Remember the day you first got your hands on a DSLR, you
wanted to shoot some amazing photographs.
Remember later down the line, you are stuck using only the Auto
mode! Exactly, most hobby photographers do not achieve their maximum potential due to the fact they stick on to Auto mode all the time. For all first
timers and beginners, it has to start with understanding three important points
of photography: Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO. Commonly referred to as the three pillars or
the three kings of photography and so on, this is the very exact point the
following article will pass through.
Let’s take a look into how aperture opening regulates the
amount of light passing through the lens.
DOF simple represents the area of the image in focus. The aperture setting will cause variations in
DOF. In simple words, larger the f-stop value (ex. f/32) brings more of the background into focus. See illustrations for understanding. We have four colored blocks placed at a
distance of 10 meters each. With higher
aperture settings we can observe all four blocks are sharp, and going down the
list with lower f-values we can observe only the blocks closer are in focus. With the setting on f/2 only the first block
is in focus.
Now sit tight and stay focused!!
The terms and explanation used will be easy to understand
and newbie friendly
For today, we will take the first step
Aperture:
Setting your camera to Aperture priority mode, most often
termed “A” on your camera mode dial will enable you to manually set the
Aperture opening (check manual if you are unable to find this on the dial). Aperture settings are expressed in “f-stop”
values (focus ratio). The f-stop is the ratio of the focal length divided by the diameter of the lens.
The size of the aperture opening is inverse of the value, i.e. smaller
f-stop values means larger aperture opening and larger f-stop values indicate smaller
aperture opening (see below fig).
Aperture primarily controls two factors –
1 .
Amount of
light passing through the lens
2 . Depth of field
Finding the right aperture is very important to
recreate the actual subject in your photograph. The setting of aperture will vary
with amount of light available. See side illustration for easy understanding. The
subject is photographed in bright sunlight.
Hence, a lower aperture, say f/2, will allow more light through the lens
resulting in an over exposed image, too bright.
An aperture of f2.8 gives realistic lighting on the photograph in this particular scenario,
whereas f/4 and f/5.6 allows too little light and subject appears dark.
Moving on to Aperture settings and its effect on Depth of
field (DOF).
DOF simple represents the area of the image in focus. The aperture setting will cause variations in
DOF. In simple words, larger the f-stop value (ex. f/32) brings more of the background into focus. See illustrations for understanding. We have four colored blocks placed at a
distance of 10 meters each. With higher
aperture settings we can observe all four blocks are sharp, and going down the
list with lower f-values we can observe only the blocks closer are in focus. With the setting on f/2 only the first block
is in focus.
Come back for reminder of the series to learn about ISO and Shutter speed.
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