What is aperture in photography, and how does it affect your final shots? We have explained the basics of aperture and how to master it so that you can capture your video and stills with professional skills.
Novice or pro, both know that photography is all about capturing light, and this works directly with the holy trinity of aperture, exposure (ISO), and shutter speed. You have to master these three to understand how your camera works and how to take the best possible shots in certain lighting conditions. Undermining one of these three specs will directly affect how well you capture the final shot.
The core working of the camera body depends on the light rays entering through the lens. These rays finally approach the camera sensor and are then converted into electrical signals, creating a final image that you see on an EVF. How much and for how long this light is allowed to hit the sensor determines the final image results.
So, what is aperture in photography?
Made of overlapping blades, it is literally an opening of the camera lens, which is adjustable and opens up to a certain size to control the amount of light entering and hitting the camera sensor. Its blades, also called the diaphragm blades, move in a precise polygonal or circular opening inside the lens.
The position of these blades in your camera lens is dictated by the aperture’s "f-numbers" or "f-stops, fractions indicating how much these blades are opened, which consequently dictates how much light is falling on your camera sensor. Common values of these fractions are f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, and higher numbers like f/22 and so on.
The Confusing F-stops:
The question of what is aperture in photography is quite a common one, as many people struggle to master counterintuitive “f-stops,” which, tbh, are confusing. To understand these fractions, just remember this rule: the lower the aperture fraction, the more light enters the camera lens, and the higher the number, the less light enters the lens.
In other words, a higher f-number is for a smaller aperture opening, and a smaller f-number means more light for your camera lens to enter.
To understand how things are working here, consider the analogy of a series of garden hoses with different internal diameters. Water will flow differently in these hoses, but the ones with the widest diameter will let more liquid flow as compared to the narrow ones.
The same applies to your aperture; narrower (higher f-stops) means that less liquid (light) will flow through the lens, and wider (lower f-stops) will allow more light to flow through the lens. Next, how these f-stop fractions are calculated: Consider that you have a 50mm prime lens that is set to an f/2 aperture; at this opening, your lens can open to a 50mm/2 = 25mm aperture size.
If it’s at f/16, then it means that your lens is now at a 50mm/16 = ~3mm opening, much narrower than before. Hence, the higher the aperture number, the lower the aperture opening and less light for your camera to work with.
Aperture Dictates Exposure and Depth of Field
Like we mentioned above, the light falling on the sensor is all the information your camera is technically getting, which it has to process to make a final image. The aperture controls how much information (light) flows to your camera sensor, hence deciding what image characteristics like exposure, sharpness, and depth of field are.
In other words, if you are in low light, make the f-stops low in number and vice versa. The depth of the field (range of distance in a photo that will appear acceptably sharp) is much narrower when you have selected lower f-stops like f/1.4, and a deeper depth of field with everything in focus when f-stops are higher. So, if you are into portraits, use smaller aperture values.
Speaking of portraits, the Saturn 35/50/75mm full-frame Carbon Fiber Anamorphic Lens features wide apertures and great compatibility with commonly used camera mounts. This lens series is perfect for low-light shooting and helps you get cinematic and dreamy background bokeh even in low light, which is a highly desirable feature for portraits this year.
If you are aiming to capture stills with maximum sharpness front-to-back, then setting your aperture to higher f-stops is recommended and is commonly used to capture landscapes, group shots, and wide architecture stills. Folks in bad lighting conditions should switch to lower f-stop values so that a larger volume of light passes through the lens, allowing your lens sensor to work with more information and retain the final image quality.
Wrapping up:
Before we wrap up our take on the topic “what is aperture in photography,” we want to stress again that mastering the aperture knowledge will directly affect your creative process, and there is no getting away from it. Pairing the knowledge of f-stops with high-quality lenses like the SIRUI Saturn series is also crucial if you are looking for consistent and high-end results in your projects.
