Hi Everyone! If you are just following along with this series of tips and tricks, these are basic tips for the beginning photographer. If you haven’t checked out the rest in the series, you can go back and read part 1, part 2 and part 3 to give you the whole picture at how photography works. For the final part in my beginner series I’ll be focusing on aperture. This is how open your lens is and how much light is being allowed in. If you choose to set your aperture very wide (f/1.2-f/2.2) you are going to get a very narrow depth of field in your photo. So what does that mean? Basically, the thing you are focusing on will be in sharp focus, everything to the back of that will become more and more blurry. Setting your aperture wide works wonderful in portraits creating a crisp, clear subject and leaving the background slightly blurred and not distracting. If you have several subjects, like in a family portrait, be careful not to set the aperture to low, this can cause some subjects to also appear out of focus. A general rule is to set you aperture to the number of people in the photo (ex: 1 person f/1.8, 3 people f/3.5). Now as you get more comfortable with your setting the aperture you can experiment and try new settings until it gives you the desired look. Here are a few shots taken with the aperture set to f/1.8:
See how the subject’s face is in clear focus, but the background is not. It almost appears blurred as to bring your focus on the person. The following picture was taken with an f stop of f/11. This would be a very closed aperture which is good when you want the entire picture in clear focus. In this example, a simple landscape.
Notice in this picture how everything from the weeds and rocks in the foreground to the sky is in focus. This is the result you will get from a smaller aperture (ex: f/11 -f/22). With all that said, you also have to make sure that your aperture setting and shutter speed combine expose your picture correctly, otherwise you will end up with a very dark or very light photo. Always pay attention to your meter and practice. There is a lot of creative things you can do! Thanks for reading and please just comment below if you have any questions for me.
Emily
