Are you looking for a creative way to photograph your child in their school play and have them stand out?
Or maybe you want to take a photograph of a subject in a confusing background without the background distracting from the focal point of your image?

You need to become more acquainted with your aperture settings.

Aperture at F.6

Aperture at F5.6

We have already discussed what the aperture is and how it works in the article Making Friends With Your Camera, now we are going to chat about what that actually means to you as a photographer and how you can use the aperture settings to your creative advantage.
Using your camera dial, set you camera to AV mode (aperture priority). On the LCD you will see a figure that tells you what F-stop your camera is set to. (For example F5.6 in the image)

The lower the F-number the wider open your aperture is and more concentrated your focus will be.
The higher the F-number the smaller your aperture is and more and more of the image will be in focus.

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These photographs of flowers were taken at F5.6 and F29 respectively. You will see that in the image on the left, taken at F5.6, the fence in the front is clearly in focus and the flowers in the background become a blur of colour.

The further away the background is from your focal point, the more blurred it will become. This gives you the opportunity to create a very colourful backdrop to frame your subject/focal point.
In the photograph of the flowers next to it, taken at F29, you can see that the entire image is in focus.

Another example of the same scene taken with different aperture settings, the left watering can is out of focus except for the spout. The right watering can is fully in focus even though the camera prioritised the spout

Another example of the same scene taken with different aperture settings, the left watering can is out of focus except for the spout which the camera focused on. The right watering can is fully in focus even though the camera prioritised the spout

 
 

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Selective focus gives you a chance to really bring out your artistic side. With your aperture set to around F5.6 we have already chatted about how you can single out objects and draw attention to them by blurring the background, what you can also do is blur the foreground. You can focus on an object even if it is partially blocked by another object. So even though the camera was looking directly at the flowers in the foreground I was able to draw attention to the flower at the back and bring it into crisp focus.

depth-of-field

Getting Creative...single a loved one out in a crowd by using a wide open aperture and focusing on your subject.

 

F29? So when is a high F-stop a necessity? When you are taking a photograph of a stadium, filled with people and action in every corner and you want to keep all the detail crisp and exciting. Or when you are taking a photograph of rolling sand-dunes, patterned by wind and slashes of sun and you want the closest and furthest sand-dune to be clear so that each beautiful detail is visible.
F29? So when is a high F-stop a necessity? When you are taking a photograph of a stadium, filled with people and action in every corner and you want to keep all the detail crisp and exciting. Or when you are taking a photograph of rolling sand-dunes, patterned by wind and slashes of sun and you want the closest and furthest sand-dune to be clear so that each beautiful detail is visible.