What is aperture in photography? One of the most important parts of a camera lens is the aperture, which is a hole or opening that can be adjusted to control the amount of light that enters the camera body, leading to the sensor.

Aperture is measured in f-stops, with a lower f-stop number indicating a larger aperture, and a higher f-stop number indicating a smaller aperture.

For example, an aperture of f/1.4 is larger than an aperture of f/8. This may seem counterintuitive, but it is important to remember that the f-stop number is actually a fraction, with the aperture size being the denominator. So, an f/1.4 aperture is actually larger than an f/8 aperture.

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We can adjust the aperture to control the amount of light that enters the camera. A larger aperture (lower f-stop number) allows more light to enter the camera, while a smaller aperture (higher f-stop number) allows less light to enter.

This can be useful in different lighting situations, such as bright sunlight or low light.

One of the most important uses of aperture is in controlling the depth of field. The depth of field refers to the portion of the image that appears to be in focus.

A larger aperture (lower f-stop number) results in a shallow depth of field, where only a small portion of the image is in focus, while a smaller aperture (higher f-stop number) results in a larger depth of field, where more of the image is in focus.

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Depth of field plays a large part in determining the atmosphere of our photography. Most landscape photographs are captured using a higher f-stop number, allowing all of the scene to be in focus.

Whereas a portrait image would usually be shot using a shallow depth of field to allow the subject to be the focus of the photo, and let the rest of the scene gradually blur into the background.

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A lens that allows us to shoot at a wide open f-stop, such as f/1.2 will be far more expensive than lenses that only allow f/2.0 or f/4.0 as they require so much more glass, and they tend to use better quality glass to create sharper and higher quality images.

Lenses with a wider aperture will also be larger and heavier, so it’s a trade off if you plan to travel with the lens.

Understanding aperture will greatly improve your photography, and it’s very important to practice using different f/stop numbers during your photo shoots to experiment the effect that changing the aperture has on your photos.