Southampton photography training tips
If you love your photography like I do then I hope you will appreciate my new feature called Southampton photography training tips. Today I am planning to talk about my favourite camera mode Aperture Priority (A or Av) on most camera dials.
I chose to shoot 90% of my non studio work in Aperture priority because it lets me get creative. I look after the important parts of my camera and my camera looks after the equally important but less creative parts. There are of course many options on the cameras mode dial but for me personally I only ever use 3 of them. Over the next few weeks I will explain which ones I choose and where.
Aperture priority is great for my style of photography. I choose to decide whats important in my photographs and whats not important. If like me you photograph people then you too will want to play with this mode. When choosing whats important, and lets be honest most of us know that before we point and aim. Aperture priority lets you make the most of that part of the photograph.
Depth of field Southampton photography training tips
The Aperture is one of the most important aspects of stylising your photography. This is because it directly influences what the photo will look like in terms of the depth of field. That means, the amount of an image that is in focus. A large depth of field is achieved by using a small aperture (large f-number year I know bonkers) would mean that most of the photograph is in focus.
In some cases you will only want your beautiful subject in focus. Other times you will want everything in the frame in focus and there are a million variants as to why. When we shoot large groups at weddings or indeed landscape photos we want to use a smaller Aperture (large number) and this will give us lots of focus within the finished photo.
See the photo below and as you will notice the whole photo is sharp and in focus apart of course for the intentional waterfall blur.
Shallow Depth of field Southampton photography training tips
Other times its really important to single out a certain object or person. This definitely works well for me in almost everything I do.
A shallow depth of field which is achieved by using a large aperture (small f-number or FAST) would produce an photo where only the subject is in sharp focus. The background is soft and out of focus.
We often use this method when shooting portraiture or weddings perfectly demonstrated in our photo below with the beautiful Amy.
Apertures and their relationship with Speed
Like with everything in life there is a trade off. Smaller Apertures need the shutter to be open longer to allow the light in, whereas faster/larger Apertures require less speed. Smaller Apertures (big number) let in light slower whereas larger Apertures (small number) let in light faster
The next trade off is lenses. Very fast lenses which have a fixed Aperture of F2.8 or even faster come at a hefty price tag.
I know the big/small/faster/slower is confusing so here is a little diagram to explain a little more about Apertures.
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