Standing Out

Over the course of the last 16 months you've all seen a bunch of photographs on these pages, read a bunch of words that I have written and seen some technical information on how the photographs were taken.  I thought that I'd take a few moments to explain what some of those numbers and settings mean and the effect that they have on the photograph.  I haven't been specifically asked to do so, but much like a substitute teacher on a warm May afternoon, I'll just push ahead and pretend that you all are listening.  Today we'll discuss aperture.  In photography, the aperture defines the size of the opening on the lens that allows the light to hit the sensor, or in the old days, the film.  This is done by using different focal lengths, or f-stops.  When you see me write f/whatever, that's the focal length.  I generally like to use large apertures (f/4, f/2.8, f/2) because I like the effect of having the background of the photograph be blurred out.  I feel that it really helps to make the main subject of your photograph stand out.  You can use smaller apertures (f/11, f/14...all the way to f/32 and sometimes higher) to achieve the opposite effect.  This is useful in taking nice landscape shots as more of your frame will be clear.  That's pretty much a very simple definition of depth of field.  The smaller the aperture you use, the more of the objects away from your main subject will be in focus.  There's much more involved than the simplicity of a clear or blurred background, but I don't think any of you are here for a big science of photography lesson, and I'm just the substitute teacher.  I've always been a firm believer that a picture is worth a thousand words, which is one of the reasons I like photography, so here are three photographs that I hope better explain what I've tried to say.  These photographs were taken back in October in a apple orchard.  You can see another photograph that I took at the same location by following this link.  I actually took these photographs with the intention of one day using them to explain aperture and demonstrate the different effects, which I kind of found to be a little bit weird while I was doing it.  The first photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/2000sec, ISO 100 at 38mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/5.6, 1/500sec, ISO 100 at 38mm.  The third photograph was taken at f/11, 1/125sec, ISO 100 at 38mm.  As you can see, the small the aperture got (in photography, the smaller the aperture gets, the bigger the f/stop number gets), the more of the photograph came into focus.  I prefer the first photograph because as I have already said, I liked blurred backgrounds and being able to separate my subject from the background, but I can understand why people would like the third one as well.  A fun way to learn more about how the aperture can change your photograph is to put you camera in AV (Aperture Priority) mode and shoot away using different apertures.  Take a look at your results and find out what aperture you prefer.  There you go, the bell has just rung to end the day, off you all go to play outside.