Photography Basics

Lesson 3: Camera Basics

Aperture

The aperture is the opening that allows the light through your lens. Think of it as the eye of your camera, opening and closing.

The numbers that measure the size of the opening are called f-stops. The larger the f-stop (or number) is, then the smaller the opening size is, and vice versa. It’s a lot like fractions, when you stop to think about it. F-stop 4 sounds like a small number compared to F-stop 22 (or f/22), but think of it as a fraction. Would you rather have ¼ of the pizza when you’re ravenous or 1/22 of the pizza when you’re that hungry? Smaller number = more pizza for you (or more of an opening through the camera lens).

The aperture mode controls the depth of field in a photograph. Depth of field is the amount of the picture that is in or out of focus. If most of your photo (the foreground, middle ground, and background) is all in focus, then it has a long depth of field. If just a little bit is in focus (the foreground OR the middle ground OR the background), then it has a short depth of field.

Try pre-visualizing what you’d like your end results to be. Many professional photographers do this and even sketch out a general scene of what they’re trying to capture. All of these exercises help to focus your mind and your thinking. The rule of thumb is to simplify your photographs. You don’t want a busy scene with many points clamoring for attention. If the background is distracting, throw it out of focus by using a short depth of field.

It takes about a roll of film or about 20 shots to understand a photographic concept. Take some shots (and record the readings!) of a gorgeous landscape with every inch in focus (long depth of field). At what aperture were your best shots of the landscape? At what aperture were your best shots of a person?

Try shooting the same subject with different depths of field. What are your results? The key to being successful is to experiment and record the results. Note-takers can learn from their experiments.

A note on depth of field and pre-programmed modes:

The face profile is the portrait mode and that has a short depth of field, so as to blur the background. The mountain is the landscape mode and that has a long depth of field for landscapes. The flower is the close-up mode and that has a short depth of field for extreme close-ups.

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