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What’s an ƒ-Stop and How Does Aperture Control Depth of Field?
Photography is extremely seductive for a lot of people around the world, it can be practiced at a professional level or as a very strong hobby. One of the biggest interests of all people who approach photography is to learn how to use a camera in manual mode. This feature empowers anyone to create extremely creative images beyond the “perfect” modes the camera figures out when shooting in Auto or Program. In photography, everything is about capturing light and today we are going to talk about one of the most complex features there is in exposure, Aperture.
Why Aperture is So Difficult to Understand?
Don’t feel bad if you are struggling with aperture, it is the most difficult feature to master when it comes to exposure, and we’ll explain why. First of all, the strange numbers. Everything in exposure controls stops of light, and aperture controls how many light will pass through your lens via aperture values.
These are Aperture Values for 1 stop of light:
ƒ/1.0 ƒ/1.4 ƒ/1.8 ƒ/2.0 ƒ/2.8 ƒ/4.0 ƒ/5.6 ƒ/8.0 ƒ/11 ƒ/16 ƒ/22
These are Aperture Values for 1/3 stop of light:
ƒ/1.1 ƒ/1.6 ƒ/2.2 ƒ/3.2 ƒ/4.5 ƒ/6.3 ƒ/9.0 ƒ/13 ƒ/18
