I mentioned in my last post that I'm beginning to teach myself how to use my new SLR camera. To begin, I found this easy-to-understand online "workshop" at It's Overflowing. It truly is SLR for dummies beginners.
Lesson one was all about figuring out where stuff is on my camera, what buttons go with what, etc. I figure that'll become 2nd nature once I actually start using it, so on to lesson 2, which was aperture.
I already knew this was something important and had to do with making backgrounds blurry (like those close up, artsy pics you see on so many blogs). From previous readings, I knew that on my camera aperture was found as f/xxx and that I could change my shooting mode to select a specific f/stop by turning my dial to Av. When I did that, the rest of my camera figured out the right settings for all of the other things.
What I didn't know was when to make the aperture, or f/stop, a low number or high one. I'd just been using as low as I could go. I also didn't know exactly what it was or why it was called a f/stop.
My lens only allows me to go as low as 3.5. The lens I want, the "nifty fifty" I talked about in my last post, goes as low as f/1.8. But I took practice shot of all the f/stops on my camera from my personal lowest of f/3.5 to a high f/18.
 |
| f/3.5 |
 |
| f/4 |
 |
| f/4.5 |
 |
| f/5 |
 |
| f/5.6 |
 |
| f/6.3 |
 |
| f/7.1 |
 |
| f/8 |
 |
| f/9 |
 |
| f/10 |
 |
| f/11 |
 |
| f/13 |
 |
| f/14 |
 |
| f/16 |
 |
| f/18 |
This is because - and I still don't quite understand the mechanics of it all - the aperture is the amount of light being let into the center of the picture. I guess I think of it like a peephole. The lower the number, the littler the peephole, so the the light focuses more in the center of the picture. As the f/stop gets higher, the peephole, or what's in focus, gets bigger.
That also explains the bright to dark thing. More light was concentrated to the center of the photo at a lower f/stop, with made my objects in focus more prominent. As the f/stops got higher and I allowed more light to fill the entire frame, the objects in the center got darker. I still could not be correct about this part here: Feel free to correct me in the comments section below. But do I have the general right idea?
I still don't know why aperture is labeled f/stop. I Googled it, and it has something to do with fractions...So I stopped caring. But that does make sense why the f/stop numbers aren't always whole.
I suppose all I really want to know is how it affects my photos, so after reading through the lesson and looking at my own practice series, here's a summary of what I learned and how I will start applying it to my own pictures.
Aperture
f/stop
|
When
|
Why
|
f3.5-f4.5 (or lower)
|
food, crafts, close up shots of nature
|
To get the blurry background & strong, artsy focus on one object
|
f4.5-f6
|
people indoors
|
There’s usually less light, so need lower f/stop but not so low that people several feet away are out of focus.
|
f5.6-f8
|
kids playing outside
|
There is more light outside.
|
f8-f11 (or higher)
|
group photos or landscape
|
Entire entire frame (people or landscape) is in focus, not just one object
|
Linked to:
No comments:
Post a Comment