EXPOSURES MADE EASY

Learn all you need to know to take better exposures

APERTURES

Use Av mode to control how wide-to-narrow apertures in your lenses affect exposures

Different apertures affect sharpness

See how a narrow aperture compared to wide captures sharper scenes

Making sense of aperture f-stops

Your at-a-glance guide to aperture scales and what settings mean

Altering the aperture is one of your most potent weapons, but this simple control can lead to confusion. The aperture used can create varied, seemingly contradictory, effects. Then there is the number scale in the wrong order…

To simplify things, just think of the aperture as an opening that can be varied in size to control the amount of light reaching the camera sensor. Used in conjunction with shutter speed (the length of time the sensor is exposed to light), the aperture enables you to match the exposure to the brightness of the scene. The wider the aperture, the more light that is let in – helping you to compensate for darker conditions, or enabling you to use a faster shutter speed.

The aperture isn’t in your camera; it’s inside the lens. As Canon EOS DSLR and EOS R mirrorless lenses are removeable, the range of aperture settings varies on your lens. Expensive lenses tend to have significantly wider maximum apertures than budget zooms – eg f/1.2 or f/2.8 compared to f/4 or f/5.6. What might frustrate those new to photography is the field, and how much of the scene actually appears sharp.