Understanding Aperture

Image source http://photography.tutsplus.com/

It took me a bit of time to understand aperture and the whole f/number system, but it worth investing time to understand it as it is one of the core elements in photography, so here we go!

Let's first look at the definition of Aperture (measured in f-stops)- Aperture is the size of opening in the lens, which determines how much light will get through and fall onto the sensor of the camera given an amount of time (shutter speed). The lens in some sense is like the pupil of our eyes, in bight locations our pupil automatically have a smaller opening as there is enough light for us to see clearly, and in dark location our pupil will open up to allow more light to get through. If you have a cat you will probably understand the relationship between pupil opening size and available light!

In another word, in a low light situation, the faster (shutter speed) we want our camera to identify what is in front of it, the bigger the lens opening (aperture) is needed. If the opening of the lens is small, then we will need to allow longer time for the camera to identify the object in front of it. Think about it as in waking up in the midnight going to the bathroom....lol if we turn on the light we can find our way to the bathroom almost immediately, but if we let the light out then it will take some time to go to the bathroom without bumping into things around.

Ok, now it is the whole fraction system that is most confusing (especially I am not a math person!). If you love food like I do, I've got a way here to understand it LOL! Now let's think about a whole big 24" yummy supreme pizza - we are in charge of cutting it, so if we want super large piece then we might just cut it in half (f/2) and then we will get 2 big pieces of pizza. If we are not that that hungry or of you are like me trying to lose some weight, then we want a smaller piece - so let's go to an extreme and cut the pizza into 22 pieces (f/22) and now we have a tiny piece of pizza. So think about it as less cuts of the pizza (smaller f/number) - bigger piece of pizza (bigger opening of the lens) and vice versa.

I hope this is helpful to some of us trying to understand aperture, later on we shall look at Depth of Field :)

Let's keep learning!

The 26 weeks B&W Project - Week 15 | Wishes

Week 15 | Wishes
If you have a wish...what would that be?

The 26 weeks B&W Project - Week 14 | Determination

Week 14 | Determination
It takes courage to be determined, but once we are determined, determination gives us courage.

The 26 weeks B&W Project - Week 13 | The Moment

Week 13 | The Moment
Many beautiful things in life are not planned...just follow your heart...and it will tell you where to go...

The 26 weeks B&W Project - Week 12 | Shine Through - in a stormy day

The 26 weeks B&W Project - Week 11 | Embrace

"Feel beautiful the way you are...for we are all beautiful in our unique way..."

Another addition to the 26 week B & W ! :):) Slowly progressing...I am so happy to have family and friends who are so supportive towards my passion for photography. You all have gave me energy to keep going :):) Definitely more models wanted :D:D

Portrait - Tash

What a lucky day we had yesterday! The sky was dark and a storm was about to come, kept looking at bom and there was no rain in the heart of Brisbane. We kept praying for no rain for a little while more and it was sunny for the 2 hours or so we were at the University of Queensland (and then it started to rain again)! Very thankful :D:D!

It was a really fun afternoon and this is the most beautiful pair of eyes that I have ever seen! :):)

Behind the scene : a duckie (?) kept looking at us on the day and it actually wagged its tail when we were looking at it..and followed us when we get moving!! lol

Self taught photographer series - What is ISO?

Although I am not sure if there are people following my blog *grin*, but I am going to share what I learnt about photography here. We do not necessarily need take a course to learn something (although it surly helps), all we need is passion and determination. There are so many self-taught photographers out there and there are so much to learn from them. It is not going to be a regular post but whenever I dig into whatever, I will share them around, no guarantee that I will be all correct but let's learn together  - please do correct me if I am wrong! :):)

ISO is probably one of the first few things that we would wonder about when coming to photography. So here we go -

ISO stands for International Standards Organization (well I didn't believe it at first but after some research it seems to be true...sound kind of business like...my Operation Management teacher at school would probably be very excited about ISO...lol). ISO gives state of specifications of a certain product / service. I would take ISO in photography as the specification of how sensitive the image sensor / film is to the light source - based on the ISO setting (standard) we desire.

Photographers who are very much into film photography would know a lot about ISO, as there is only one ISO setting per roll! My mum used to get ISO 200 films most of the time for everyday photos. Now we have digital cameras where literally every picture can have a different ISO setting - a lot more flexible!

Professional DSLR cameras on the market nowadays support ISO range from around 100-51,200. Generally speaking, the weaker the light source, the higher the ISO setting tend to be used to keep shutter speed in a reasonable level. However, the lowest possible ISO setting should be used in a given light source to get the best image quality possible.

So why higher ISO setting will result in more noise in the pictures in digital camera? It is because the actual sensitivity of the sensor can't be changed. When the ISO setting is high, the signal from pixels will be amplified by adding electronic gain, to allow the pixels on the sensor to 'see better' under low light condition, and this results in more noise in the photo (Real World Digital Photography, 2011). There are a lot of suggestions around about avoiding high ISO setting but it is also worthwhile to think about how are we going to use the image - is it going to be just a small print that the noise will probably be not too disturbing? Is it going to be a Black and White picture which sometimes a grainy picture is a plus? Is it the situation when freezing the moment is more important than anything else? In an uncontrolled environment, I would probably just press the shutter first and we will go from there...lol

ISO, Aperture and Shutter speed are closely related to each other. Let's look into the other two next. :):)

The 26 weeks B&W Project - Week 10 | Smile

Oh my! My first portrait session in Brisbane since 2 and a half years ago?? I was quite nervous before the shoot to be honest...not familiar with the location and just feeling stiff! I am very very thankful to my friend Kim who is just a natural model, with very beautiful eyes :):) This is taken outdoor in a park under a covered sitting area, there wasn't much cloud in the sky and I was worried that the light is gonna be too harsh, luckily there were some shaded area and the lovely white background in the sitting area were just great! Had a really fun morning! :):)

The 26 weeks B&W Project - Week 9 | The Classic

Vintage cars are all very special in their own way, they are all so beautiful that we can spend hours and hours just admiring them! This is one of the many beautiful vintage car that we saw during the visit to Toowoomba last week, how gorgeous! How amazing are their owners who is taking such wonderful care of these cars!