Aperture and Depth of the Field!!!

Aperture is the size of opening in the lens when a picture is taken. When we click the photo aperture of the lens opens allowing light to fall on the sensor. Larger the aperture setting more the light gets in and vice verse.

Aperture is measured in ‘f-stops’ with typical values like f/2.8 (bigger lens opening), f/4, f/5.6, f/8 and f/22 (smaller lens openings) etc. Moving from one f-stop to the next will double or half its value. Note that the shutter speed controls time the amount of light through aperture should be exposed.

Consider the small example below. first part of picture shows bigger aperture only the tree is highlighted while smaller aperture entire house and background is visible.


This can be easy observed in two picture below with constant shutter speed of 1/60 sec.

Picture 1 with F/3.7. Subject is sharp and leaves in background are blurred and building is not visible.


Picture 2 with F/8 Subject is not as sharp as picture 1 and leaves and building are clearly visible.


So Larger Aperture (smaller f/2.7) to obtain a shallow Depth of Field and Smaller Aperture (larger f/8) to obtain a great Depth of Field.

Having control on your shutter speed and aperture setting we can have better control over exposure..coming soon... stay tuned !!!