Tuesday, March 2, 2010

12 Weeks to Better Photography- Week One

 


In my humble opinion, learning about aperture is one of the most important parts of photography. Likewise, the main reason that we ended up investing in a DSLR camera was so that I could have more control of aperture. Essentially, Aperture refers to how open your camera's lens is--but it's confusing, because the lower the f/stop number, the MORE open the lens is. The idea goes like this:

Low F-Stop Number = More open aperture = More Light = Smaller Depth of Focus
High F-Stop Number = Less open aperture = Less Light = Larger Depth of Focus

It took me a long time to really get a grasp of this-- because it isn't intuitive at all to me to have a smaller depth of focus with more light. But then I realized that all I really need to remember is this:

Small f/stop number = smaller amount in focus
Larger f/stop number = larger amount in focus

 Example One-- F 1.8

See how only the bottom few lines are in focus? That's because my f/stop number is small, which means that the depth of field (what's in focus) is also going to be very small. Now, take a look at what happens to the same shot when my aperture number is larger:

Example Two- F 22
Now, even though the point of focus is still the bottom line of the page, the words on the entire page are much more clear, and it's easy to make out notes and words, even if they aren't crystal clear.

See how being able to control aperture can drastically alter the mood of the picture, not to mention where the eye is drawn? This is exactly why I think aperture is such an important part of photography!

**BIG NOTE: How small of an f/stop you'll be able to achieve will depend on your camera lens. Stock lenses don't tend to have super low f/stop numbers. I think my stock lens only went down to F 3 or F 4, which is the main reason that I wanted the Nifty Fifty lens, which goes down to F 1.8.  If your lens doesn't have a low enough f-stop or you have a point and shoot camera that doesn't allow you to change f/stop, I wrote a blog post some time ago about Faking Bokeh Using Photoshop.

17 comments:

  1. My week and weekend got away from me, I was totally planning on doing this. Might have to link up after the fact!

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  2. I tried to participate this week, but my point and shoot-ness disqualified me. I'll keep reading along & as soon as I can jump in, I will!

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  3. Your post is WAY better than mine! I definitely took the tips to heart- thank you for doing this! I was wondering where to begin with my DSLR.

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  4. love your pictures!! great explanation too! i really enjoyed this lesson.

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  5. I am ashamed to admit that I have had my DSLR for a little over a year and still take really bad photos. I just don't know how to use it :( I desperately want to be better at it but I just don't understand how to manually change everything. If I don't have it on the auto setting my pictures are usually dark and/or blurry.

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  6. This is awesome! THANK YOU for writing it. I'm going to go practice...eek. I am a horrible photographer but hoping your "lessons" will help a sister out.

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  7. I love that you are doing this! :) I am not committing to doing it though because in my mess of moving, half the time I forget what day it is! It's still neat to read/learn though :)

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  8. Thanks for doing this Meredith! I enjoyed the excuse to get out with the camera today without being under my husband's watchful eye :) He like to "teach" me - without so much teaching as bossing me around. I am so looking forward to the rest of the challenge - especially next week on ISO!

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  9. Thanks again for heading this up! Love the sheet music! You are awesome! :)

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  10. Better late than never, right? Hope to go for it tomorrow. :)

    P.S. Bokeh is achievable with a point and shoot.

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  11. Is it to late to participate? I will have to do a post tomorrow because it's already late here. I would love to learn more about photography since we just got a Canon XSi in January.

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  12. Great example! I actually played around with some cameras this weekend and got to experiment with aperture. I cannot wait to get my hands on my own camera!

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  13. How long will you have this up? I'd like to try it out, but I didn't have a chance over the weekend. Yikes!

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  14. I love your idea of the music notes! I finally posted my Week 1.

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  15. I got a question.. I was wondering if you could make the 12wks to better photography badge smaller to like a 150 by 150. This one is too big to add on the side of blog! I would like to link it back to your profile!

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  16. OMG I just saw this! I will practice today and then link!

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  17. Thanks so much for these lessons. My husband is a budding photographer and I really want to learn. I will be following along and I posted my like at the bottom of your post!

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