amount of light. The disadvantage of your pupil being wide open is that your ability to focus is limited (ever walk into a table because you were trying not to walk into the couch that you
could see in the middle of the night. Ouch!). So you can see with your pupil wide open, but you can only see
clearly on the one thing you're focusing on.
Your pupil/aperture stops down on a sunny day to let in less light (and to keep you from being blinded!). The advantage of letting in less light is that you can actually see for miles on that sunny day; you're able to see everything around you in pretty decent detail even though you might only be focusing on one item.
Aperture in images works the same way as your pupil. If your lens is wide open on f/2.8, then only what you focus on will be sharp. If your lens is stopped down to f/22, then the whole frame will be in decent focus.
Aperture: In Images
f/5.6 1/800 ISO 200
f/8 1/400 ISO 200
f/11 1/200 ISO200
f/16 1/100 ISO 200
f/22 1/50 ISO 200
Aperture: Using it Creatively
You might be reading this long technical post and thinking, "So what's the big deal?" Well, for me aperture is the most creative technical aspect of photography! I'm taking a picture of my daughters' hands.
Which image is more powerful?
f/5.6 with nothing out of the general focal area of this "nighttime eye"
f/5.6 with Bronwyn's face in the out of focus area
Using aperture allows you to choose what the highlight of your photo is. If you're shooting a butterfly resting on a bush or a person with a busy background, you'll want to use a wide open aperture (f/5.6) so you only draw attention to your subject. If you're shooting a family portrait or a beautiful sunset over the beach, you'll want a stopped down aperture (f/22) so that everything beautiful is captured in relatively good focus.
If you've made it this far in this photography tutorial: congratulations! you've delved deeply into my "nerdiness" and hopefully learned a thing or two about taking pictures more creatively. I'm going to do a few more technical photography tutorials, so stay tuned. If this is interesting to a bunch of you, I'll open a flikr pool where we can share some of our images.
