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Are you a manual transmission or an automatic transmission kind ofperson? If you enjoy shifting gears rather than letting the car doit for you, you probably also appreciate taking control of othergadgets, like your camera. But even if you drive your car by movingthe stick from P to D , I am sure you ll enjoy mastering your camera s various exposurecontrols it just makes for better photography. Recently, Iexplained how you can improve your photos by understanding when andhow to change the shutter speed . That s only half the story, though. This week, let s see howyour camera s aperture control can give you a range of differenteffects. What are aperture and f-stop? It helps to understand what, exactly, the aperture is and what itdoes. Simply put, your camera s aperture varies the size of theopening in the lens that exposes the sensor to light. A largeropening lets in more light, while a smaller aperture admits lesslight. Consequently, this setting is usually paired with theshutter speed. To take a properly exposed photo, you can use asmall aperture with a slow shutter speed, or a larger aperture witha relatively faster shutter speed. The size of the aperture is measured using something called an f-stop, or an f-number. You ve probably seen these numbers on the barrel of a lens or inthe display of your camera: f/4, f/5.6, f/8, and so on. Here swhere photography gets a little mathy. The f-number is the ratio ofthe lens s focal length to the size of the aperture. That s niceto know, but all you really need to remember is that the size ofthe f-number and the actual size of the aperture opening areopposites: A large f-number (like f/22) is a small opening, while asmall f-number (like f/4) is a large opening. An artistically blurry background Now that you know those basics, I ve got one more fact for you,and then you re ready to apply it to some real-world photographicsituations. You probably know that depth of field is the region of a photo thatis acceptably sharp. A narrow depth of field is useful forsituations in which you only want the subject in focus and thebackground to appear blurry. People portraits are just this sort ofoccasion a sharply defined background can be distracting. You llwant to make the depth of field as narrow as possible so detailsblur away, leaving only the subject in sharp focus. The larger the aperture (the smaller the f-number) the narrower thedepth of field. So if you re shooting a portrait, for example, putyour camera in Aperture Priority mode and then dial in the smallestf-number available. Remember that a small f-number corresponds to a large apertureopening, so you re letting in a lot of light, and the shutterspeed will be relatively short. This is a great all-around mode touse for sharp photos that don t suffer from camera shake, even incomparatively low light. A nice sharp photo Sometimes you want just the opposite you d like as much of thephoto to be in sharp focus as possible. Imagine you re taking agroup photo, for example, with several rows of people in the shot.Or you re taking a photo of someone and it s important to capturethe overall scene, so you don t want the background to blur away. In this situation, you can rely on the opposite aperture settingbecause a large f-number delivers a large depth of field. So again,set your camera to Aperture Priority. But this time, dial it ashigh as it will go, like f/11 or f/22. Keep in mind that this is going to result in a very small lensopening, so the shutter speed will have to be much longer toproperly expose the photo. You might find the shutter speed is toolong to hold it steady. Shoot these kinds of photos in the bestlight available, or increase the ISO. That will make the sensormore sensitive to light, and allow you to shoot at a higher shutterspeed. The ultimate in front-to-back sharpness comes from a techniquecalled hyperfocal photography, in which you set the aperture sothat everything from the nearest subject to infinity is relativelysharp. You can read more about how to do this in Maximize your depth of field with hyperfocal photography . Look for a fast lens If you have a digital SLR, you might consider buying a faster lensto give you more flexibility when shooting in aperture priority.When photographers talk about a fast lens , they are talking about the maximum aperture (smallest f-number)the lens is capable of. While most average lenses can go no higherthan f/5.6 or perhaps f/4, you can find premium lenses that canopen up to f/2 or even better. Yes, they cost more but they allowyou to shoot in much dimmer light, and their huge aperture cangenerate some wonderfully narrow depth of field. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as China Sports Eyewear for Basketball , China Custom Ski Goggles for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Children Sunglasses.
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