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Beginner's Guide to Manual Photography
Aperture
For this section of the article, I urge you to follow along with your camera in Aperture priority mode. Once again, to keep things simple, I'll just be discussing aperture on its own merits and save talking about the implications of all the various settings on one another for later. Simply put, aperture refers to the diameter of the hole through which light passes in your camera's lens. The way aperture is measured may be a little confusing at first. The bigger the aperture (opening), the smaller the f-stop number that represents it. For example, f/2.8 is a common "wide-open" aperture whereas f/22 might be "closed-up." The illustration below shows a lens wide-open, then a half-way closed, and finally closed-up.
Lens Focal Length / Size of Opening = f/x So, my Sigma 50mm F2.8 EX DG macro lens has a 17.8mm opening at most, meaning it has a 'maximum' aperture (read: the lowest f-stop) of f/2.8. Fascinating, I know! you may now put the calculator away. Another important property of aperture is that it controls depth-of-field (DOF). DOF is the distance in front of and behind the subject which is in focus. The technical aspects of DOF are somewhat complicated so for the time being, I'll focus simply on the basic implications of aperture on your photographs. If you want a shallow DOF, which is helpful to accentuate the subject or make a distracting background a pleasant out-of-focus one, you will want to use a larger aperture (smaller f-stop number). By contrast, if you want to have more of the scene in focus, you can use a smaller aperture (higher f-stop number). Your aperture setting alone is not the only thing that will control the DOF, however. The size of the camera sensor, lens focal length, and distance from the subject also play an important role. I will save all of those details for a future article, but I encourage you to experiment for yourself.
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Common Manual Modes Page 3: Shutter Speed Page 4: Aperture Page 5: ISO (sensitivity) Page 6: The Big Picture 
Related Articles Add Comment
12 User Comments 1 - Posted by
Kurtis
on July 19, 2006 - 3:35 pm Digg this article: http://digg.com/hardware/Noob_s_guide_to_manual_ph... 2 - Posted by
jcmarney
on July 20, 2006 - 12:06 pm Good Read- One comment though. The Sunlight f/16 rule isn't going to work for digital for many cases. Small digicams simply don't close down to f/16, and DSLR's will often start degrading in quality due to diffraction. There is a good article to familiarize yourself with the effects of diffraction here: http://www.diglloyd.com/diglloyd/free/DigicamDiffr... 3 - Posted by
Kurtis
on July 20, 2006 - 12:32 pm Good point. I personally never use the sunny 16 rule, but thought it might be a helpful reference for some.
4 - Posted by
blackjet
on July 24, 2006 - 7:31 am hay kurtis, good article, enjoyed the read....now I just need a camera to try it all out!
5 - Posted by
ty_hot
on February 15, 2008 - 5:06 pm Good article! Thanks!
6 - Posted by
Dine
on February 19, 2009 - 11:30 am Great article for a beginner. The explanation with reference setting cleared lots of my doubts. Thanks
7 - Posted by
Shum
on July 1, 2009 - 2:36 am Very nice article!! Have u written more such articles?
8 - Posted by
Kurtis
on July 1, 2009 - 2:53 pm You might also be interested in these: http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/611/Beginners... http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/513/10-Things-I-Learned-With-my-First-DSLR/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/379/5-Things-... http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/308/10-Reasons-to-Buy-a-DSLR-Camera/ http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/312/10-Reason... 9 - Posted by
tomfeinerg
on August 20, 2009 - 9:48 am Great post, thanks!
10 - Posted by
marebri
on November 26, 2009 - 8:28 am A very informative article. I'm out to start a photography hobby and I have been reading everything I can get my hands on. This article really combined all I have read with great examples. Thanks for the help and I will be reading your other stuff. Say CHEESE!! 11 - Posted by
G-Force
on November 27, 2009 - 1:18 pm This is one of the best articles I've ever read about manual photography. Thank you Kurtis for such a wonderful read. Cheers!!
12 - Posted by
hollowayno2@comcast.net
on March 11, 2010 - 4:53 pm I just purchased my first Nikon D3000 SLR and am eager to begin using it "skillfully". This was a very good introductory article and clearly written. Thanks. I am very interested in seeing other articles along the same lines that you've written. C.Holloway Add Comment To add a comment without being a member, you may omit the password field, but you must enter your name (or nickname) along with your comment. * Denotes required fields. |
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