A little more on Aperture! Aperture is usually the thing people most want to know about because it gives you that beautiful blurry background that everyone loves so much. Here is a little refresher on aperture: Aperture (or f-stop) is the size of the opening in the lens that can be adjusted to control the amount of light reaching the film or digital sensor. The lower the f-stop, the larger the opening in the lens and the less depth of field which leads to a blurrier background. The higher the f-stop, the smaller the opening in the lens and the greater the depth of field which leads to a sharper background.
The two images below show how aperture can totally change the way an image looks. The image on the left was shot at f22, 1/80, ISO 1250 and the image on the right is f1.8, 1/1250, ISO 250. Check out a few tips below on aperture!
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1. The “lower” your aperture, the more bokeh or fuzz you will get in the background.
2. Keep your aperture close to or “higher” the number of people you are photographing. For example, if you are photographing a family of 5, you want your aperture to be around f5.6 or higher. Ignoring this rule can cause members of a group to appear blurry. If you are photographing a single subject, any aperture will do, but for maximum bokeh, keep it as low as possible!
3. Pay attention to your shutter speed! In order to get a low aperture, you may need to lower your shutter speed. If this gets too low, you can end up with blur in your photos, especially in photos with kids. It is recommended to keep your shutter speed above ~1/160 depending on the lighting and lens. Don’t forget that you can raise your ISO to help allow you to raise the shutter speed and still have a properly exposed image. For more information on how aperture, ISO and shutter speed work together, check out this post.
4. If you would prefer to have control over your aperture, but don’t want to have to control everything, consider shooting in AV mode. AV stands for aperture priority and it allows you to set the aperture and then the camera sets the shutter speed. ISO stays at what it was previously set to while in manual mode.