Comments on: Aperture

By: Wendy

Wendy — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:14:09 +0000

Great visual explanation using the bears and dwarf! Though, I do have to make one comment about your statement, “a BIGGER opening means a SMALLER aperture”. Because the number you’re talking about is in the denominator, technically the smaller it is, the larger the overall number. For example, 1/2 is actually larger than something like 1/10. So f/1.4 is a larger number than f/16 for the same focal length.

By: Carmen

Carmen — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:39:12 +0000

Very nice pictorial explanations, Jenna. How is the aperture/f-stop number related to focal length? Does longer lenses (e.g: 70-300mm) mean they have smaller f-stop number? I’m trying to see what type of lens I need for full-body portraits with depth of field effect.
Thanks.

By: balebusta

balebusta — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:50:44 +0000

I just wanted to say again, how helpful these posts have been. McDreamy and I had some friends in last weekend from out of town who had just gotten engaged in December…I offered to snap a few shots of them as an engagement present! They are nowhere near your quality but I think I did okay for my first try. Maybe I could email you some of them and you could give me your critiques?!!?

By: Erin

Erin — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:34:22 +0000

So I was checking out a friend’s blog, and I came across a link to your photography posts–thanks so much for sharing your knowledge and experience in such a ‘user-friendly’ way! I have a keen interest in photography, but am sorry to say that any ability I have right now remains at the ‘instinctual’ level. I want desperately to get a dslr and take some classes, but for now, I only have a point-and-shoot that–until now–has left ALL to be desired. I had pretty much given up on taking even a half-way decent picture in my low-lit house–until today! Within minutes of reading your posts I was able to change some settings on my camera and for the first time was able to take a picture of my girls–without flash–that wasn’t blurry or dark! Yea!! Thanks again! And my camera thanks you, too, because it just got a new lease on life…I’ll keep it around a while longer.

By: Jenna

Jenna — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:26:59 +0000

I loved your long comment, as this was the whole reason I wrote the series. You’ll have pretty pictures of Baby Subrosa now.

By: Cate Subrosa

Cate Subrosa — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 07:41:56 +0000

So I read all the posts in this series, including this one, and thought to myself how interesting, informative and well-written (and illustrated) they were, but I didn’t really link it to my own desire to take better photos, at least not for now, because, y’know, my mind is elsewhere at the moment

But then I woke up this morning from a long dream where I had a camera in my hand the entire time and my brain has basically been processing the aperture/ shutter speed thing in my sleep.

I splurged on a new camera just after Christmas (a “bridge” Fujifilm PinePix S1000fd) and had a lot of fun the first few weeks playing with the various automatic modes. I read the manual very carefully (I always do!) right up to the point where it went onto manual settings. I thought I would come back to that later once I’d had a good play with all the automatic modes.

So this morning, I literally woke up from this dream, went straight to my camera and looked to check the manual modes, and it has one where you can adjust shutter speed manually, one where you can adjust aperture manually and one where you can do both. And now, thanks to this little tutorial, I’m really looking forward to reading the rest of the manual and moving my photography on a bit. (Plus, it’s spring now, so I should be able to shoot outside for more than five minutes without feeling like my fingers were going to fall off!)

Wow… long comment, basically just to say thank you for getting into my head by explaining this so clearly that my brain just had to have a go on its own in my sleep! I’ll let you know how I get on

By: Jenna

Jenna — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 05:05:09 +0000

I wish it were so easy as to put things in a list like that! If so, I think those lists would be floating around the internet all over the place and everyone would take better photographs.

Unfortunately, combining all three settings (ISO, aperture, and shutter speed) is incredibly difficult and there is absolutely no magic formula for putting the three together, in any situation.

Take the tea ceremony I shot today as an example. It was rather dark, and I had to make choices like “Do I want ot keep my ISO this high because doing so will result in grainy images?” But turning my ISO down just didn’t seem possible because of how dark it was in the room. I couldn’t turn my shutter down to anything less than 1/160 or else people were blurry as they accepted gifts and served tea. And I needed to keep my aperture at a setting that would allow two people to be in focus at a time. It was really tough (but a challenge I love!)

When I’m shooting, I spend a lot of time taking “test” shots. I take a picture, look at my histogram (I think I’ll go over histograms next week), and then turn my settings up or down from there. It’s a whole bunch of trial and error!

For each and every situation you must take into account what kind of depth of field you want, if you want your subjects in sharp focus or if you want something blurred, and what setting your ISO needs to be at depending on how much light you have.

So I guess that is a long way to say the only way to understand what settings to use in certain situations is to get out and learn it for yourself

By: Kim

Kim — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:08:02 +0000

Was wondering if you would mind explaining how these things all relate to each other. Enjoy your birhtday dinner!

By: Christina

Christina — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:31:38 +0000

I have been a lurker for a few days but I wanted to say a huge THANK YOU for your photography series. My fiance and I just got a new dSLR camera and we have been playing around with it. He is more versed in photography than I am and your series helped me to clarify some terms and allowed him to brush up.

I look forward to reading more.

Thanks so much!

By: Katy

Katy — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:25:00 +0000

I finally understand aperature! I’ll have to remember that the F in fstop is kind of like “focus” – and use your memorization device about smaller numbers mean less in focus. I shoot like this once in a while, only I use the Portrait mode on my camera…it’s the only time so far I’ve ventured from Auto mode!

thanks!!!

By: Rae

Rae — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:05:03 +0000

I agree with you about the dwarf. Great choice of subjects!

By: Cate Subrosa

Cate Subrosa — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:28:50 +0000

I love how the dwarf looks unhappy about the kissing bears – so cute!

By: kaitlyn

kaitlyn — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 05:01:20 +0000

Thank you approximately 500 times over for publishing this series.

It’s all so much simpler than I realized! I must experiment soon

By: Jessicah

Jessicah — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:05:44 +0000

Jenna, I’ve really enjoyed these posts- you explain it all so well. I had a steep learning curve with all of this last year and I can confidently manipulate my settings now. Something I’d love to read more about is the post production manipulation you do with your photos! Thanks!

By: Amber

Amber — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:22:22 +0000

I’m truly enjoying your blog. Thank you so much for taking the time to teach us this week. I’ve been practicing each technique each night.

Thanks again!!

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:01:50 +0000

Loved Loved all of your explanations! Thank you! I look forward to experiementing with my camera. I do want to know how you get such CLEAR and SHARP photos. I am sure part of it has to do with your camera…but would you mind sharing what your settings are for your photos…For instance any on your site such as the White children…or some of your marriage/engagement sessions. Please do tell. I want my photos to look as good as yours! Possibly a list of when to use what settings…sort of putting together everything that you have discussed so far.

By: Janie

Janie — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:33:06 +0000

i’ve been teaching myself photography over the past couple of months, and i’ve struggled with aperture/shutter speed. i usually just shoot in program mode so i don’t have to worry about it. i’ve actually enrolled in a digital photography class as an elective for next semester, and i’m beyond excited. i love your explanations–they are really helpful. i do have a question though. i have a problem with the relationship between aperture and shutter speed, so could you please explain how to adjust one for the other when in manual mode? thanks

By: Bean

Bean — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:18:42 +0000

I really like your series of photography explanations – they actually make sense!

I really like the use of small apertures in photos because they always look so neat!

By: Kasia Fink

Kasia Fink — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:06:05 +0000

This was a great series – I really liked learning about it in normal-person terms. Thanks Jenna. Now I won’t be so scared of our SLR.

By: Kelli Nicole

Kelli Nicole — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:32:46 +0000

You are seriously so good at explaining these things. I think one reason your so good at it (besides natural teaching ability) is because you figured it out and taught yourself all this stuff in recent years. There’s no way I’d be able to explain it the way you do because I learned about aperture so long ago that I wouldn’t even know which words people didn’t already know! Great job!!