The Easy Guide To Aperture f StopHave you ever asked yourself a question similar to one of these Whats with all the f2. Descriptions Are they just being numerically anal or are they telling us something useful Whats the freakin difference between a 5. Why is one way more expensive than the otherWhat do people mean when they describe a particular lens as being fast Where is it going What do lenses have to do with aperture and f stop Isnt that what a camera does What does stopping down mean If Im meant to stop down why are the f numbers higherShouldnt they be lower Whats aperture Is aperture the same thing as f stop How does changing aperture change my photograph I shoot in Auto mode. Why do I need to know about aperture If you have, they are all good questions and they are all answered in this Tutorial. Seriously technically minded readers should, however, stop right now and go and do something else lest they get irate at my basic, and potentially overly simplistic, explanations. My aim is merely this learning about aperture and f stop is like learning to drive a car. More ways to shop Visit an Apple Store, call 1800MYAPPLE, or find a reseller. Fig. 4. This is the 28mm f2. AIs lens. It is focused at infinity. Fig. 5. Focused at 0. Note how the front element retracts. Disassembly a ZENZA BRONICA ZENZANON 1503. S Lens By M. Vettore Rev. Its almost impossible to find in the web any Zenza Bronica SQ or ETR lens service. Aperture 3.5 Link' title='Aperture 3.5 Link' />Once you get it you never forget it. All it takes is an understanding of a few basic principles, so in my book it doesnt matter how they are expressed. And if you reach an understanding of aperture and how you can control it, it is my firm view you will take your photography to the next level. By the way, aperture and f stop are indeed references to the same thing. Aperture is the mechanism and f stop is the measure of engagement of the mechanism. Seeing the light. Photography is not about selecting buttons and switches on a highly sophisticated piece of electronic and optical equipment. Photography is about light. Without light, there is no photograph. End of story. Light controls what you see in a photograph and how you see it. And because natural light changes constantly, we need to be able to control its intensity as it passes through the lens and into the camera as we take a photograph. That is what aperture is. Sword Sights product line encompasses the full spectrum of archery needs. From introductory level bow sights, to sights designed for the intense sport of 3D Archery. Learn how to shoot in manual mode with these simple tips. Easy to understand directions and videos will help you get started today TABLE OF CONTENTS 000 Introduction 128 Focal Length Crop Factor 335 ISO Crop Factor2 1500 Aperture Crop Factor 2118 Panasonic. Its one mechanism by which we control the amount of light hitting the cameras sensor or film. Other mechanisms, and I think there are only 2, are filters and shutter speed. Filters are advanced stuff see for example this, but shutter speed is not, so I discuss also the relationship between speed and aperture in this Tutorial. Controlling the light is important because shooting with too much light and you have an over exposed image, and not enough light gives you an under exposed image. Weve all taken those, havent we Of course, your modern DSLR or Point Shoot or Digital Compact, being a sophisticated and precise piece of equipment, can compensate for light automatically, should you choose to let it. But heres the rub the camera has the artistic intelligence level of a mud brick, so it will make compensation adjustments purely as a numerical function and without regard to composition or depth of field. Case in point True story. I once met a photographer not my girlfriend who shoots weddings as a sort of pro hobby to help out her brothers wedding video business. With no prior experience, she was given a brand new full frame Canon 5. D DSLR with an EF 2. Auto and just concentrate on composition. This she duly did, and was generally taking ok shots. But she was also confused. Every time she focused on a brides face in a group shot, the whole group came out focused instead of just the bride. She wasnt very happy with the equipment as a result, and thought her brother had wasted 5. It took some patience and some explaining about the role of aperture and f stop in taking a photograph because the expectation held by this Y Gen lady was that todays technology should do all that stuff. But bottom line was that if she had shot in Manual mode and set the aperture to f4 or had shot in AV mode with aperture set at f4 she would have achieved her aim of selective focus. I demonstrate and explain this later in this Tutorial. How does the aperture control light Ever seen a science fiction movie where the scene is inside some fantastic spacecraftThe actor walks through a circular doorway and hits a button on the doorway wall and these sliding steel blades suddenly come out from all around the inside of the rim of the doorway and curl inwards towards the centre of the doorway until the space is completely closed up Well, that aint science fiction because such a scene replicates the aperture mechanism of a camera lens without the noise, as can be seen from this cross section of the aperture mechanism of a Canon EF 5. II lens Notice the blades in the centre circle Count em, there are 5. And they are actually called aperture blades. DUarticles/images/2008-8-16_121450_18noTC.jpg' alt='Aperture 3.5 Link' title='Aperture 3.5 Link' />They move in sync in and out depending on the aperture being set either by you or by the camera. Notice also that the inside edges of the blades are not round and that the space allowing the light to go through the lens is thus not circular but instead pentagonal. So, whilst the Canon EF 5. II lens will produce exceptionally sharp images at the right aperture, the effect of having 5 non rounded aperture blades is poor quality bokeh for out of focus OOF areas of the image, ie points of light in OOF areas will be pentagonal in shape, not circular. But hey, I can buy this lens brand new for 1. By comparison, youd want a macro lens to give you better quality OOF results. This comes at a price. For example, the 1. Evony Age 1 Game. Canon EF 1. 00mm f. L IS Macro Lens has 9 round aperture blades, thus ensuring perfectly round points of light. Just something to look for when considering that new lens. Anyway, back to the photo of the aperture mechanism. Any ideas of what the aperture setting f stop is Id say its reasonably wide open. Compare it with this chart, which shows the relative width of aperture according to f stop number. It is the standard full stop f number scale Not to scale. As you can see from the above, an f stop of f1. It is letting a lot more light into the lens and ultimately onto the sensor than, say, f8. Thus The lower the f stop number, the wider, or bigger, the aperture. So, if someone tells you to stop down, they are referring to decreasing the size of the aperture, which is achieved by increasing the f stop number. If I could wave a wand and get everyone to remember just one thing from this Tutorial, that principle would be it. Remember it and you have 9. Aperture and shutter speed. Given a low f stop number means a wider aperture which in turn means more light being allowed through the lens, changing the aperture for a particular evenly exposed shot means you need to shoot faster to compensate or increase the ISO. This is because shooting faster reduces the amount of light going through the lens. This is the relationship between aperture and shutter speed. And because both are based on logarithms and standardised, there is a direct link to how much compensation is necessary. For example, and ignoring ISO for the moment, if you have an evenly exposed photograph shot hand held at f8 and 13. Most modern digital cameras use a one third f stop increment scale, ie. So, changing the aperture from f8 to f5. The numeric expression of the relationship between aperture and shutter speed has been described elsewhere asThe aperture is proportional to the square root of accepted light, and thus inversely proportional to the square root of required exposure time, such that an aperture of f2 allows for exposure times one quarter that of f4.