What Is Aperture & its role in Photography

Introduction to The Article :- Hello friends, welcome to you in a new article we are following the series called “learn Basic Photography”, in the previous article of this series we had read in detail about “What is Photography? and its types”. And today we will learn what is Aperture? What is the role of aperture in photography? ,How Aperture Affects Exposure?, How Aperture Affects Depth of Field?, F-Stop and F-Number?, Large and small Aperture?, How to pick right “f” value or aperture?, How Aperture changes depth of field?, How To Set Aperture In The Camera?

If you also have any confusion or want to learn related to these topics, then this article can prove to be a panacea for you.

We have tried our best to make this article a detailed article, but still, if you do not understand or lack any kind of thing in it, then you can convey your point to us through comments.

What Is Aperture & its role in Photography

Aperture is a very important part of photography. It is one of the three pillars of photography while the other two are shutter speed and ISO. We have seen that whenever we take a photo in too much light, then we see too much light in the photo, so that our photo does not come in good quality or a beautiful photo.

On the other hand, we see that the photo taken in low light is very dark. Which is considered a bad photo.

In such a situation, we need a device that can increase or decrease the light falling on our camera lens according to us (photographer). So we call such a device an aperture.

Aperture works exactly on the principal of human eyes. When we are in a place where there is a lot of light, the pupils of our eyes reduce their size so that not much light enters our eyes. And on the other hand when we are in a dark place then the pupils of our eyes become bigger so that more and more light can reach our eyes.

What is Aperture?

If we understand in common language, the aperture acts as a door for the camera lens in a way that ensures how much light has to pass through the lens.

At the other extreme, it will give you sharp photos from the nearby foreground to the distant horizon. Landscape photographers use this effect a lot.

Aperture can add dimension to your photos by controlling depth of field. At one extreme, aperture gives you a blurred background with a beautiful shallow focus effect. This is very popular for portrait photography.

On top of that, the aperture you choose also alters the exposure of your images by making them brighter or darker.

How Aperture Affects Exposure

Aperture affects your photos in many ways such as brightness, or exposure. As the aperture or pupil of camera changes its size, the brightness or darkness of your photo also changes, due to which the brightness of your photo also changes.

Whenever the size of the aperture is more, the more light will go into the lens of our camera. Due to which the brightness of our photo will be high.

on the contrary, when the size of our aperture is less, it means that less light will reach our camera lens, as a result of which our photo will also be dark.

So we always have to keep in mind that our photo should come with perfect color and brightness. In the below photo you can see how aperture affects our photos.

How Aperture Affects Depth of Field

There is another important effect of aperture which is called on Depth Of Field. Because the formation of shallow depth of field or wide depth of field of depth of field depends on the aperture.

Because when our aperture is large i.e. f value is less then it is called Shallow Depth Of Field. In which we only show our subject sharp and the rest of the background and foreground are blurred.

We use shallow depth of field in portrait photography.
When we shoot a scene in which a character is speaking a dialogue. So that the full focus of our camera falls on the character, so that the audience can connect with it.
We also use shallow depth of field or narrow depth of field in wildlife photography.

On the other hand, the lower the aperture, that is, the higher the f value, then it shows the background, the foreground of the subject and the sharper the subject. And we call this wide depth of field.

When we do any landscape photography.
When we shoot a scene in which we have to show the subject as well as the whole scene sharp.
To draw an image of a building.

F-Stop and F-Number

So far we have understood the size of the aperture only in terms of large and small. But when we set the aperture in our camera, we set the aperture with “f” value and these values are called F-Stop and F-Number.

You must have seen numbers like f/2, f/3 or F2, F3 in your camera’s LCD or viewfinder. This value represents the size of the camera’s aperture. And the F-Stop and F-Number values are f/2, f/3.5, f/8, and so on. Some cameras omit the slash and write f-stops like this: f2, f3.5, f8, and so on.

Down here we have a Nikon camera in which you can see the aperture value is shown.
So in the end I would say that F-Stop refers to the size of the aperture for any one photo. If you want to know about this topic in detail, then we will understand it in detail in the upcoming articles.

Large and small Aperture

In the initial phase of photography, we have seen that most of the people are very confused about the aperture size. They think that the higher the “f” value, the wider our aperture. But this is wrong. To remove this confusion, I want to tell you that both the “f” value and the aperture work in the opposite direction. I mean the higher the “f” value the smaller our aperture will be. And the lower the “f” value, the larger our aperture size.

Now let us understand this concept with an example. When the value of F-Stop or F-Number is assumed to be f/2.8, it means that the size of the aperture will be the largest. On the other hand, the value of F-Stop and F-Number will be f/16, then the size of the aperture will be the smallest.

I hope you have understood this concept very well. Below are some pictures from where you can get complete information about aperture.

So if the photographer wants to click the photo with a large aperture, then it means that the F-Stop value should be f/1.4, f/2 or f/2.8. On the contrary, if the photographer has to take a photo with low light or take a photo with a small aperture, then in such a situation, we have to keep the F-Stop value f/8, f/11, f/16.

How to pick right “f” value or aperture

We have covered many topics about aperture in this article, now we have a good idea about large and small aperture. But now a question comes in the mind of all of us that how will we know which aperture value or size will be right for our photo.

So to understand this, remember how aperture affects exposure and depth of field. To understand this, see the photo given below carefully.

Aperture is not the only responsible for controlling the brightness of the photo. But still it plays an important role. In the pictures you see above, if I am not allowed to change any other setting (ISO , Shutter Speed) then my Optimal Aperture would be f/5.6.

But when we talk about a situation that is place dark or we can say that we have to click photos in low light, then in such a situation our Optimal Aperture will change. Because in such a situation, we would like that maximum light reaches the camera lens, so our aperture value should be f / 2.8 so that our aperture can be opened the most and maximum light reaches the lens.

How Aperture changes depth of field

As we know that the depth of field also depends on the aperture. When we capture a photo by setting a large aperture value like f/2.8, it gives us the sharpest subject and the most blurred background in the result. And we call this shallow depth of field.

On the other hand when we click the photo by setting low aperture value like f/16 then it shows us the whole photo sharp in the result. We call this deep depth of field or wide depth of field.

With the help of the photo given below, you can understand this process.

Through a chart below, we can know the effect of aperture on exposure and depth of field.

How To Set Aperture In The Camera

We have come to know almost everything about aperture, now we understand how we can set the aperture in our camera. For this, you set the aperture by following the steps given below.

1. First of all set your camera to Manual Mode.
2. Now you have to find your camera’s aperture ring.
3. Now you have to rotate this ring with your finger and you will see the numbering running from F2.8 to F22 at the top when you look at the screen / viewfinder of the camera. As you rotate the ring, you will see the aperture value changing in the viewfinder. In this way you can set your aperture.