Take better pictures! Part A

Before I get into Part A of the series, Take Better Pictures, let me preface by saying I am not an expert.  I am not a professional.  And I am still learning.  Every day.  So take my advice for what it’s worth.  Everything I’ve learned, I learned through my own research. 

This advice is for those who have Digital SLRS.  SLR is Single-Lens-Reflex but that’s not very important information.  Forget I even mentioned it.

So, the first step in taking a better picture is to get off automatic.  That little green box on your mode dial (on Canons) sure is easy but it severely limits your creativity.

But before we do that, we need to learn, “What is an Aperture?”

Aperture is the opening or hole through which light travels.  Plain and simple.  Aperture is represented by the F-Stop number on your camera.  Ex: 1.4, 1.8, 2.8, 3.5…etc.  And here’s the tricky part, the smaller your F-Stop number the larger your lens opening will be, thus letting in more light.  Photographers who say, “I like to shoot wide open” are saying they like to shoot as low an F-stop as their lens will allow, helping their images become sharper and the Depth-of-Field more apparent as well as creating some beautiful Bokeh. 

This picture was taken with my macro lens at an F-stop of 3.2 (my lens allows as low as 2.8).  You can see the nice blurred background giving the photo a more interesting perspective.

Here the aperture or F-stop is at 1.4 with a 50 mm lens.

On your DSLR there is a mode for Aperture control, on Canons it is the mode, Av.  On Nikons I believe it is just A. Turn it to that mode and it will let you change the lens opening by turning the dials near the shutter button; everything else will be automatic. Play around with different numbers and experiment going as low as the lens allows.  Most kit lenses only go as low as 3.5 but it’s a good starting point.  Remember, the smaller the number, the larger the lens opening thus letting in MORE light.

Too much light = an over exposed image (very very bright/blown out).  Too little light = underexposed image (very very dark, black)

So if you go as high as F11 the lens opening will be very small and will let in very LITTLE light most likely resulting in a blurry photo.  However smaller apertures are useful when working in conjunction with slow shutter speeds ex: taking pictures of flowing water or speeding cars to  achieve that feeling of motion. (But more on that in another section)

So go forth and capture!  Experiment with F-Stops!