Exposure Triangle: Aperture, part 1

The first part of our exsposure triangle is the apeture, If we think of our cameras aperture as the pupil of our eyes we can easily understand its function.

First question is what does our pupil do? It regulates the amount of light that is allowed into our eye.

Here’s an example, we have all gone to the movies at one point and no matter how hard we have tried we have one time or another arrived late, right before the trailers have started and right after the lights have been brought down to a scary black void; and as we stumble into the dark theater carrying our 40oz soda, extra-large popcorn, and those cheesy nachos that taste weird but beckons us back every time we are at the snack counter, we stop at the bottom of the stairs squinting our eyes, trying desperately to make out our family or friends who like crazed maniacs have been waving their arms franticly in the air trying to get your attention. While standing their trying not to drop all our goodies, something begins to happen. We begin to see the many faces start to emerge from the darkness, and we can finally ascend the stairs and bust our kneecaps trying to get to our seat. This becomes possible because our pupil dilates, growing larger and allowing more light in to give our site the proper exposure, allowing us to see. The opposite happens as we leave the theater. You walk into the sunlight after watching your movie and what happens? You are instantly blinded by the big fiery ball of death that makes you feel like your eyeballs are melting. But as you are on your hands and knees screaming for someone to help you, your pupils contract to let in less light, allowing you to see again so you can stand up, dust yourself off and awkwardly continue to your car blaming your outburst on the cheesy nachos that now are clinging to your arteries for dear life.

so like your eyes, our cameras also need the amount of light allowed into it to be regulated in order to give us a proper exposure. If we don’t, we end up with over exposed images or just white photos (to much light) or under exposed images or black photos (not enough light). So how do we do this? by setting our F-Stops, oh yeah another word just thrown in for good measure, I though you said this was about aperture? well it is and your aperture is your F-stops, we just need a set of numbers to set our cameras to and confuse you more that’s all. Photographers are sadistic like that.

Next: part 2, The dreaded F-stop