{Here to show us how to create wild and beautiful photos of those boys we love so much is Darcy, of Life with My 3 Boybarians! Darcy contributes to the MOB Society quarterly and adds a fun, inspirational and informative touch to those of us trying desperately to capture life with boys!}
Just because you have a point and shoot camera don’t count out this post yet. I have a purse cam – what I call my “mommy cam” – that is a Canon point and shoot camera that costs under $200. That camera can accomplish everything I’m about to talk about.
Truth is – sometimes I don’t feel like hauling photography equipment around. And just because I’m a professional photographer, I still value the snapshot. I shoot with my phone, I shoot with my “mommy cam”, and I’ve been known to take my 10 year old’s camera with us for capturing moments at the beach, zoo, or museum.
So, I have a challenge for you.
Yes, you. No really.
I want you to try to find aperture priority mode on your camera. This is very easy. If you have a Nikon it will be the A (no, that doesn’t mean auto.) If you have a Canon it will say Av (“aperture value” mode). If you have a point and shoot, it will be a menu feature and you’ll likely need your manual to help you find it.
What this does is tell your camera that you don’t want to figure out the mathy exposure triangle and you want it to determine the best ISO and the best shutter speed for the shot. All YOU want to be bossy about is the aperture.
Well, um, what’s aperture?
I’m glad you asked. I wrote a really comprehensive explanation here >>
Understanding Aperture, Part I
and here>>
Understanding Aperture, Part II
But here’s the Cliff’s Note version.
Aperture means opening. Your lens or camera can change the opening it needs based on how bright it is, how much you want in focus, etc.
Changing the aperture simply means changing the size of the opening of your lens.
That’s not the cool part, really.
Aperture also determines how much of your image is in focus. Ever seen a beautiful portrait with soft, gorgeous blur in the background? You can do that, too!
Set your aperture to the lowest it can go. If you have a dSLR and prime lens, that number may be very low like f/1.4. If you have a kit lens it may only be f/3.5 or f/4.5 And if you have a point and shoot, your menu will let you know. Make that number as low as your camera / lens will allow and take a picture.
Increase the number a click or two and shoot again. Wash, rinse, repeat.
What you’ll find is the lower the f/# the more blurry the background is and the tighter the focus on your subject. The larger the f/# (like f/11 or bigger) nearly everything will be in focus and only far, far away elements might be out of focus. And by the time you get up to a big number like f/22 everything is the same amount of sharp focus. This allow YOU to decide what to focus on and where to direct your viewers’ eyes.
Want to remove distracting elements in your shots of your boys? Shoot as low f/# as possible and watch the background melt away. Need a lot of people to be in focus who aren’t standing close together? Shoot with an aperture of f/8 or f/11. Want it all in focus? Make the aperture be f/ followed by the largest number your camera or lens will allow.
See? Told you this would be easy!
We had seen the f/# on our Digital SLR and had no clue what it meant. Now I can go tell my husband something I learned (that he doesn’t already know).
Thanks a bunch for the info.
Thanks so much for this information! I can’t wait to try this out!
This is a great tutorial! Thanks. I couldn’t get to AV mode on my Canon Powershot SD600 — when I looked it up online it said that you can’t adjust the aperture. So, I tried it with my Nikon DSLR, and the lowest it would let me go was f5.3.
I guess I need a better lens. But…at least I know now how to do it when I get some better equipment. Haha!
Melissa Brotherton´s last [type] ..Guest Post – Sanelle Ndebele
I bet your dSLR can go lower than that. It’s probably a variable aperture lens – so zoomed in it will be F/5.6 or something, but perhaps zoomed way out it might go to something like f/3.5.
darcy´s last [type] ..Sweet Shot Tuesday
Thanks for this post! I pulled out my point and shoot, looked in the manual and learned that I can’t change the aperture myself. I did notice that zoomed as far out as I can go my aperture is f/3.5 and zoomed in as far as I can go it’s f/5.4. Don’t know how to use that information yet, but will use it next time I’m taking pictures.
Dawn Farias´s last [type] ..A random adventure
That’s usually the case, the more zoomed in you go on variable aperture lenses (or cameras) the bigger the f/# goes.
This means you’ll have more of the blurry background on shots where you’re not zoomed in as much.
darcy´s last [type] ..Sweet Shot Tuesday
I have a kodak easyshare and I pulled out the manual and there was nothing in the index about aperture. Could it be called something else?
Not likely. It might be that your point and shoot won’t allow you to choose. Many current ones do – it’s always worth checking just in case!
darcy´s last [type] ..Sweet Shot Tuesday
Hint –
if you have a dSLR with changeable lenses, your lens will tell you the lowest aperture it can achieve. It will be printed right ON the lens itself!
darcy´s last [type] ..Sweet Shot Tuesday