What is Aperture and how do I use it creatively? Today, I’ll explain how aperture works and
how you can use it creatively to captive your audience, whether you’re a stills photographer
or videographer. First off, welcome back to another video!
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The first question… What does the word ‘photography’
actually mean?
The word photography means ‘drawing with light’. So, the first bit of the word “Photo”
comes from the Greek word for “light” and “graph” comes from the Greek word
for “drawing”. Photography is the process of recording an
image by exposing a frame of film or your digital image sensor to light.
Next question… what is aperture? Aperture is one of three elements that makes
up the exposure triangle, alongside shutter speed and ISO. But we will cover all of that
another day. These three elements all allow you to control how much light is entering
your lens. You need a careful balance of all three to get a correctly exposed photograph.
When you shoot on Automatic, your camera is working out the balance.
If you shoot in manual, you control all three elements.
But today, we’re going to be using Aperture Priority. So, that’s the A or Av mode on
your camera’s mode dial. We will choose our aperture and we’ll let the camera will
do the rest. Aperture is defined as the opening of the
lens or aperture blades which allows light to pass through the lens onto your cameras
film or image sensor. The smaller the hole, the less light is passed
through the lens. The larger the hole, the more light is passed through the lens.
So, the best way to think about it is opening and closing your household curtains. If you
were to open your curtains fully you will let more light into the room. And, if you
were to close them, you will let less light into the room.
Aperture is measured in f-stops… and that’s where it can get a bit confusing. The bigger
the f number, the smaller the aperture. So, small hole, small aperture, not as much
light but big f number, like f/16. Big hole, large aperture, lots of light but
small f number like an f/2. If you remember that F number is actually
expressed as a fraction, it makes more sense. Small hole like an f/16, think of this as
one 16th and it makes more sense. A big hole like an f2, think 1 over 2, or
a half. A half is a lot bigger than one 16th. Lenses have different maximum apertures, which
you’ll see as a number on the front of the lens. For example, this Samyang 35mm lens
has a 1.4 maximum aperture. That means this Samyang has the ability to let in more light.
Lenses with bigger apertures need bigger front elements, the glass on the front of the lens,
to allow the light through, so they tend to be larger and more expensive.
Now you know what aperture is, I will show you how you can use it creatively.
Aperture controls two major things within your camera. One being exposure and two being
depth of field. Now, we’ve already covered exposure so let’s
dive into the depth of field. Depth of field simply means the amount of your image which
is in focus. The smaller the aperture the deeper the depth
of field meaning more of your image will be in focus. This is great for landscape photography,
where you want to capture the entire scene. The larger the aperture the shallower the
depth of field which is great for portraits and wildlife photography, where you want to
isolate your subject from a distracting background and add bokeh. Or 'boka'.
Bokeh is a Japanese term for ‘blur’. Bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur generated
in the ‘out of focus’ sections of your images produced by shallow depth of field.
Photographers aim to make their bokeh as creamy and as smooth as possible to create pleasing
out of focus areas with no distractions. It’s what your iPhone tries to add in “portrait
mode”, using a simulated bokeh effect (which you’ll probably notice doesn’t often work
very well!) Although a shallow depth of field like a f/1.4
can result in lovely bokeh it can also make key features in your images out of focus.
For example, if you’re capturing some portraits of a model so you focus on the eyes, then
the nose or mouth might become out of focus because it’s such a shallow depth of field.
So, with that being said an f/2.8 is a nice balance for portrait photography.
A lot of landscape photographers shoot with a smaller aperture which gives them a deeper
depth of field. This is so most if not all the shot is in focus giving them a beautiful
crisp landscape shot. As you can see here, I’ve captured some
portrait images to show how altering the aperture affects the depth of field and why a shallower
depth of field is more pleasing in this context. Likewise, here are some landscape images using
both a shallow depth of field and a deep depth of field to show the differences between the
two and how it can have a creative impact on your images.
You can really challenge these styles of shooting if you’ve got a creative vision in mind
or if it better suits the context of your images.
So, my main advice for anyone who wants to understand how the aperture works in your
camera is to take it out and about and test the differences between each f-stop.
So, I hope this video has helped and you now feel more confident knowing how to control
your aperture. If you have any questions about aperture, then ask away in the comment section
and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. If yo'veu enjoyed this video and found it
helpful, then please like the video below and don’t forget to subscribe to our channel
for more videos to come. So, until next time, I will see you all very
soon.