Exposure: Aperture/Depth of Field

What is Aperture?

Simply put, aperture is a hole within a lens, through which light travels into the camera body. It is easier to understand the concept if you just think about our eyes. Every camera that we know of today is designed like human eyes. The cornea in our eyes is like the front element of a lens – it gathers all external light, then bends it and passes it to the iris. Depending on the amount of light, the iris can either expand or shrink, controlling the size of the pupil, which is a hole that lets the light pass further into the eye. The pupil is essentially what we refer to as aperture in photography. The amount of light that enters the retina (which works just like the camera sensor), is limited to the size of the pupil – the larger the pupil, the more light enters the retina.


So, the easiest way to remember aperture, is by associating it with your pupil. Large pupil size equals large aperture, while small pupil size equals small aperture.  (source)

image courtesy boogy man

Size of Aperture – Large vs Small Aperture

In photography, aperture is expressed in f-numbers (for example f/5.6). These f-numbers that are known as “f-stops” are a way of describing the size of the aperture, or how open or closed the aperture is. A smaller f-stop means a larger aperture, while a larger f-stop means a smaller aperture. Most people find this awkward, since we are used to having larger numbers represent larger values, but not in this case. For example, f/1.4 is larger than f/2.0 and much larger than f/8.0.

Take a look at this chart (image courtesy of Wikipedia):

The size of the circle represents the size of the lens aperture – the larger the f-number, the smaller the aperture.

What is Depth of Field?

One important thing to remember here, the size of the aperture has a direct impact on the depth of field, which is the area of the image that appears sharp. A large f-number such as f/32, (which means a smaller aperture) will bring all foreground and background objects in focus, while a small f-number such as f/1.4 will isolate the foreground from the background by making the foreground objects sharp and the background blurry. (source)

TO DO:


Click These links: 

1. PhotoAxe-Depth of Field  

2. PhotoAxe-Aperture  

3.  ShortCourses-Aperture-- Click on ALL red animation buttons on the left side of page!! 
4. http://ruleofthirdsphotography.com/interactive-aperture/
5. Exposure Controls
6.Choosing Exposure Modes (focus on Av, A-DEP, and Close-Up (Flower Icon))
7.  NGA PhotoSnapper <----fun font="">