After experimenting with shutter speed on my camera (Canon EOS M3), this time I decided to play with aperture.

Referring to Digital Photography School, the simple definition of Aperture is ‘the opening in the lens.’ This means that the larger the hole the more light that gets in – the smaller the hole the less light. It’s good to note however that the larger the number (f/2.8) the smaller the hole = less light, and so is true the other way round (ex. f/32). This is something many new photographers are confused about.

Anyhow, let’s get hands on.

I decided to take photos of my hand (again) as the subject with different aperture settings and bring the theories to test. I put my camera’s settings to “Aperture Priority” (Av) where I can manually adjust the aperture settings, as well as the ISO. While playing with it, I realise something interesting. When the lens are zoomed out at the max, the range of numbers are smaller (f3.5 – f22) than when it is zoomed in to the max (f6.3-f.40). Also, as the aperture number goes up, the shutter speed also goes slower. Aperture affects an image’s depth of field, with lower aperture creating a prominent subject with blurry background (bokeh effect), and higher aperture takes a flatter image, with all parts of the image being in focus.

Below are the images in different settings.

The images above are taken with my furthest zoom, aka when I zoomed out the most from the cameras. While as for the rest, I zoomed it in at the maximum.

As we can see, when I have the aperture set at its smallest number, my hand stands out, with the background blurred significantly. As the number increases, the background gets more and more focused, to the point where the whole picture is in focus, creating a more “flat” look. This is usually the case with phone cameras.

While playing with my camera, I also realise another thing. When the lens are zoomed out at the max, the range and numbers for the aperture are smaller (f3.5 – f22) than when it is zoomed in to the max (f6.3-f.40).

Lastly, notice that as the aperture number goes up, the shutter speed also became slower (smaller denominator). Apparently, it’s just the way camera works.

I hope this post is somehow informational and fingers crossed, helpful. Good luck with experimenting!