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Aperture Settings: How to set your aperture

As you'll learn later in our lesson on composition, being able to control your depth of field is important in order to help emphasize your main subject while slightly blurring your background without loosing the context of the photograph.

Alternatively you may want to have a large depth of field by choosing a smaller opening (larger f-stop number). Large depth of fields are often used for landscape or cityscape photography when photographers are trying to achieve crispness of even the furthest points in the distance. Take a look at the photograph below for example.

Take a moment and really try to imprint all the important math from this lesson in your head. Things get a little more complicated from this point on and having a firm understanding of shutter speed and aperture control is critical if you are to grasp the concepts in the upcoming lesson. In review, remember that:

1) Each increase in shutter speed decreases the amount of light by half. Each decrease in shutter speed increases the amount of light by double the amount.

2) Each time the aperture is opened to the next largest level, you are letting in twice the amount of light as the previous number. Each time the aperture is set to close a little more you are decreasing the amount of light by half.

3) Shutter speed not only controls light but also has an effect on motion within a photograph

4) Aperture not only controls light but also controls depth of field.

5) The higher the aperture setting, the smaller the hole and the less light comes in

6) The higher the aperture setting (smaller hole) the better the camera will do at keeping a wide depth of field (keeping more of the picture in focus)

7) The smaller the aperture setting (larger hole) the shorter the depth of field will be.

Other photography pages of interest

Camera automatic settings
Camera shutter speed
Advanced camera shutter speed techniques
How to adjust your camera's aperture
Aperture settings for depth of field
Setting photography exposure