What is Aperture?

Aperture in the simplest terms is the camera's ability to open its lens to let light pass through the camera. It allows the user to adjust the brightness and light that enters through the lens into the camera. 

How does aperture affect exposure?

Aperture is able to change the exposure of a photo by having many different results on a photo's exposure. When you change the aperture on a camera, you are changing the size of the camera opening to either allow more light into the camera sensor, or very small amounts of light in through the lens. Having your camera to have a high aperture will allow the camera to pass more light through the lens while a low aperture will result in less light being able to pass through the camera.

How does aperture affect depth of field?

Aperture effects the depth of field on how objects the foreground, and the background are in focus. If you want the background to have a burry effect and the closer object to be in focus, you should have a higher aperture. If you want a photo to have every object in focus including the background, you should consider use a lower aperture. Also you should keep in mind that the F-Stop is measured differently from aperture. If the f-stop is set to a lower value, then the aperture will be set high. If the f-stop is set to a higher value, then the aperture will be set low.

Low vs High Aperture

    The photo on the left has a low shutter speed and a high f-stop speed, while the photo on the right was taken at a high shutter speed and a low f-stop. A method that a person could use to identify which photo was taken at a high shutter speed depends on the blur of the photo. The photo on the left has the flower and everything in the background in focus, while the photo off to the right only has the flower in focus and the background blurred out. This is one way to determine how high or low the photo's shutter speed was taken at with viewing the photos for the first time.