The blurry part of a photo is sometimes called ‘ bokeh‘, which is Japanese for blur or haze. It used to be the case that only expensive camera lenses could create those effects, but that’s no longer the case – you can even blur the background using an iPhone. You’ve probably seen those cool pictures where some things are in focus (they look sharp), and other things are out of focus (blurry). Making your lens’ aperture (opening) larger or smaller lets in more or less light, but it also has another effect on your photo. This image was shot at f/2.8 to direct the viewer’s eye to the wedding image on the TV, but leaving the grandpa out of focus (but still discernible), to suggest that he is somehow linked to the image. Using aperture you can control what elements are in and out of focus in a photo to help tell a story. Take a swig of coffee, as it’s time we talked about the second thing that aperture controls. OK, so now you know the first thing about understanding aperture in photography – it’s all about light. #Small aperture vs big aperture portrait pro#You may hear a pro talking about ‘fast glass’, which means lenses with large maximum apertures. Lenses with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 or larger (i.e. If a lens has an aperture of f/1.4, it can ‘suck in’ lots more light than a lens with an f/4 aperture, for example. Why do pros need expensive lenses with larger apertures? One of the main reasons is to be able to take photos in low light, without having to use a flash on their cameras. (I’d recommend that you never give that lens back to your mate…!) If you’ve borrowed your mate’s fancy lens, there’s a chance the maximum aperture would be more like something a pro might use, like f/2.8, f/2, f/1.4… or even f/1.2! Most kit lenses are ‘zooms’ that have two maximum apertures written on them, like f/3.6-5.6. You can see the maximum aperture written on the lens somewhere. If you’re using an entry-level camera that came with a ‘kit’ lens, that lens is likely to have a maximum aperture of around f/5.6. Your camera/lens may be able to shoot at f/1.8, or f/3.6 for example, but you can still easily visualize where these apertures would fall on the scale above. Note that there are other f-stop numbers that aren’t shown in the diagram above. The larger the aperture (‘opening’ in the lens), the smaller the numerical f-stop value. It shows how the larger the opening of your lens, the smaller the f-stop number that’s displayed: The picture below should help explain this better. When you see a number on your camera’s LCD which is preceded by a letter ‘f’, the closer that number is to zero, the lighter your photo should be. If I gave you the mathematical explanation about diaphragms and factors of light, this would be just like every other boring article on aperture out there, so just remember this instead: The smaller the f-number, the larger the aperture. The larger the f-number, the smaller the aperture. I’ve been a pro photographer for several years now and still can’t recite them… In photography school, you’d be expected to learn those numbers (f-stops) off by heart, but this really isn’t necessary. You might have heard a photographer ask, “what’s your aperture?”, or “what aperture are you shooting at”, and the reply would usually be the letter “f” followed by a number. We talk about aperture in photography using something called ‘f-numbers’ or ‘f-stops’. OK, so here’s a question for you: How do you adjust your camera lens’ aperture (opening) to make it bigger or smaller? a large aperture) since I needed as much light as possible to come through my camera’s lens (since it was a dark scene lit only by the small bulbs above).
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