Using the aperture in your camera
Male Speaker: Hi, so you are wondering about aperture. Aperture is how the lens controls the amount of light going through it. Inside the lens there are a series of blade which close down to constrict how much light passes through, as you change your f-stop. F-stop is the description of how much light is going through at any one time.
F1.8 is as much light as this lens will let through and you close it down, one stop at a time, each step lets in half as much light until you hit F22. F22 will let in the least amount of light that this lens will do. Conversely, as you go through the stops going the other way, it lets in twice as much light at a time.
So, if you're going from F5.6 to F8 you're going to let in half as much light; if you're going from 8 to 5.6 it lets in twice as much light. Now, the effect of that is that F1.8 you get the least amount of depth of focus of any of the setting on this lens. Now, that's really good for isolating your subject, for making a standout from the background. If you have a confusing background, it puts the background into a blurred state.
At F22, it's kind of like squinting. I have to squint if I don't have my glasses on and I am trying to see something more than about a foot away from me. At F22 it is the most that is in focus from front to back so from nearest to farthest will be the most in focus. That's really useful for getting a lot of subject in to focus, making that all look clear, making that all look as it's all in one picture. It integrates all of the subjects into it. You can go in-between and vary how much is in focus by varying your f-stop and you can get very good control over how much. So, you can blur the foreground, but actually have like a group of people in focus from in-front to behind, and then the background again is out of focus; but you have to be careful when you are doing that.
So that's the major functions of aperture and depth of focus.
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