Hey you guys! Since a picture’s worth a thousand words, I broke out my trusty old all manual Canon FT to show you what the different aperture settings look like. This is easy to do on manual cameras since the shutter stays open until you press the button to take the photo.
First up, f16:
See that little hole? Imagine the light going through there to hit the film. Can you see how it would take longer for the same amount of light to travel through there as it would if it was at f 5.6:
So if we were taking an actual photo, we’d need the shutter to stay open longer to make a proper exposure at f 16 than we do at f 5.6.
And if the lens was “wide open” at f 1.8, it would take even less time for the same amount of light to go through, so we’d need a faster shutter speed so that too much light didn’t get in and over expose the photo.
It’s a little hard to see, but the hole at f1.8 is as big as the inside of the lens.
Hope that makes it easier to see how shutter speed — the amount of time that the shutter is open to let the light in — is related to aperture. :)
In case you missed it, here’s the full tutorial on ISO, shutter speed, and aperture.
Oh and! I really do love this old film camera, it takes the most dreamy photos. Best $50 I ever spent to learn about photography! (I guess I’m a bit of a film snob.) (Plus it makes a great paper weight, ha).
One last bit of advice — give yourself time to play with all of these settings on your digital camera — whether you go full manual or put it in aperture priority mode is totally up to you. Just don’t have a goal of taking a specific photo — fiddle around and have fun. (Makes a great excuse to get a fresh bouquet of flowers and happily snap away.)
Hugs,
[…] I broke out my ancient all-manual film camera and took some photos of different apertures so that you can see. Don’t ask me why camera’s don’t display aperture as a fraction, which would […]
Hello Lisa.. I re-learned some things I had forgotten over the years with this tutorial.. I never realized that the ISO in digital was different than the in film. I thought that the ISO in digital meant that the sensor would be more sensitive to the light, rather than adding more noise. I now need some sunshine to play with the aperture setting on my Canon camera.
Oh, and I cannot get the .PDF from the earlier post to come up.. I get a black screen.
Hi Karen — it does make it more sensitive to the light — but the downfall is that you get more noise, too. The high-end pro camera bodies have really great sensors to try to correct this problem as much as possible — but it’s still there if you look closely.
That’s so weird about the PDF — I’ll mail it to you :)
Hugs! :)
Lisa,this helps alot the way you explain it. What is noise? Is it the grainess you sometimes see ? I’ll be sure to read about the Iso tomorrow and learn what I can. Thanks so much for sharing so much with us. You are a great teacher !
Oh, no! I had this same camera and good tired of moving it around, so it went to donations. Ugh. Good thing hubby saved his. Now I gotta be extra nice so he will share.
Oh no! Sure hope he will share! :)
I absolutely love your blog, so informational. I am your newest follower and can’t wait to keep reading. Thanks for what you do :)