A Beginner's Guide to Aperture in Photography

Aperture is one of the most important fundamentals in photography, and mastering it is crucial to learning how to create better images. This excellent video will give you a great introduction to aperture and f-stops and how you can use them to take more control over your images.

Coming to you from Mark Holtze, this helpful video features a discussion of aperture, including how it works and how it can affect your images. At its most basic level, the aperture refers to the diaphragm through which light passes in a lens. The opening has a variable diameter, allowing the photographer to let more or less light in depending on the diameter. You might be wondering why you wouldn't want to always let in as much light as possible. Like all fundamental settings, aperture involves a tradeoff: opening the aperture wider to let more light in decreases your depth of field (the amount of the image that is in focus), while closing it down increases the depth of field, leaving more of the photo in focus. It is definitely a concept you will want to master; check out the video above for a very helpful explanation with great tips. 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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1 Comment

Well done. I had forgotten the details of why - and probably never under them as well as I do now. Thanks.