What is Aperture and Why is it Important in Photography
What is Aperture and Why is it Important in Photography
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Aperture
What Does Aperture Do?
- Aperture controls the amount of light that can enter the camera.
- Aperture controls the “Depth of Field” this means what we perceive as in-focus before and after the field.
- Aperture is written F-stops.
Aperture is the opening or closing of a diaphragm or iris inside the lens. The is the called, Aperture and the number associated with the opening is written in as an F-Stop. The whole F-Stops are written as F-2.8, F-4, F-5.6, F-8, F-11, F-16, F-22. Just like with shutter speeds F-Stops will be shown in 1/3rd stops on the camera. We just use whole F-Stops when teaching the process.
Just like shutter speed aperture controls the amount of light that can enter the camera. The second function of aperture is “Depth of Field.” “Depth of Field,” controls how much we see as in-focus before and after the area you focus on. This area is called, the field. Aperture is usually the part of the exposure triangle that most confuse. That is because the widest opening lets in the most light, like on the left above, has the smallest F-Stop number F-2.8, and has the shallowest “Depth of Field.” The aperture on the far right lets in the least amount of light, has the largest F-stop number F-22, and has the widest “Depth of Field.”
Free .pdf Exposure Triangle Card! Click this Link
Memory Cards
Above are a series of camera memory cards. The blue is a the slowest 32GB SD Class 4 card made by SanDisk. (SanDisk makes excellent cards) The black extreme pro by SanDisk is a 32 GB SD Class 10, and UHS Class 3 card. The Gold is a SanDisk 32 GB Compact Flash UDMA 7 card. The second black SanDisk extreme Pro is a 128 GB SD II Class 10, and UHS Class 3 card. The SanDisk Extreme Pro is a 62GB CF express card. The last is a Sony 64GB XQD card.
Capacity
This is the number written in GB (gigabytes). This stands for how much data can be saved on the card. There is not much of a cost difference as far as capacity. You will see more of a difference in speed and class.
Speed
This is the number written in MB/s (megabytes per second). If you see Mb that stands for megabits per second. There are 8 megabits in a byte. Your internet speed is in megabits per second. What is important is that if you only see one number that is for the read speed. In those case the write speed is much slower. Note: the blue card is so slow they didn’t even list it. Do not buy that card.
Class
Classes stand for minimum sequential write speed
- Class 4-4 MB/sec good for photo only
- Class 10-10 MB/sec good for HD Video
- UHS 3-30MB/second good for HD & 4K Video
- UDMA 7-Max Transfer Rate 167MB/sec
- CF express and XQD are so fast they do not have classes and will work with 8K Video
Pros and Cons of DSLR and Mirrorless Cameras
If you have not heard, the DSLR market is on its way out and the Mirrorless market is the future. The main issue with the switch from DSLR to Mirrorless has been the mount change with Canon And Nikon. Yes, you can use an adaptor mounts to convert old Canon and Nikon lenses to work on the new mirrorless mounts. If you are using Sony no worries because they only make Mirrorless camera and nothing has changed.
DSLR PROS
- Cost
- Used Market
- Range of Options (Lenses)
- Image Quality
- Third Party Options
- Cheap Memory Cards
DSLR CONS
- Market is moving to Mirrorless (The Future)
- Mirrorless uses New Mount
- Technology
- Video Technology
MIRRORLESS PROS
- Newest Technology (All new cameras will be mirrorless)
- Electronic Shutter
- Video (IBIS)
- Fast Memory Cards
MIRRORLESS CONS
- Cost Until Market Corrects
- Limited Used Market (Used lens can work with an adaptor)
- Limit Lenses and Third Party Options
- Expensive Memory Cards
I have a Facebook Group called, “Learn Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, and Bridge.” I created this group because I get a lot of questions on YouTube that are hard to answer unless I can see the issue. This will allow a place you can ask questions, and more importantly post images and videos.
