What is Aperture?

We have been acquainted in the last posts with exposure triangle and its elements. I'll be doing separate posts now about these elements, one of which is aperture. Believe me, if you learn to handle aperture, a whole realm of creative photography will unfurl from your hands. It will allow you to master control over your camera. 

What is Aperture?

The most simple it can be explained  is ''the opening in the lens of the camera''.

When you press the shutter release button, a hole reveals in your camera that let the camera capture the scene that you are shooting. The aperture that you set determines the size of the hole. The smaller the number, the large the hole, the more the light enters. The larger the aperture number is, the smaller the hole and less light gets in. The aperture size also affects more elements, as in a large aperture more light enters the camera, the picture becomes brighter, the depth of field become smaller and so less of the image is in focus, usually the one close to the camera. Similarly a small aperture results in less bright image and larger depth of field so more of the image is in focus.

To most people the inverse relation between number and aperture is hard to understand. These numbers are in the form of f/stops or f/numbers. f/2.8 is a much larger aperture than f/22. I'm sharing an image I posted earlier in the blog to give you the hang of it.

In the next post we'll talk about depth of field and the practical application of aperture differences relatively.