Learn The Nuts & Bolts of Photography –

Aperture
June 5, 2015 By Jolly Kollamparambil 2 Comments

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”

–Albert Einstein.

Now it is time to discuss the most important concept in the photography. The interplay of
Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO. This is where lots of people get confused. It was so
intimidating things for me to wrap around my head too. Don’t worry, for you it will be easier
than for me.

What is Aperture?

The aperture is the hole/opening through; the light enters in to the camera’s sensor. The
lens is the medium that facilitate the aperture. The aperture works similar to the pupil at
the center of the iris in your eyes. Where you are in darkness or in low-light or bright light
situations, the pupil in your eyes expands/contracts to the amount of light pass to your
retina, similarly the aperture is denoted in members such as F/1.4, F/1.8, F/2.8, F/3.5….F/22,
F/32. The most important thing to remember is the bigger the number, the smaller the lens
opening and hence less amount of light or conversely the smaller the number the bigger the
opening in the lens hence more light. We call the aperture as F-Stops. Please see the exhibit
below to show the F/nn where nn stands for the aperture number.

Aperture scale – Click to Enlarge

We cannot talk one of the variable without referring to the other two because, they are
interrelated. Have noticed some of the photographers, the background is completely blurry
and the foreground is very clear. The blurry effect in the back ground is called bokeh, (BOH –
kƏ in Japanese) is achieved by using the lowest F stop, usually 1.4, 1.8, 2.8 up to 3.5 and a
faster shutter speed for example 1/600 sec. The other extreme is clear background and
foreground usually in landscape photography which can be achieved using high aperture
number F22 or F32 with the slow shutter speed usually 1/5 sec.

In the manual (M) mode, you have the power to influence these three variables and make
different perspectives of the same image. When we move away from “Auto” mode, we have
other prominent options such as “A or Av” – Aperture Priority, “S or Tv” – Shutter Priority in
addition to “M” mode. We will talk in detail about those modes in the ensuing blogs.