Aperture is an important part of any Digital camera. People many of times get confused by the word "Aperture". Aperture is also known as F-Stop. It can be simply defined as the amount of light the camera receives at a given point of time. So it is the part of the lens which decides how much light can be allowed in to the camera's sensor. Here one can understand, if the lens is wide open then the camera will receive more light and if the lens narrows down then the amount of light will also decrease. So it simply resembles with the human eye.
In camera the Aperture value is marked as a decimal value or sometime as "F/n". A higher value allows less amount of light to be entered while the lower value indicates more light. When the camera uses lower or the lowest Aperture value, it will focus the main subject of the picture and mostly preferred for the portrait photography. In reverse, when a higher aperture value is selected most of the area in the picture get focused and it is preferred for Landscape photography.
The f-stop or aperture value is marked on the lens as F1.6, F2.2, F4.5, F5.6, F8, F11, etc. Different lens will have different aperture value. Generally a lens with lower aperture value is very costly than a lens with a bigger aperture. So a lens which is having f-stop value F1.6 will cost more than a lens with F4 value.
Apart from Portrait, Landscape photography a lower F valued lens is good for night photography (it also depends on the shutter speed). As a lower F value allows more amount of light pass into the camera with a longer shutter speed such as 15 seconds can create an amazing effect such as trailing of light in busy street, or shooting star, or even abstract city light in the horizon.
So How to calculate the Aperture? There is a formula which relates the f-stop, focal length and diameter of the lens opening (known as iris of the camera).
"f-stop = focal length / Diameter of the lens opening"
e.g.
A lens of 100mm with the diameter of 50mm, has an aperture of 100mm/50mm = f2. As mentioned different lens are having different F values. The standard f-spot values are: 1.0, 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, etc.
The aperture value is found to be very confusing, but with little knowledge about it will make our understanding clear. This is also very useful when we try to control any camera manually.
I am a blogger and freelance Web Designer. I have got a thirst for exploring the happenings in the technology era and avid follower of the latest gadgets.
12 Aug, 2011
--
Source: http://goarticles.com/article/Understand-Aperture-in-Digital-Camera/5142288/
~
Manage subscription | Powered by rssforward.com
0 comments:
Post a comment on: Understand Aperture in Digital Camera