Right before we jump into this video, if you want to get my free 11 days to better photography
mini video course, head on over to froknowsphoto.com/11days to get started right now.
Jared Polin, froknowsphoto.com and I’m calling this video Aperture 101.
I’m going to quickly help you understand what it is and how it affects your image.
So, aperture, when you break it down to the very fundamentals, two things it’s doing.
It’s affecting the depth of field, so how much of your subject or scene is going to
be in focus, as well as how much light you are letting in to the image sensor.
So, you’ll see lenses like f/1.8 and as you go through your apertures, you are going
up to f/22.
So, this is what it looks like.
If you are at f/1.4, you are letting this much light in, a ton.
You see this whole.
That’s how much light can get through.
As you go up in your apertures to 8, 11, 22, and then, oh, they have some lenses to 64,
less light comes in.
So, that’s exactly what’s happening there.
The lower the aperture in terms of f/1.4, f/2.8, the more light you are letting in.
As you close that down, think about it.
You are closing down the amount of light that’s coming in.
Think of how your eye works.
In low light situation, the iris of your eye opens up even more to let more light in, so
you are gathering more light.
In bright situations, you know the iris of your eye gets smaller, because it’s not
letting as much light in.
It’s compensating for it.
So, I did a quick sample of couple of images right here with the bobbleheads.
The first image that I took at f/2.8 focused right on the front bobblehead.
You can see we’ve isolated that front subject.
But what happens when we go to f/11, still focusing in the same spot, you can see that
the focus area has expanded, now that we’ve gone to f/11.
So, what’s going to happen at f/22?
Yep, you guessed it, focusing on the same front bobblehead, you can get even more in
focus at f/22.
But what you have to be careful with is as you get to those higher apertures, you are
cutting down on the amount of light being let in, which means you are affecting your
shutter speed.
Remember the exposure triangle.
That’s right.
When you make one change to the aperture, you are affecting something else in the exposure
triangle.
So, here is a quick tip for when you are shooting group photos, a lot of people wonder why didn’t
I get the people in the back or in the middle in focus?
Well, because you are shooting it too wide of an aperture.
So, the rule of thumb with a group shot is not only focusing on the center person, but
have a little bit wider aperture f/4, f/5.6, f/6.3 that’s going to allow you to get more
in focus.
Or if you want to shoot at the f/2.8s or 3.5s, get everybody on the same exact plane, because
if they are on the same plane, they should still be in focus based off of the aperture
that you picked.
So, I know that’s a quick and basic look at aperture 101.
But if you want to learn more, if you want to understand the fundamentals of the exposure
triangle and finally get out of auto and take control of your camera, I created just the
guide to do that.
It’s called the FROKNOWSPHOTO guide to getting out of auto.
Not only will you fully understand how to use aperture quickly, I’m going to teach
you the entire exposure triangle, as well as how to capture amazing images that I know
you can capture.
To get a free preview of the guide, go over to froknowsphoto.com/guide to get that preview
right now.
So, I hope you enjoy those tips and that’s it.
Jared Polin, froknowsphoto.com.
See you.