F-stops Aperture Camera AV Depth of Field

What is Aperture? F-Stops

F-stops Aperture Camera AV Depth of Field... Blah Blah Blah - Lets Actually Make this Simple!

Aperture is basically the hole inside your lens that lets light into your camera. The size of that hole can change, and that’s what controls how much light hits your camera sensor when you take a photo. These different sizes are measured in f-stops. The aperture isn’t just wide open or fully closed—it adjusts in steps to let in more or less light depending on the shot you want.

Aperture Graph

Most lenses have their own range of apertures, but a typical digital wide-angle zoom lens usually goes from around f/2.8 to f/22 when it’s zoomed all the way out. The lower the number (like f/2.8), the wider the opening—so more light gets in, which is great for low-light shots and creating that nice blurry background. Higher numbers (like f/22) mean a smaller opening, which lets in less light but keeps more of the scene in focus—perfect for landscapes.

Depth of Field (DOF)

One of the most important things to know about aperture is that it affects something called Depth of Field (DOF). DOF is basically the distance between the closest thing in your shot that's in focus and the furthest thing that's still sharp. In simple terms, it’s how much of your photo looks nice and clear from front to back.

Image Sharpness

Every camera lens has a range of apertures it can shoot at, but each lens also has a "sweet spot"—a certain range of f-stops where it performs its best and gives you the sharpest photos.

For example, I shoot with a Canon 6D Mark II paired with a Canon 16-35mm lens. This lens has an aperture range from f/2.8 to f/22. For landscapes, the sweet spot is usually around f/8 to f/11, which is roughly in the middle of the lens’s aperture range.

So when I’m out shooting landscapes, I’ll usually stick to somewhere between f/8 and f/11 depending on the scene, lighting, and how much depth I want in focus.

It’s also worth mentioning that shooting at really high f-stops like f/22 can actually make your image softer—not sharper—because of something called diffraction. So even though a smaller aperture gives you more depth of field, going too small can reduce overall image quality.

Light

The aperture basically controls how much light comes through the lens. As shown in the graph above, the wider the aperture, the more light gets through. On the flip side, a smaller aperture lets in less light. This directly affects your shutter speed—when more light comes in, you'll need a faster shutter speed. We'll dive more into shutter speed in our next blog, so stay tuned for that!