Photography 101 Aperture Part 1

I am a passionate photography enthusiast so I like to help out anyone who is interested in photography and camera settings; and if anyone could help chime in that would be awesome!  My first photography post is on the Aperture mode on your DSLRs.  Although this is a topic posted by many people, I think it's good to cover the basics before moving on to other complicated settings.

First of all, your DSLR comes with a few setting on the mode dial; usually Program, Aperture, Shutter, Manual, Auto, and other preset scene modes.  Aperture Priority modes are what I use the most.  It is usually signified by "Av" on most Canon DSLRs or "A" on Nikons.  Aperture Priority mode means you, the photographer, chooses the aperture while the camera chooses the right shutter speed to match that aperture in order to produce a well exposed picture.

So what is aperture?  Aperture is the size of the opening of your lens.  Usually, lenses would have a numbers on the front element indicating the maximum aperture.  The number is called the f number.  On the lens, it is indicated, for example, "1:1.4", translates to the lens's maximum aperture is 1.4, but on the camera, the aperture is indicated by the f number, so f1.4.  The larger the opening of the aperture, the more light is let in to the camera sensor.  You need light inorder to produce a picture.  

When you open the aperture wide, you will achieve a few effects.  1, the bigger the aperture, the thinner the depth of field becomes.  Depth of field is the amount of space in focus(I will cover this in another blog).  In short, the bigger the aperture, the less amount of space will be in focus.  For example, if you're shooting a person 2 feet away from you, and there's a mountain 20 feet behind the person your taking a picture of, if you focus on that person and you're shooting on wide aperture such as f1.4, the person you took a picture of will be in focus, but the background of the mountain will be blurry/creamy.  That is due to the reason of thin depth of field.  Vise versa, if you shoot on a low Aperture, that same mountain will probably be in focus.  2, another benefit of wide open aperture is the fact that you can shoot in lower light situations because you need light inorder to produce a picture, and with shutter/aperture opened wide, you can take a picture and avoid a blurry photo due to your hand shaking.