Skill Development - Photography - Apertures

Aperture Write-up

An aperture is a hole in a camera that lets light in. An aperture setting controls how wide this lens opening/hole is. Apertures and shutter speeds are the settings (ISO) that are developed to control the quantity of light that the camera lets in. Basically, controlling the aperture controls the depth of field. Also, different lenses on cameras allow different apertures.
Different apertures link with the focus of the images - whether they are partially in focus, whether the background is in focus etc. The 'depth of field' is a property relating to the amount of focus within an image. This is because of how much light is let into the camera via the size of the aperture. The size of the aperture can change via the F Stop Settings. For example, F3.5 is the largest setting most cameras use which means that this setting has a small depth of field. F3.5 is the setting that allows a close object to be in focus. In contrast, F22 (or higher) is the smallest setting for most cameras and this means that the camera has a big depth of field. When the camera is set at F22 or higher, this means that potentially all of the image is in focus. In the middle of the settings (around F9/F11) the close and mid-ground objects of an image are in focus as this is the middle depth of field.
The high F stop settings allows very little light to get into the camera because it is such a small lens opening. This means that the shutter speeds may need to be longer so that images are well-lit. However, this also means that long shutter speeds can cause shots that aren't in focus. The low F stop settings allow lots of light to get into the camera because of the big lens opening. This may not work effectively if the lighting conditions are already bright as the images will be overexposed. When carrying out my aperture skill development, I had to be wary of these consequences so that I collected high-quality aperture images.
To experiment with apertures, I had to set the mode dial to Av by turning the circular dial to 'TV' and then accessing the green squares that were on the LCD Display screen.

When carrying out the skill development I did experiment with the different F stop settings. However, I felt that F3.5 was the best setting that worked well. When experimenting, I also gained images that were bad-quality due to the consequences I was wary of. These are my weak images:

Image 017

These may be weak due to not using a tripod because I didn't feel that there was a sturdy object to place it on whist taking photos. (This sometimes caused motion blur, like in image 062). The images were taken outside which meant that I didn't want to risk the tripod getting damaged or dirty because of the floor. I sometimes used the tripod but sometimes held the camera.
They may also be weak because I didn't have long enough shutter speeds.

Image 029

Image 062

To improve on these weak images I should concentrate on getting the balance of the ISO settings correct as well as heavily using the tripod to prevent unwanted motion blur. However, I did gain images that looked professional and that presented my development of learning apertures. These were my large F stop setting images:

Image 018

I feel that these images are good because the main object is in focus in Image 018 and the models in Image 057 are in focus where as the background is not. I think this really emphasises them and makes them the focal point of the image.

Image 057

To improve on image 057 further, I could make sure that both models eye lines are within the top third of the image so that the image looks more balanced.

I also experimented with the middle F stop settings. I used the settings F9 and F11 to ensure that the close and mid-ground objects were in focus and the background was not. These were the best images that demonstrate this:

Image 020 was on F Stop setting F9 where as the other 2 were on setting F11.

Image 020

Image 061

Image 025

This image was on the F22 setting as is an image that is in-focus. The image however is angled and needs to be improved to look professional. However, these images prove that I have tested the different aperture settings and I feel that I have gained knowledge on the subject as I didn't know about apertures before this skill development.

If I were to develop apertures again, I would set myself several targets. Firstly, I would use the tripod more as this prevents the unwanted motion blur and angled images. Secondly, I would experiment with depth of field more by using a bracketed exposure of the same image so that I can visually see the effect that apertures have on images that are the same. Thirdly, I would keep in mind that high F stop settings need high shutter speeds to let light in as I did have some darkened images, like image 025.