September
Well-Known Member
- Location
- Wolverhampton
Yup. It controls the depth of field (DoF) of your shot and also the speed at which you can snap away/how much light hits the sensor.
You typically balance this with your shutter speed and ISO comes last if you're getting blur.
The higher the aperture (lower the number), the shallower the DoF and the faster your lens will be. This is good for getting complete background separation. So, in the pic below, I used a higher aperture and my background was then completely out of focus. This means my core subject is more striking and there are less distractions.
f2.8
Giant Pine Cone [EXPLORED] by Tom Cash, on Flickr
f1.8 (far too low, retrospectively)
Cadbury's Drumming Gorilla by Tom Cash, on Flickr
Then, sometimes, you may want a low aperture to get more of the picture in focus, like the picture below, where I required the ball to be in focus.
f8
The World's Biggest Elastic Band Ball by Tom Cash, on Flickr
As for your shutter speed - you ultimately want that to be fast unless you're after a certain effect, such as panning on cars.
#7 by Tom Cash, on Flickr
This is where balancing the aperture and shutter speed come in....
So, when you're outdoors you generally have good light in the daytime. As a result, if you shot on aperture f2.8, your shutter speed would normally be fast and freeze the subject perfectly still - like this:
f2.8 @ 1/4000
The Cliffhanger [EXPLORED] by Tom Cash, on Flickr
As you can see, the moment was frozen COMPLETELY (see the spokes).
However, if you wanted a blurred background for motion, you wouldn't be able to slow your shutter down to 1/60 @ f2.8 because you would over expose your picture. So, you bump the aperture up to a higher number which lets less light in. As a result, you can achieve complete background separation with motion blur.
f16 @ 1/30
Honda Civic by Tom Cash, on Flickr
Hope that's helped some!
I'm no pro, so don't take all of my advice as gospel.
You typically balance this with your shutter speed and ISO comes last if you're getting blur.
The higher the aperture (lower the number), the shallower the DoF and the faster your lens will be. This is good for getting complete background separation. So, in the pic below, I used a higher aperture and my background was then completely out of focus. This means my core subject is more striking and there are less distractions.
f2.8
Giant Pine Cone [EXPLORED] by Tom Cash, on Flickr
f1.8 (far too low, retrospectively)
Cadbury's Drumming Gorilla by Tom Cash, on Flickr
Then, sometimes, you may want a low aperture to get more of the picture in focus, like the picture below, where I required the ball to be in focus.
f8
The World's Biggest Elastic Band Ball by Tom Cash, on Flickr
As for your shutter speed - you ultimately want that to be fast unless you're after a certain effect, such as panning on cars.
#7 by Tom Cash, on Flickr
This is where balancing the aperture and shutter speed come in....
So, when you're outdoors you generally have good light in the daytime. As a result, if you shot on aperture f2.8, your shutter speed would normally be fast and freeze the subject perfectly still - like this:
f2.8 @ 1/4000
The Cliffhanger [EXPLORED] by Tom Cash, on Flickr
As you can see, the moment was frozen COMPLETELY (see the spokes).
However, if you wanted a blurred background for motion, you wouldn't be able to slow your shutter down to 1/60 @ f2.8 because you would over expose your picture. So, you bump the aperture up to a higher number which lets less light in. As a result, you can achieve complete background separation with motion blur.
f16 @ 1/30
Honda Civic by Tom Cash, on Flickr
Hope that's helped some!
I'm no pro, so don't take all of my advice as gospel.
They are also my favourite butterfly!
