H+Lewis

[|Harold Lewis]

__** APERTURE **__** : Noun **

** Definition: An opening,as a hole, slit, crack, or gap. ** ([|Source])

When you hit the shutter release button of your camera a hole opens up that allows your cameras image sensor to catch a glimpse of the scene you’re wanting to capture. The aperture that you set impacts the size of that hole. The larger the hole the more light that gets in – the smaller the hole the less light. Aperture is measured in ‘f-stops’. You’ll often see them referred to here at Digital [|Photography]School as f/number – for example f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6,f/8,f/22 etc. Moving from one f-stop to the next doubles or halves the size of the amount of opening in your lens (and the amount of light getting through). Keep in mind that a change in shutter speed from one stop to the next doubles or halves the amount of light that gets in also – this means if you increase one and decrease the other you let the same amount of light in – very handy to keep in mind). One thing that causes a lot of new photographers confusion is that large apertures (where lots of light gets through) are given f/stop smaller numbers and smaller apertures (where less light gets through) have larger f-stop numbers. So f/2.8 is in fact a much larger aperture than f/22. It seems the wrong way around when you first hear it but you’ll get the hang of it. Modern Autofocus SLR cameras may have a different ways in manipulating the aperture. One of the trend is - the aperture value is now control via a thumb wheel on the camera (usually near the shutter release button) and the AF lens has no aperture ring to alter the value. Each camera manufacturer usually has their own series of lenses under a trade name to verify its usage, various compatibility issues with their previous camera model's function etc. For an instance, Canon **//manual focus//** lenses are called " [|**FD**]" or "FL"; while their newer series of autofocus lenses (**AF**) designed for their [|**Canon EOS Series**]cameras are referred as "**EF**" (Electro Focus). Each of these MF/AF lenses has their own respective way to illustrate the control of aperture in the camera. When you turn the aperture ring on a lens to vary the aperture.

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