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Understanding Aperture in Photography

BY NASIM MANSUROV | 101 COMMENTS
LAST UPDATED ON APRIL 4, 2022

Illustration that shows types of photography at different aperture settings

Aperture is one of the three pillars of photography (the other two being Shutter Speed
and ISO, which are two other chapters in our Photography Basics guide). Of the three,
aperture is certainly the most important. In this article, we go through everything you need
to know about aperture and how it works.

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An
image
captured
with a
wide
aperture
of f/1.8
isolates
the
subject

Table of Contents
1. What is Aperture?
2. Aperture Explained in Video
3. How Aperture Affects Exposure
4. How Aperture Affects Depth of Field
5. What Are F-Stop and F-Number?
6. Large vs Small Aperture
7. How to Pick the Right Aperture
8. Setting Aperture in Your Camera
9. Minimum and Maximum Aperture of Lenses
10. Examples of Which Aperture to Use
11. Everything Aperture Does to Your Photos

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11.1. The Negative Effect of Diffraction

11.2. Lens Aberrations
11.3. Starburst and Sunstar Effects
11.4. Small Aperture and Unwanted Elements
11.5. Changes to Your Bokeh
11.6. Focus Shift Issues
11.7. Ease of Focusing
11.8. Flash Exposure
12. Aperture FAQ
13. Summary

What is Aperture?
Aperture can be defined as the opening in a lens through which light passes to enter the
camera. It is an easy concept to understand if you just think about how your eyes work. As
you move between bright and dark environments, the iris in your eyes either expands or
shrinks, controlling the size of your pupil.

In photography, the “pupil” of your lens is called aperture. You can shrink or enlarge the
size of the aperture to allow more or less light to reach your camera sensor. The image
below shows an aperture in a lens:

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Aperture is
like the
“pupil” for
your camera
system, which
can open and
close to
change the
amount of
light that
passes
through. Note
the
nine blades in
this lens,
which form a
diaphragm
to block any
light that
tries to pass,
except
through the
center.

Aperture can add dimension to your photos by controlling depth of field. At one extreme,
aperture gives you a blurred background with a beautiful shallow focus effect. This is very
popular for portrait photography.

At the other extreme, it will give you sharp photos from the nearby foreground to the
distant horizon. Landscape photographers use this effect a lot.

On top of that, the aperture you choose also alters the exposure of your images by
making them brighter or darker.

Aperture Explained in Video

If you prefer to understand how aperture works visually, we put together a video for you
that goes through most of the basics. In the video, we go through what aperture is, how it
works, and every effect that aperture has in photography. (These points are also covered
further down in this article.)

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How Aperture Affects Exposure

Aperture has several effects on your photographs. Perhaps the most obvious is the
brightness, or exposure, of your images. As aperture changes in size, it alters the overall
amount of light that reaches your camera sensor – and therefore the brightness of your
image.

A large aperture (a wide opening) will pass a lot of light, resulting in a brighter
photograph. A small aperture does just the opposite, making a photo darker. Take a look
at the illustration below to see how it affects exposure:

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In a dark environment – such as indoors or at night – you will probably want to select a
large aperture to capture as much light as possible. This is the same reason why people’s
pupils dilate when it starts to get dark; pupils are the aperture of our eyes.

How Aperture Affects Depth of Field

The other critical effect of aperture is depth of field. Depth of field is the amount of your
photograph that appears sharp from front to back. Some images have a “thin” or “shallow”
depth of field, where the background is completely out of focus. Other images have a
“large” or “high” depth of field, where both the foreground and background are sharp.

For example, here is an image with a shallow depth of field:

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This
photograph
has a thin
depth of
field – a
“shallow
focus”
effect.

In the image above, you can see that the girl is in focus and appears sharp, while the
background is completely out of focus. My choice of aperture played a big role here. I
specifically used a large aperture in order to create a shallow focus effect (yes, the larger
your aperture, the bigger this effect). This helped me bring the attention of the viewer to
the subject, rather than busy background. Had I used a narrower aperture, the subject
would not be separated from the background as effectively.

One trick to remember this relationship: a large aperture results in a large amount of both
foreground and background blur. This is often desirable for portraits, or general photos of
objects where you want to isolate the subject. Sometimes you can frame your subject with
foreground objects, which will also look blurred relative to the subject, as shown in the

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example below:

Taken
with a
portrait
lens
using a
very
large
aperture
of f/1.4

Quick Note: The appearance of the out-of-focus areas (AKA whether it looks good or
not) is often referred to as “bokeh“. Bokeh is the property of the lens, and some lenses
have better bokeh than others. “This article explains how to get better bokeh as a

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photographer. Even though some lenses are better than others, almost all lenses are
capable of a nice shallow focus effect if you use a large aperture and get close enough
to your subject.

On the other hand, a small aperture results in a small amount of background blur, which
is typically ideal for some types of photography such as landscape and architecture. In the
landscape photo below, I used a small aperture to ensure that both my foreground and
background were as sharp as possible from front to back:

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Taken
using a
very small
aperture of
f/16 in
order to
remove
background
blur and
achieve
sufficient
depth of
field

Here is a quick comparison that shows the difference between using a large vs a small
aperture and what it does to your depth of field:

A comparison of two images shot using large vs small apertures

As you can see, in the photograph on the left, only the head of the lizard appears in focus
and sharp, while the background and foreground are both transitioning into blur.
Meanwhile, the photo on the right has everything from front to back appearing in focus.
This is what using large vs small aperture does to photographs.

What Are F-Stop and F-Number?

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So far, we have only discussed aperture in general terms like large and small. However, it
can also be expressed as a number known as “f-number” or “f-stop”, with the letter “f”
appearing before the number, such as f/8.

Most likely, you have noticed aperture written this way on your camera before. On your
LCD screen or viewfinder, your aperture will usually look something like this: f/2, f/3.5, f/8,
and so on. Some cameras omit the slash and write f-stops like this: f2, f3.5, f8, and so on.
For example, the Nikon camera below is set to an aperture of f/8:

Aperture is labeled in f-numbers, and in this case, I’m using f/8.

So, f-stops are a way of describing the size of the aperture for a particular photo. If you
want to find out more about this subject, we have a comprehensive article on f-stop that
explains why it’s written that way and is worth checking out.

Large vs Small Aperture

There’s a catch – one important part of aperture that confuses beginning photographers
more than anything else. This is something you really need to pay attention to and get

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correct: Small numbers represent large apertures, and large numbers represent small
apertures!

That’s not a typo. For example, f/2.8 is larger than f/4 and much larger than f/11. Most
people find this awkward, since it goes against our basic intuition. Nevertheless, this is a
fact of photography. Take a look at this chart:

As you can see, an f-stop like f/16 represents a much smaller aperture opening than something like f/2.8.

This causes a huge amount of confusion among photographers, because it’s completely
the reverse of what you would expect at first. However, there is a reasonable and simple
explanation that should make it much clearer to you: Aperture is a fraction.

When you are dealing with an f-stop of f/16, for example, you can think of it like the
fraction 1/16th. Hopefully, you already know that a fraction like 1/16 is clearly much
smaller than the fraction 1/4. For this exact reason, an aperture of f/16 is smaller than f/4.
Looking at the front of your camera lens, this is what you’d see:

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So, if photographers recommend a large aperture for a particular type of photography,

they’re telling you to use something like f/1.4, f/2, or f/2.8. And if they suggest a small
aperture for one of your photos, they’re recommending that you use something like f/8,
f/11, or f/16.

How to Pick the Right Aperture

Now that you’re familiar with large vs small apertures, how do you know what aperture to
use for your photos? Let’s revisit two of the most important effects of aperture: exposure
and depth of field. First, here is a quick diagram to refresh your memory on how aperture
affects the exposure of an image:

If you’ve read the prior chapter in our Photography Basics guide covering shutter speed,
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you already know that aperture isn’t the only way to change how bright a photo is.
Nevertheless, it plays an important role. In the graphic above, if I didn’t allow myself to
change any other camera settings like shutter speed or ISO, the optimal aperture would be
f/5.6.

In a darker environment, where you aren’t capturing enough light, the optimal aperture
would change. For example, you may want to use a large aperture like f/2.8 at night, just
like how our eye’s pupils dilate to capture every last bit of light:

As for depth of field, recall that a large aperture value like f/2.8 will result in a large
amount of background blur (ideal for shallow focus portraits), while values like f/8, f/11, or
f/16 will give you a lot more depth of field (ideal for landscapes and architectural
photography).

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In fact, depth of field is the part of aperture that I recommend thinking about the most.
My process for almost every photo I take goes like this:

1. Ask myself how much depth of field I want

2. Set an aperture that achieves it
3. Set a shutter speed that makes my photo the proper brightness
4. If that shutter speed leads to unsharp photos thanks to too much motion blur, dial
back the shutter speed and raise my ISO instead
5. Win photo contest :)

Here is a quick chart that lays out everything we’ve covered so far:

Aperture Size Exposure Depth of Field

f/1.4 Very large Lets in a lot of light Very thin

f/2.0 Large Half as much light as f/1.4 Thin

f/2.8 Large Half as much light as f/2 Thin

f/4.0 Moderate Half as much light as f/2.8 Moderately thin

f/5.6 Moderate Half as much light as f/4 Moderate

f/8.0 Moderate Half as much light as f/5.6 Moderately large

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Aperture Size Exposure Depth of Field

f/11.0 Small Half as much light as f/8 Large

f/16.0 Small Half as much light as f/11 Large

f/22.0 Very small Half as much light as f/16 Very large

Setting Aperture in Your Camera

If you haven’t guessed it already, we highly recommend selecting your aperture manually
as a photographer. If you allow the camera to set it automatically, you are likely to end up
with the completely wrong depth of field in your image.

There are two modes in photography which allow you to select the aperture manually.
These are aperture-priority mode and manual mode. Aperture-priority mode is written as
“A” or “Av” on most cameras, while manual is written as “M.” Usually, you can find these on
the top dial of your camera (read more also in our article on camera modes):

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In aperture-priority mode, you select the desired aperture, and the camera automatically
selects your shutter speed. You can select ISO manually or automatically. Aperture priority
mode is great for everyday photography, where you rarely need to worry about any
camera settings other than aperture. It’s what I use 95% of the time even for professional
landscape and portrait photography.

In manual mode, you select both aperture and shutter speed manually. (ISO can again be
manual or auto.) Manual mode takes more time and usually gives you the same results as
aperture priority anyway. It’s only needed in special situations where you need a consistent
exposure from shot to shot, or when the camera’s meter is messing up. I use it for Milky
Way photography and for portraiture with flash.

Minimum and Maximum Aperture of Lenses

Every lens has a limit on how large or how small the aperture can get. If you take a look at
the specifications of your lens, it should say what the maximum and minimum apertures

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are. For almost everyone, the maximum aperture will be more important, because it tells
you how much light the lens can gather at its maximum (basically, how dark of an
environment you can take photos – and how much of a shallow focus effect you can
achieve).

A lens that has a maximum aperture of f/1.4 or f/1.8 is considered to be a “fast” lens,
because it can pass through more light than, for example, a lens with a “slow” maximum
aperture of f/4.0. That’s why lenses with large apertures usually cost more.

By comparison, the minimum aperture is not that important, because almost all modern
lenses can provide at least f/16 at the minimum. You will rarely need anything smaller than
that for day-to-day photography.

With some zoom lenses, the maximum aperture will change as you zoom in and out. For
example, with the Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-P lens, the largest aperture shifts gradually
from f/3.5 at the wide end to just f/5.6 at the longer focal lengths. More expensive zooms
tend to maintain a constant maximum aperture throughout their zoom range, like the
Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8. Prime lenses also tend to have larger maximum apertures than
zoom lenses, which is one of their major benefits.

The maximum aperture of a lens is so important that it’s included in the name of the lens
itself. Sometimes, it will be written with a colon rather than a slash, but it means the same
thing (like the Nikon 50mm 1:1.4G below).

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Examples of Which Aperture to Use

Now that we have gone through a thorough explanation of how aperture works and how
it affects your images, let’s take a look at the situations where you’d want to use various
f-stops.

• f/0.95 – f/1.4 – Such “fast” maximum apertures are only available on premium prime
lenses, allowing them to gather as much light as possible. This makes them ideal for
any kind of low-light photography (such as photographing the night sky, wedding
receptions, portraits in dimly-lit rooms, corporate events, etc). With such wide f-stops,
you will get very shallow depth of field at close distances, where the subject will
appear separated from the background.
• f/1.8 – f/2.0 – Some enthusiast-grade prime lenses are limited to f/1.8, which still has
very good low-light capabilities. Also, if your purpose is to yield aesthetically-pleasing
images with shallow focus, these lenses be of tremendous value. Shooting between
f/1.8 and f/2 typically turns your backgrounds nice and creamy for portraiture and
other similar types of photography.
• f/2.8 – f/4 – Most zoom lenses are limited to a maximum aperture of f/2.8 to f/4 at
best. While they are not as capable as f/1.4 lenses in terms of light-gathering
capabilities, they are still enough to shoot in reasonably low light conditions, especially

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if the lens or camera has image stabilization. You’ll get some subject separation at
these apertures, but usually not enough to make the background completely fuzzy.
Such apertures are great for travel, sports, and wildlife photography.
• f/5.6 – f/8 – This is the right starting point for most landscape and architectural
photography. It’s also ideal for documentary and portrait photography where you
don’t want a blurry background. Also, most lenses are sharpest around f/5.6, which
doesn’t matter as much as getting the right depth of field, but is still nice.
• f/11 – f/16 – Typically used for photographing scenes where as much depth of field as
possible is needed, like macro photography or landscape photography with a nearby
foreground. Even though these apertures offer more depth of field, they do lose some
low-level sharpness due to the effect of lens diffraction.
• f/22 and Smaller – Only shoot at such small apertures if you know what you are
doing. Sharpness suffers greatly at f/22 and smaller apertures because of diffraction,
so you should avoid using them when possible. If you need to get more depth of field,
it is usually best to move away from your subject or use a focus stacking technique
instead.

You’ve made it this far, but are you willing to learn more about aperture? So far we have
only touched the basics, but aperture does so much more to your photographs. Let’s take
a closer look.

Everything Aperture Does to Your Photos

Ever wondered how else aperture affects your photographs aside from brightness and
depth of field? In this part of the article, we will go through all other ways aperture
impacts your images, from sharpness to sunstars, and tell you exactly why each matters.

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A
landscape
image
captured at
f/16 to
bring
everything
from
foreground
to
background
into focus.
Diffraction
can be a
problem at
such small
apertures,
as
explained
below.

Before diving into too many specifics, here’s a quick list of everything aperture affects in
photography:

• The brightness / exposure of your photos and depth of field, as discussed so far
• Sharpness loss due to diffraction
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• Sharpness loss due to lens quality

• Starburst effects on bright lights
• Visibility of camera sensor dust specks
• The quality of background highlights (bokeh)
• Focus shift on some lenses
• Ability to focus in low light (under some conditions)
• Controlling the amount of light from the flash

1. The Negative Effect of Diffraction

So, if you’re a landscape photographer who wants everything as sharp as possible, you
should use your lens’s smallest aperture, like f/22 or f/32 to get maximum depth of field,
right?

No!

If we go back and take a close look at the photo of the lizard from earlier in this article,
where I used apertures of f/4 and f/32, you can see how diffraction is making the second
shot less sharp. Here are the images when zoomed in to 100% view:

The photo at f/32 loses low-level sharpness even though it has more depth of field

Here, you’re seeing an effect called diffraction. Physics majors will know what I’m talking
about, but diffraction is a foreign concept to most people. So, what is it?

Diffraction is actually quite simple. When you use a tiny aperture like f/32, you literally
squeeze the light that passes through your lens. It ends up interfering with itself, growing
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blurrier, and resulting in photos that are noticeably less sharp.

At what aperture does diffraction start to become an issue? It depends upon a number of
factors, including the size of your camera sensor and the size of your final print. Personally,
on my full-frame camera, I see hints of diffraction at f/8, but it’s not enough to bother me.
I actually use even smaller apertures like f/11 and f/16 all the time when I have a close
foreground in landscape photography. However, I try to avoid f/22 or smaller, since I lose
too much detail at that point.

Diffraction isn’t necessarily a huge problem, but it exists. Don’t be afraid to take pictures at
f/11 or f/16 just because you lose a little bit of sharpness. In many cases, the added depth
of field is worth the tradeoff.

Side Note

If your camera has a smaller sensor, you’ll see diffraction sooner. On APS-C sensors
(like on Nikon D3x00 series, Nikon D5x00 series, Fuji X-series, Sony A6x00 series, and
many others), divide all these numbers by 1.5. On Micro Four-Thirds cameras (like
those from Olympus and Panasonic), divide all these numbers by 2. In other words, I
don’t recommend using f/11 with a micro four-thirds camera, since it’s equivalent to
f/22 with a full-frame camera.

2. Lens Aberrations
Here’s a fun one. For some reason, everyone wants to take sharp photos! One of the ways
to do so is to minimize the visibility of lens aberrations. So, what are lens
aberrations? Quite simply, they are image quality problems with a photo, caused by your
lens.

Although most problems in photography are because of user error – things like missed
focus, poor exposure, or a distracting composition – lens aberrations are entirely due to
your equipment. They are fundamental, optical problems that you’ll notice with any lens if
you look too closely, although some lenses are better than others. For example, consider
the image below:

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What’s going on here? In this crop, most of the lights look smeared rather than perfectly
round. On top of that, the crop just isn’t very sharp. That’s lens aberration at work! The
lights didn’t look this blurry in the real world. My lens added this problem.

It’s likely that your lenses are blurrier at certain apertures than others, and it’s almost
always blurrier in the corner of the image than the center. That’s due to lens aberrations.

Aberrations can appear in several different forms. This article would be way too long if I
explained every possible aberration in detail: vignetting, spherical aberration, field
curvature, coma, distortion, color fringing, and more. Instead, it’s more important to know
why aberrations occur, including how your aperture setting can reduce them.

It starts with a simple fact: designing lenses is difficult. When the manufacturer fixes one
problem, another tends to appear. It’s no surprise that modern lens designs are extremely
complex.

Unfortunately, even today’s lenses aren’t perfect. They tend to work fine in the center of
an image, but everything gets worse near the edges. That’s because lenses are especially
difficult to design around the corners.

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Here’s a diagram that explains what I mean:

Adapted
from a
Creative
Commons
image
on Wikipedia.

And that brings us to aperture.

Many people don’t realize a simple fact about aperture: it literally blocks the light
transmitted by the edges of your lens. (This doesn’t lead to black corners in your photos,
because the center regions of a lens can still transmit light to the edges of your camera
sensor.)
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As your aperture closes, more and more light from the sides of your lens will be blocked,
never making it to your camera sensor. Only the light from the center area will pass
through and form your photo! As the diagram above shows, this central area is far easier
for camera manufacturers to design. The end result is that your photos will have fewer
aberrations at smaller and smaller apertures.

How does this look in practice? See the photos below (heavy crops from the top-left
corner):

What you’re seeing above may look like an increase in sharpness, but it’s really a decrease
in aberrations. The end result? At f/5.6 on this particular lens, my photo is much sharper
than at f/1.4.

Here’s a key question: How does this balance out with diffraction, which harms sharpness
increasingly more as your aperture gets narrower and narrower?

In practice, the answer is that most lenses end up sharpest around f/4, f/5.6, or f/8. Those
“medium” apertures are small enough to block light from the edges of a lens, but they
aren’t so small that diffraction is a significant problem. However, you’ll want to test this on
your own equipment.

Of course, you can still take good photos at large apertures like f/1.4 or f/2. As I
mentioned earlier, portrait photographers sometimes pay thousands of dollars to get a
lens exactly for that purpose! So, don’t lock your lens to f/5.6 just because it gives you a
tad more corner sharpness up close. It’s better to choose an aperture that gives you the
right artistic look to the image.

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Side Note

Some types of aberrations don’t change much as you stop down, or they may even
get slightly worse. Axial chromatic aberration, for example – color fringes near the
edges of your frame – often work that way. This is normal. It happens because a small
aperture doesn’t inherently reduce aberrations; it simply blocks light that has passed
through the edges of your lens. So, naturally, if the edges aren’t the source of your
problem, you won’t see an improvement by stopping down.

3. Starburst and Sunstar Effects

Starbursts, also called sunstars, are beautiful elements that you’ll find in certain
photographs. Despite the odd names – one a type of candy; the other a type of starfish – I
always try to capture them in my landscape photos. Here’s an example:

The sunbeams in this photo are purely a result of my aperture (in this case, f/16).

How does this work? Essentially, for every aperture blade in your lens, you’ll end up with a
sunbeam. This only happens if you photograph a small, bright point of light, such as the
sun when it is partly blocked. This is fairly common in landscape photography. If you want
the strongest possible starburst, use a small aperture. Whenever the sun is in my photo, I
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almost always set f/16 purely to capture this effect.

Also, the starburst effect looks different from lens to lens. It all depends upon your
aperture blades. If your lens has six aperture blades, you’ll get six sunbeams. If your lens
has eight aperture blades, you’ll get eight sunbeams. And, if your lens has nine aperture
blades, you’ll get eighteen sunbeams.

Wait, what?

That’s no typo. You always end up with an even number of sunbeams. If your lens has an
odd number of aperture blades, you’ll get double the number of sunbeams.

It sounds strange, but the reason is actually quite simple. In lenses with an even number of
aperture blades (and a fully symmetrical design), half of the sunbeams will overlap the
other half. So, you don’t see all of them in your final photo.

Here’s a diagram to show what I mean:

When you have an even number of aperture blades, the sunbeams will overlap.

Most Nikon lenses have seven or nine aperture blades, resulting in 14 and 18 sunbeams
respectively. Most Canon lenses have eight aperture blades, resulting in eight sunbeams. I

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took the photo above using the Nikon 20mm f/1.8G lens, which has 7 aperture blades.
That’s why the image has 14 sunbeams.

It’s not just the number of blades that matters, though — their shape is also important.
Some aperture blades are rounded (which results in a more pleasant out-of-focus
background blur), and others are straight. If your goal is to capture good starbursts,
straight aperture blades typically produce more defined rays of light.

Again, some lenses are better than others in this regard. For the best results, find a lens
that’s known to have good starbursts, and then set it to a small aperture like f/16. That’s
going to give you the strongest definition in your starbursts.

Another image with a starburst using a 24mm f/1.4 lens

NIKON D7000 + 24mm f/1.4 @ 24mm, ISO 100, 1/50, f/16.0

Finally, there’s one last related effect that I wanted to mention briefly. When you shoot
into the sun, you might end up with flare in your photographs, as shown below.
Depending upon your chosen aperture, the size and shape of this lens flare may change
slightly. This isn’t a big deal, but it still exists.

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The flare in this photo is shaped like my lens aperture blades.

4. Small Aperture and Unwanted Elements

When you shoot through things such as fences, dirty windows, plants, and even water
droplets on your lens, you’ll probably be disappointed by photos taken with a small
aperture.

Small apertures like f/11 and f/16 give you such a large depth of field that you may
accidentally include elements that you don’t want to be in focus! For example, if you’re
shooting at a waterfall or by the ocean, an aperture of f/16 could render a tiny water
droplet on your lens into a distinct, ugly blob:

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A water droplet landed on my lens while taking this picture. My aperture was f/16, which means that it’s particularly
visible.

In cases like that, it’s better just to use a wider aperture – something like f/5.6, perhaps – in
order to capture the water droplet so out-of-focus that it doesn’t even appear in your
image. In this particular case, you could simply wipe the droplet off, but that’s not possible
if you’re shooting through something like a dirty window.

Side Note

You might have realized that this section is really just an extension of depth of field,
and that’s true! However, it’s a bit of a special case, so I decided to mention it
specifically.

Another example of shooting through things is when a piece of dust lands on your camera
sensor. Unfortunately, as you change lenses, this is very common. Dust specks on your
camera sensor will show up very clearly at small apertures like f/16, even if they’re invisible
at something larger, like f/4.

Luckily, they are very easy to remove in post-production software like Photoshop or
Lightroom, though it can be annoying if you have to remove dozens of them from a single
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photo. That’s why you should always keep your camera sensor clean.

Dust specks on my camera sensor, taken at f/11 (a fairly small aperture). I circled some of the most visible spots in red.

5. Changes to Your Bokeh

What is bokeh? It’s simply the quality of your background blur. If you take a lot of
portraits, macro photos, or wildlife photos, you’ll end up with out-of-focus backgrounds in
most of your images. Naturally, you want them to look as good as possible! Different
aperture settings will change the shape of your background blur.

Why is that? It’s because the background blur of your photographs always takes on the
shape of your aperture blades. So, if your aperture blades are shaped like a heart, you’ll
end up with heart-shaped background blur. Most of the time, that would qualify as
distracting bokeh, although it’s kind of cute in this photo of two fake tortoises:

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Heart-shaped background blur, due to a heart-shaped aperture. I didn’t take this photo, unfortunately. Downloaded as
Creative Commons.

On some lenses, aperture blades change shape a bit as they open and close. Large
aperture settings (such as f/1.8) often have rounder background blur compared to smaller
aperture settings. You’ll also get more background blur at large apertures, since your
depth of field is thinner.

If bokeh is something that matters to you, you’ll want to test this on your particular lenses.
Take some out-of-focus photos of a busy scene, each using a different aperture setting,
and see which one looks the best. Most of the time, it will be the lens’s widest aperture,
but not always.

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Background blur sample from the top-left corner of the Nikon 24mm f/1.4G. In my opinion, the blur is best at f/1.4 and
f/1.8, where it appears the roundest. However, this is inherently subjective.

6. Focus Shift Issues

With certain lenses – even if you’re in manual focus, and you don’t move your focus ring –
your point of focus may shift as you use smaller and smaller apertures.

Obviously, this isn’t ideal. How do you tell if your lens has problematic focus shift? It’s
pretty easy. Here are the steps:

1. Put your camera on a tripod, and set your lens to manual focus.
2. Find an object with small details that extends backwards, and focus at the center of it.
A table with a tablecloth works well.
3. Double check: When take a test photo and magnify it, you should see pixel-level
details, as well as portions of the photo that are clearly out of focus.
4. Take a photo at your lens’s widest aperture, and then at progressively smaller
apertures. Be sure not to move your focus ring, and double check that you are using
manual focus.
5. On your computer, zoom into 100% on these photos and see if the sharpest point of
focus moves continuously farther back as you stop down. The more it moves, the
worse your focus shift issue is.

You’re done!

If your lens has extreme levels of focus shift, you’ll want to compensate for it:

• With your widest aperture, just focus like normal.

• As you stop down the aperture, make sure to set your aperture first, then focus second
(rather than focusing first). On DSLRs, we recommend focusing in live view at these
apertures, because the viewfinder always focuses at the widest aperture. Mirrorless
camera users don’t need to worry about that.
• With small apertures like f/8 and beyond, your depth of field will be large enough to
hide any focus shift problems, so just focus like normal.

Side Note

When it comes down to it, focus shift is just another type of lens aberration. The
edges of your lens may not focus light the same as the center, so, by stopping down
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— again, blocking light from the edges — your focus point changes slightly. That’s the
underlying reason for this effect.

7. Ease of Focusing
The autofocus system on your camera doesn’t work well unless it receives plenty of light.

So, if you’re shooting with a cheaper lens like a 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6, the largest aperture
isn’t bright enough to gather a lot of light. Focusing in dark conditions may be impacted.
This is part of why a lot of pro photographers will use a more expensive lens like a
70-200mm f/2.8 instead.

You’ll also enjoy a brighter viewfinder (on a DSLR) or a less noisy viewfinder (on a
mirrorless camera) if your lens has a large maximum aperture. If you shoot a lot in low
light, this can make it much easier to focus and compose your images.

8. Flash Exposure
When using speedlights or any kind of strobes, it is important to remember that aperture
takes on a whole different role of controlling flash exposure. While shutter speed’s role
becomes controlling ambient light, aperture has an outsized impact on how much light
from your flash is captured. Even though it’s just a subset of exposure, we wanted to
include it in this section, since flash is tightly correlated to lens aperture.

A Chart of Everything Aperture Does

Once you understand the information above, you will know everything aperture does to
your photos. However, it may take a few re-reads of this article before it’s all completely
clear.

Practice is your best friend. Go outside, take some photos, and get a feel for aperture
yourself.

If it helps, I compiled the main information in this article into a chart. This chart covers the
most important effects of aperture in photography, as well as common terms that
photographers use to describe their settings.

Note that to make this diagram easier to see, I did not darken or lighten any of the sample

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illustrations (as would occur in the real world). Instead, I simply wrote “brightest” through
“darkest”:

Although this chart is intentionally simplified, it covers all the basics that you need to
know. Feel free to download and print this chart if you find it useful. Just right-click on the
image, then select “save as,” and pick the location where you want to store it.

Aperture FAQ
We put together some of the most frequently-asked questions related to aperture below.

What is Aperture?
Aperture can be defined as the opening in a lens through which light passes to enter the

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camera. It is expressed in f-numbers like f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8 and so on to express the size of
the lens opening, which can be controlled through the lens or the camera. Our full article
on aperture with many examples and illustrations starts here.

How Does Aperture Affect Depth of Field?

A large aperture results in a large amount of foreground and background blur. This
yields a shallow depth of field, AKA a shallow focus effect. On the other hand, a small
aperture results in a wide depth of field that can give you a sharp foreground and
background for landscape photography.

How Does Aperture Affect Shutter Speed?

Aperture and shutter speed are controlled separately. However, they both affect a
photo’s exposure. If you “open up” the aperture to capture a lot of light, you can use
faster shutter speeds like 1/1000 second. Or, if you “stop down” the aperture to get more
depth of field, you are reducing the amount of light that reaches the camera sensor,
which requires a longer shutter speed to yield an image with the same brightness.

How Does Aperture Affect Bokeh?

Bokeh refers to the quality of out-of-focus highlights of the image rendered by the
camera lens. Using the maximum aperture of the lens will typically yield circular
background highlights of large size, whereas stopping down the lens will typically result
in highlights looking smaller and taking different shapes such as heptagon. These shapes
depend on the number of aperture blades and their roundness. Here is an image of a
50mm f/1.4 prime lens stopped down to f/2.8 and f/4 apertures:

What is the “Maximum Aperture” in a Lens?

Maximum aperture is how wide a lens can be open. It is usually expressed in f-stops such
as f/1.4 and stated on the name of the lens. For example, the Nikon 35mm f/1.4G lens
has a maximum aperture of f/1.4, whereas the Nikon 50mm f/1.8G has a maximum
aperture of f/1.8. Some lenses have variable maximum apertures that change depending

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on focal length. A lens like the Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 has a maximum aperture of
f/3.5 at 18mm and f/5.6 at 55mm.

Which Aperture is Best for Portrait Photography?

If your goal is to make an image with shallow depth of field, where the subject appears
sharp while the foreground and the background appear blurry, then you should use very
wide apertures like f/1.8 or f/2.8 (for example, if you are using a 50mm f/1.8 lens, you
should set your lens aperture to f/1.8).

Which Aperture is Best for Landscape Photography?

When photographing landscapes, you often want to have as much depth of field as
possible in order to get both foreground and background looking as sharp as possible.
In such cases, it is best to stop down your lens to small apertures like f/8 or f/11.

Is it Better to have Higher or Lower Aperture?

It really depends on what you are photographing and what you want your image to look
like. Lower apertures like f/1.8 allow more light to pass through the lens and yield shallow
depth of field. In comparison, higher aperture numbers like f/8 block light while yielding
wider depth of field. Both have their uses in photography.

Does Aperture Affect Focus?

Changing lens aperture can affect focus slightly due to focus shift. It is therefore best to
stop the lens down to the desired aperture before focusing. On DSLR cameras, we
recommend to use live view to focus at the desired aperture to reduce the negative
effect of focus shift. This is due to the fact that DSLR cameras focus at the widest
aperture.

At What Aperture is Everything in Focus?

That really depends on your camera’s sensor size, focal length of the lens, and how close
your camera is to your subject. Generally, a small aperture like f/8 will give you enough
depth of field to be able to make most of your image sharp. However, if the subject is
too close to your camera, you might need to either move back or stop down the lens
even further to get everything looking sharp.

How Does Aperture Affect Sharpness?

A wide aperture yields shallower depth of field, which some photographers mistake for a
blurry photo. Wide apertures also show the weaknesses of the lens optical design, often

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resulting in visible lens aberrations. A narrow aperture, on the other hand, yields more
depth of field, making more of the image appear sharp. However, narrow apertures also
have more low-level image blur due to diffraction.

Which Aperture is Best for Sharpness?

Most lenses are not designed to yield good sharpness at their maximum aperture, which
is why it is often desirable to stop down to smaller apertures like f/5.6 to get the best
results. However, the best aperture of the lens, or its “sweet spot” really depends on its
optical design.

What Aperture Should I Use to Get a Blurry Background?

If you want to get your subject isolated from the scene and make the background
appear blurry, you should open up the lens aperture to its maximum aperture and get as
close to the subject as possible. For example, if you are shooting with a 50mm f/1.8
prime lens, you should shoot at f/1.8 with your subject at a close distance. If you use a
zoom lens, you should zoom in to the longest focal length and use the widest aperture,
while being as close to your subject as you can. For example, if you are shooting with a
18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, you should zoom to 55mm, use the maximum aperture of f/5.6
and get close to your subject.

What Aperture Lets in the Most Light?

The maximum aperture of the lens, such as f/1.4.

What Aperture Lets in the Least Light?

The minimum aperture of the lens, such as f/22.

Summary
Aperture is clearly a crucial setting in photography and it is possibly the single most
important setting of all. Aperture affects several different parts of your photo, but you’ll
get the hang of everything fairly quickly. For a quick summary, a narrow aperture…

• Makes your photos darker

• Gives you more depth of field
• Increases blur from diffraction
• Decreases blur from most lens aberrations

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• Makes sensor dust more visible

• Heightens the intensity of starbursts

…whereas a wide aperture does the opposite.

Soon, this won’t be something that you even need to think about; you’ll remember it all
naturally. Personally, if I want a starburst effect in my photos, I immediately know to use an
aperture of f/16. When I need as much light as possible, I set a larger aperture like f/2.8 or
f/2 without a second thought. It doesn’t take too much practice to get to that point.

With how important aperture is, it shouldn’t be a surprise that, at Photography Life, we
shoot in aperture-priority or manual mode all of the time. We simply never want the
camera to select the aperture for us. It’s just too important, and it is one of those basic
settings that every beginner or advanced photographer needs to know in order to take
the best possible images.

As always, it’s best if you learn all this for yourself. Find something spectacular to capture,
and put your new knowledge into practice. The more photos you take, the more you’ll
learn. Aperture is no exception.

Below are some other related posts you might enjoy:

• What is F-Stop?
• What is Exposure?
• Exposure Stops in Photography
• Understanding Depth of Field
• Choosing a Creative Mode

Hopefully, you found that this article explains the basics of aperture in a way that is
understandable and straightforward.

If you are ready to move on, the next important camera setting to learn is ISO, which we
explain in Chapter 5 of our Photography Basics guide.

Take me to Chapter 5: ISO

1 Photography Basics Introduction

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2 What is Photography?

3 Shutter Speed

4 Aperture (You are here)

5 ISO

6 Composition

7 Metering

8 Camera Modes

9 Focusing

10 Flash

11 Camera Settings

12 How to Take Sharp Pictures

13 Photography Tips for Beginners

14 Photography Ideas

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About Nasim Mansurov

Nasim Mansurov is the author and founder of Photography Life, based
out of Denver, Colorado. He is recognized as one of the leading
educators in the photography industry, conducting workshops, producing educational
videos and frequently writing content for Photography Life. You can follow him on
Instagram and Facebook. Read more about Nasim here.

Join the discussion

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101 COMMENTS Newest

Grace
June 2, 2022 12:22 am

Scenario: I am standing in the back of the auditorium taking a photograph of an orchestra ensemble. I
used F8 aperture as I want all to be sharp as possible. My question: Would using a 70-200mm F/2.8 lens
give better results than a 70-200mm F4 lens ? Also, should I have used F11 instead since I am way back?
Thanks!

0 Reply

Spencer Cox Admin

Reply to Grace June 21, 2022 8:18 pm

The 70-200mm f/2.8 would give very, very similar results to the 70-200mm f/4 if you use both lenses at
the same aperture.

Why did you use such a narrow aperture as f/8 in a dark environment? I wouldn’t be surprised if your
camera needed to select extremely high ISO values or long shutter speeds to compensate, giving you
low-quality results. In dark conditions, the “light-gathering capability” of aperture is of utmost
importance. You should have been shooting at f/4. (Meanwhile, with a 70-200mm f/2.8, you should
have been shooting at f/2.8).

0 Reply

Michael
April 26, 2022 12:49 am

Thank you so much for this

You are a fantastic writer

1 Reply

Sandy Fell
January 14, 2022 7:25 am

My children play fast moving sports. mostly outside but some in the auditorium. I am looking for a
camera that can capture sharp still pictures of a basketball going in the hoop but the light in the
auditorium makes my pictures yellow or grainy. The outside I don’t get the sharp pictures I want like
seeing the color of my daughters eyes when she is making a save as a goalie on a cloudy day. What
camera lens do you recommend? I need you expertise. This is too heavy for me, anything that will give
the same results? Thank you, I have been waiting for this article for 20 years!

0 Reply

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RAMAN BABU
September 24, 2021 1:38 am

Thank you very much for this details…..I understood

0 Reply

Temidayo
August 11, 2021 6:05 am

Thank you so much for this!

0 Reply

Tara
March 1, 2021 3:45 pm

Thank you so much�

� for amazing Article and i get lot of information�
�

2 Reply

Surbhi
February 21, 2021 9:05 am

Thanks a lot ,it was really very helpful and was in easy words rather than more complex or technical
words. I understood it . literally this is the best .

1 Reply

Tracy
December 30, 2020 1:53 pm

I would like to easily print the article. How can I do that?

1 Reply

Mark
November 24, 2020 4:56 am

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I had an idea of buying a DSLR. But I I was always wondering why would I need one. Your articles
motivated me to get one. Its rare to see someone with good experience in real-world to put up such an
effort to teach and help others. Thank you for all your articles!

2 Mustaga
Reply
November 14, 2020 8:03 am

Great article,
Aperture often create confusion, but now I have 80% cleared

4 Reply

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