Photography terms: Aperture

Like the shutter speed, the aperture also defines the amount of light that falls on a film or image sensor (in a digital camera). But unlike the shutter speed it looks like a hole which can be more or less opened during the exposition, and that way in case of more opened aperture, needed shutter speed for making a solid photo is shorter. That is why lenses for SLR cameras with bigger apertures are more valuable. The reason is that in many situations you need as shorter shutter speed as possible and that is available with bigger aperture sizes. The aperture size is defined by numbers, usually as:

• f/1.4
• f/2
• f/2.8
• f/4
• f/5.6
• f/8
• f/16

But you must know that smaller the number is, the bigger is the aperture size. Setting the parameters manually you can make variations in shutter speed and aperture but they must be synchronized so if you shorten the shutter speed, the aperture must be more opened and inversely. This way you can achieve lots of different effects. There is another thing that is useful to know, when aperture is set to f/2.8 (as a big aperture size for example), on a photos you can see that sharpness is visible only on area that was focused, and that everything else is blurry as seen on a Pinks picture. This is often used in portrait photography, because the accent is usually on the eyes and rarely anything else is important. On the other side, if you want deep sharpness, the aperture must be closed as much as possible. In that case you will have to longer the shutter speed as I earlier said. This is usually used for photographing landscapes, night photos and others. For example, the Pinks photo is made with 1/90 sec shutter speed and f/2.8 aperture, and the Photographers is made with f/8 aperture and 1/200 sec shutter speed and that is why it has so deep sharpness. For efficiently using and combining those parameters it is needed a lots of practice but you only mustn’t be lazy, take your camera and make as much variations as possible. That is very easy and fast in time of digital cameras, imagine how much money and time you would lose if you had to do all that with films as in the old days. I’m sure you’ll have success but if you have anything else you wish to know, don’t be shy to ask.