Aperture & Light for Cameras

Video Transcript

"Aperture is one of the two controls for working with the light in your photograph. The aperture, again, is the eye in your camera and how open it is. So, obviously it's like the human eye. If you squint, not as much light is going to come through. If you open your eyes really wide, a lot more light is going to come through. So, the same can be used when taking a photograph. So if you're in a low light situation, you need to open the aperture in the lens up as much as possible to allow as much light to come through. But if you're in a very high light situation, like outdoor, sunny day, you're going to want to close that down so not as much light gets through. Because if too much light gets through, you're image is going to be blown out and you'll have whites that are too bright and you'll loose details and objects. And conversely, if you're not letting enough light in, you're going to have things that are lost in the shadows or you're unable to focus on them because they're too dark. It's just important to remember that the aperture works with the shutter speed to control the light in the camera. But it is one of the main two contributing factors to determining how much light gets into your camera. So, when you're getting ready to take your pictures, you need to think about the light that's all around you, and how much light there is and how much light you want to let into the camera for your specific photograph you're taking. Now, as I said, the aperture works as a balance with the shutter speed, and sometimes the speed of your shutter is going to determine what your aperture needs to do because if you're taking action shots in a low light situation, you need to let, you're going to need to use a fast shutter speed so the action is not blurry, so consequently, you're going to have to let even more light in by opening your aperture up even larger. So, again, it's just important to understand that shutter speed is not the only thing controlling the light in your camera, but aperture has a major role in how much light gets into a lens."