Aperture is a measure of how much
light is let through your lens and into your camera
(to expose the CCD or film). The measure is called
f-stops. A good regular lens will have somewhere from
around f/2 to f/22. The actual aperture is either
automatically controlled by the camera, and calculated
due to the amount of light, or controlled by turning
the front of the lens. Rather than moving smoothly,
like a focus knob, it moves steadily and clicks through
all the f-stops. Generally the details recorded with
a picture are the Aperture, Shutter Speed, camera,
film and photographer.
So now you know what aperture is and looks like,
you want to know what it is for and how you can
use it. Aperture, combined with shutter speed controls
the depth of field. Reducing aperture size increases
depth of field. Depth of field basically means how
much of the image is sharp (in focus) and how much
of it is blurry (out of focus). A good photographer
always uses depth of field to their advantage. Generally
a landscape picture has a large depth of field to
make sure the whole image is sharp and a macro or
close up picture is taken with a small depth of
field so that the focus is only on the central point.
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